New E.P.A. Scrutiny Is Set for a Chemical in Plastics

Posted on March 31, 2010 by Al Bergstein

This goes along with the statewide ban on BPA that the governor recently signed into law. This is good news as it will help keep this one chemical, which has been widely found in the waters around here, out of circulation. – Editor

3/29 NY Times
New E.P.A. Scrutiny Is Set for a Chemical in Plastics
By JOHN M. BRODER

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency  plans to add bisphenol-A <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/b/bisphenol_a/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier&gt; , or BPA, a plastic widely used in food packaging and plastic bottles, to its list of chemicals of concern because of potential adverse impacts on the environment and human and animal health.

The agency will require new studies of concentrations of the plastic in surface water, groundwater and drinking water to determine where it exists in levels requiring action. More than a million pounds of the chemical, used to harden plastics, are released into the environment each year, the agency said.

The environmental agency will also require manufacturers that use BPA to provide test data to help evaluate effects on growth, reproduction and development in aquatic organisms and wildlife.

More at

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Cocaine, Spices, Hormones Found in Drinking Water and the Sound

Posted on November 20, 2009 by Al Bergstein

It’s worth noting that the article points out that Richard Keil is  working with People For Puget Sound as part of the Sound Citizen  program. P4PS current has a fundraising drive to keep programs like this going. Please join us to support projects like these!

Surprising Ingredients Found in Puget Sound Waters
By David Bois

Scientists working in and around Washington state’s Puget Sound have compiled what sounds like a pretty festive and flavorful shopping list: let’s see, there’s cinnamon, thyme and sage, some vanilla, and chocolate too.

Unfortunately, as reported by National Geographic <http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/pf/57849969.html&gt; , this is not a shopping list, but the results of water quality analysis from Puget Sound water samples, and the mechanism for how these items found their way into regional waters is, shall we say, not terribly appetizing.

Richard Keil is a professor of oceanography at the University of Washington and heads up the People for Puget Sound’s Sound Citizen program <http://www.pugetsound.org/act/citizen> that focuses effort on understanding how what we do on land has an effect on our water resources. Among the things we do on land are eat, drink and use the facilities, which leads us back to Keil and group’s recent discoveries.

More at
http://www.tonic.com/article/surprising-ingredients-found-puget-sound-waters/

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