This article by Lindsey Wittenberg Samuelson was published on the Nightingale for Global Health’s website on June 5th, 2019.
When my daughter was less than 3 months old, I got a call early one morning from a panicked family friend. “Have you drank from your tap today?” I quickly thought about it. I had just finished breast-feeding and hadn’t made my cup of tea yet. As she continued to explain that a city-wide tap water ban had been enacted, I was grateful I hadn’t turned the tap on yet that morning. But then, I started to panic! No drinking! No bathing! No cooking! And, boiling water was not an option as it increased the toxicity level. I had no bottled water. My sleep-deprived self tried to make sense of what I was hearing.
As I let the news set in that early August morning in 2014, I experienced a vulnerability that I had not yet known before. Our water was toxic. I also worried about the 500,000 people in my region who would all be scrambling—at the same time—to stock up on bottled water. How did this happen?
We aren’t the only community affected. In 2017 alone, there have been 169 toxic blooms reported in 40 of the United States. These blooms produce a class of toxins called microcystin, which have serious health implications. They can cause pneumonia, neurological, liver and kidney damage in humans and deadly respiratory paralysis in dogs and other animals.
The best methods for preventing these algal blooms is to reduce the amount of nutrients that enter the body of water in the first place. The state of Ohio has implemented some regulations, but most agree that these regulations don’t do enough. Due to powerful corporate interests, the Ohio EPA has not responded or effectively addressed the root cause of the problem.
(To read the rest of this article at its original source please click HERE)