Joey K on the Environment

Public Health a review

2012-01-28T19:39:00.000-08:00

Now that i have calmed down from my earlier spat, i think a bit of history is in order.
One of the very first public health acts occurred during the Roman Empire with the building of a sewer system, this prevented organisms from sick people infecting healthy ones.
Of course the Roman did not get everything right cause they delivered drinks in lead goblets, what we must learn.
This became a habit of large metropolitan areas to build sewer systems, Paris and London are good examples, but there is more.
There is the case of adding chlorine to water to kill organisms, which has saved many millions of lives simply by killing bacteria which can cause us harm.
There is the case of tracking down and eventually restraining "typhoid Mary" because she carried an organism and would pass it on feeding people in taverns.
These are only a few examples, but present the heart of public health.
It is not medicine, it is not treating disease, it is preventing or educating people about issue to prevent illness or harm.
Now a days we have become much more aware, but many forces stand against taking proper action, still today.
There is always a struggle.
Sometimes the struggle is with knowing too much...
people don't want chlorine in their water because chlorine is toxic. They do not want vaccines for their children because they think the children should get immunity by having the disease.
These people are very short sited and have forgotten that many millions of people died or had serious debilitating consequences from getting disease that were preventable by these simple steps. Can we learn new ways that are still safer?
Always!
And that is the crux of public health, learning new ways and methods of protecting the public as a whole.
Things which cause cancer are a much more difficult item to deal with.
This is because most cancer does not occur with a single exposure, but exposure over a lengthy time period and not all people react in the same way.
This then is the question about pesticides.
I asked a question for general basic info from the Westchester County Health Lab that tests water and they had no information for me because "Homeowners do not ask for a pesticide test".
As we struggle in Stamford, this ostrich like "hide your head in the sand" approach frightens me.
Public Health means asking questions, sounding gongs and making people aware and trying to get appropriate action taken.
That is all

What is public health?

2012-01-27T12:14:00.000-08:00

This is an extremely important question and oneas of late has created deep reactions inside me so this almost was posted on my other blog.
It is a valid question because some of the arguements i have had as of late revolve around this question and what a Health Department does.
The last heated discussion revolved over the role of a health department giving vacines.
To me this is a no briner, but was being challenged, so again the question what is public health?
I am looking for answers here.

A day in the life of a Health Department

2012-01-06T17:40:00.000-08:00

there have not been many samplesa lately 918 or so) and i have been lloking at data, the kind of data not everyone gets to look at.
I see that the incidence of Lyme disease and the rate of infection in ticks has dropped together.
I see an increase in sypilis and chlamidia.
I have noted rabies cases begining in an exposure out of the country (in NJ)
and i have seen a lower than normal year for influenza.
Each has significant implications and require information to be shared. outreach to be honed and hopefully bring about education and a decrease in the diseases.
AIDS is still a major issue, but the statitics are not covered by what i have.
Lots to do.

questions, not answers

2012-01-06T17:34:00.000-08:00

i have been pondering information that has been presented to me and my question is how to determine if there is a way to verify the information.
This is what i try to do, not always successfully, so i ask questions.
The question is about major, unmarked dumps placed around the area in the past.
Now i believe that many people have "dumped" and still do, what are the consequences?
What is left behind?
These are two major questions that must be asked and of course there are more.
I believe the pesticide residues seen in well water is how we have in the past used and abused and then dumped the substances when they were available. The residual is dieldren, the longest lasting of these and trace amounts are left in the ground to be be drawn down into drinking water wells by the actions that wells do, draw water. The consequences are that people now drink that water and therre is a poential for illness to occur.
dumps from buildings or corporations oroil takes leave behind substances that can still be seen today and would be found in drinking water wells near these spots.
The testing that Stamford is offering will include pesticides and VOC testing and it should find trace amounts from any of this.
Since i get to look at this, i will get a better idea and perhaps be able to answer these questions better.

Flu News

2011-12-13T15:30:00.000-08:00

No there is not a lot of Flu going around (see the CDC Flu map), but

Yes you knew there was an exception...

CDC confirms two human infections with novel influenza viruses

December 9, 2011 -- CDC has confirmed two cases of human infection with two different novel influenza A viruses in different states. Both patients have fully recovered. While the viruses infecting both patients have been found in U.S. swine and some of the prior human infections with these viruses have been associated with direct or close swine contact, there are no reports of direct or close contact with swine prior to illness onset in either of these cases. Laboratory testing at CDC has confirmed that both novel viruses are susceptible to the antiviral medications oseltamivir (Tamiflu®) and zanamivir (Relenza®).

Shellfish Harvesters, The Sewage Treatment Plant, Rain and a "Perfect Storm"

2011-12-09T12:35:00.001-08:00

People who come to this site, know i love tables and charts and such.
I try to give the raw data and my conclusions so anyone can make their own thoughts.
This issue combines politics, egos, facts and anger all rolled up with mother nature.
The Stamford Advocate had a recent article on the treatment plant and its problems and how some professional shellfish harvesters are feeling the brunt of the issues, but i do not think it is the entire story.

First the ego - the main person at the treatment plant hid problems with the plant, which made her look good, even to me. We found a few potential issues, but could not get verification that it was the Stamford plant - even from inside sources. Because of this, I defended her many times, but she hid information and the city is paying a reduced fine because of it.
The politics - many people high in Stamford politics believed the lies and now the people of Stamford are going to be paying to correct things.
The facts - the treament plant has been having problems since 2004 when they installed the UV disinfection system.
The politics again - if you ever want to get any enforcement done, get someone who enforces them mad. The State Aquaculture Department has been very firm about all the regulations as far as shellfish harvesting since this issue came out.
more facts - it is not just the treament plant to blame, we have gotten a lot of rain this year and not just rain, but heavy rain -
to the table

Rain year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
1985		1.9	0.77	1.182	6.77	4.23	5.38	5.292	5.451	1.5	9.702	2.45
1986	3.84	0.51	2.94	1.75	2.02	2.75	3.22	4.08	0.55	2.4	5.1	6.35
1987	2.65			9.232	1.652	2.591	2.77	5.67	6.021	3.942	3.722	2.63
1988				1.841	4.762	0.533	5.56	3.48	3.902	4.223	9.334
1989			1.3	4.302	12.49	4.83	3.55	5.451	3.831	3.02	2.2
1990				2.61	4.39	2.72	1.75	6.391	1.85	8.77	1.68
1991	3.87	2.12	4.094	2.713	4.593	1.595	3.28	7.584	3.892	0.842	3.415	3.81
1992	1.44	2.08	4.272	2.256	3.378	4.003	3.15	5.883	2.625	1.287	5.434	5.3
1993	2.52	3.78	3.973	3.124	1.848	1.521	1.5	2.144	4.646	2.453	1.359	3.41
1994	6.9	3.86	6.871	2.554	3.398	2.605	3.62	4.046	2.064	1.072	3.484	3.37
1995	3.03	3.55	0.747	2.852	1.372	1.103	1.38	0.72	2.763	6.593	3.875	2.42
1996	5.58	2.36	5.61	7.661	2.128	5.192	7.93	0.842	6.015	8.67	4.192	7.41
1997	4.08	1.81	8.351	3.21	4.141	3.38	4.59	4.223	1.4	1.685	3.604	2.14
1998	5.81	6.29	5.691	3.903	4.81	6.911	1.65	3.741	2.833	3.503	0	0.36
1999	6.66	4.99	4.224	1.551	3.901	1.113	1.95	3.57	14	5.45	4.584	3.2
2000	4.94	2.58	5.167	4.13	4.947	6.274	8.66	5.426	7.842	0.764	6.181	3.54
2001	3.14	2.84	6.937	3.874	4.13	5.9	2.7	6.38	5.98	0.15	0.92	1.12
2002	2.14	0.78	4.87	4.38	5.14	6.32	1.12	4.22	7.8	6.73	3.63	5.57
2003	0.53	2.8	3.99	3.24	6.34	7.4	2.05	4.36	5.01	6.09	3.58	4.3
2004	0.84	2.43	3.71	5.94	3.84	3.5	9.38	3.94	11.15	1.321	4.16	2.61
2005	2.92	1.4	1.86	4.75	1.64	2.83	2.97	2.6	3.27	13.89	3.43	3.85
2006	4.68	1.69	0.74	7.17	5.87	5.43	4	8.5	3.72	5.65	5.78	2.78
2007	4.09	0.58	4.65	12.47	1.47	4.03	3.68	3.19	1.53	10.26	2.98	3.73
2008	3.18	6.71	5.02	2.67	3.99	2.98	2.62	5.3	7.86	2.831	3.45	5.24
2009	1.77	0.55	1.56	3.98	3.1	8.68	4.29	3.46	1.9	6.36	1.57	6.4
2010	1.74	5.19	10.71	2.37	2.9	2.23	4.39	2.84	5.91	3.14	2.03	3.41
2011	1.99	4.57	5.17	5.89	4.88	6.205	1.42	12.54	7.78	5.01	3.28	1.61
Avg:	3.41	2.84	4.30	4.13	4.07	3.96	3.65	4.66	4.87	4.36	3.80	3.63

The bottom line is we have had a lot of rain this year, but there is more, yes more 2" and 3" rain events

Number of Rain Event > 2"	Total Rain over 2"	Number of Rain Event > 3"	Total Rain over 3"
3	7.65	1	3.25
2	5.35
4	10.63	1	3.82
2	4.84
3	8.9	1	4.69
2	6.08	1	4.03
2	5.46	1	3.34
4	8.58
1	2.4
1	2.1
1	2.07
5	16.88	3	11.91
2	4.19
2	5.41
5	13.905	3	8.125
5	13.93	1	3.87
1	2.81
3	8.68	1	4.15
2003 - 3	7.5
2004 - 13	19.23	5	8.82
2005 - 8	12.83	7	10.4
2006 - 6	12.77	3	8.36
2007 - 9	22.59	4	15.07
2008 - 5	13.09	2	8.09
2009 - 1	3.5	1	3.5
2010 - 13	20.15	7	8.83
2011 - 12	22.78	6	11.81


118	264.31	48	122.07

The 2" event are important because they mean the plant is going to have problems, The 3" is important because that is when the State Aquaculture closes the commercial shellfish beds (they also close for treatment plant issues)
The angry is the shellfish harvesters who must weather, rain, treatment plant issues and a firm attitude by the State Aquaculture (and, if you are wondering, i support their firmness).

The ticks are coming after us!

2011-12-09T12:09:00.001-08:00

It has been a very bad fall as far as the numbers of ticks biting people in Stamford, the worst one we have had since i started keping tabs in 1989, but next year could be worse.
Why?
This NY Time Article, link from a "Time for Lyme" newsletter tells it all.
There are 2 sides to this though.
The lack of small mammals will have the ticks looking for other prey, but the main source of Lyme disease is the White footed mouse and other small creatures.
Deer do not get, do not carry and do not transmit Lyme. This might mean more tick bites, but fewer cases of Lyme disease or it may take a season or 2 to show up as a decrease, but i will be looking.
Average infection rate varies according to the life stage:
Adult female - Ioxides damminies (the black legged tick we have in CT) is 35% infected.
THe adult male only 25% infected.
The nymph - 18% infected and the larva not infected at all (it has not fed on any one to get the disease).
This has remained very consistent snce 1989 in this area of Stamford-New Canaan. We will see if it changes...

The Dieldren controversy

2011-11-28T18:08:00.001-08:00

Why is this a controversy at all?
Because the agencies which are suppose to regulate such things have left it open, not closed.
Some where in the 1970's the US EPA decided that Dieldren, Aldrin and the chemical similar compounds were bad. They restricted the use of the organophosphates so they could not be used for agricultural products.
They also declared that the were carcinogens of a type.
In 1987 they banned all use of dieldren, but they did NOT regulate dieldren nor did they create a maximum contaminant level (MCL) for its presence in drinking water.
By now you are saying, "Huh?"
Well so am i. This of cource leads many others to question what was going on.
The US EPA is still on record as declaring dieldren a carcinogen, but they simply do not back it up.
now others start asessing the issue:
In 1987, the US Environmental Protection Agency(EPA) classified aldrin and dieldrin as category B2 carcinogens, i.e. probablehuman carcinogens, based largely on the increase in liver tumors in mice fedeither organochlorine insecticide. At that date, the relevant epidemiology wasdeemed inadequate to influence the cancer risk assessment.
There is more
There is no conclusive evidence that aldrin ordieldrin cause cancer in humans. Aldrin and dieldrin have shown to cause livercancer in mice. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) hasdetermined that aldrin and dieldrin are not classifiable as to humancarcinogenicity. The EPA has determined that aldrin and dieldrin are probablehuman carcinogens.

Okay so what is the big deal?

The US EPA has again failed.

With Radon they threw a lot of money to get all the states on board the issue, even thought there was evidence that this was not as big a deal as they made it. (National Science foundation really link the cancer to a serious issue for those who smoke). They did not do this with the pesticide, thus we have controversy.

Ticks!

2011-11-25T13:29:00.001-08:00

Yes, we had snow in October, but it has been down right warm for November and this means that the ticks are out.
For pet owners: DO NOT STOP USING YOUR TICK MEDICINE!
For EVERYONE: Be careful when walking any where that there is grass or leaves and brush. The Adult female black legged tick is out and hungry!

finally something worth while...

2011-11-16T12:11:00.001-08:00

I keep hearing from different places “why don’t you publish that?”
Now publishing anything has its place, for me it is to disseminate information that might not be obvious to everyone.
Lately, the things that other people have wanted me to publish are on the well water issues I see in Stamford .
The reason is because what I have seen so far does not warrant the current sole emphasis on pesticides.
“They” don’t want to deal with the pesticide issue.
You get that information here because I want discussion on it.

I get that.

I also do not slight the issue of pesticides because I think we have horribly misused them in the past and I think still in the present.

I think other issues might have even more importance to our health, but I do not know for sure and want more information.

That is what my well water update has been, until now.

Now I have found some thing that I think is important to publish.

Here it is for discussion!

The information first

Coliform bacteria (all wells)	average value 6.4 CFU	high value 3,900 CFU	total tests 6,904	Not potable	With only 1 CFU
	average value 6.4 CFU	high value 3,900 CFU	total tests 6,904	12.72%	1.69%
	Total addresses tested		3,236	18.48%	3.21%
Wells without pits Total addresses	5.4 CFU	500 CFU	353	27.48%	3.40%

a CFU is a colony forming unit, the way bacteria are reported by a laboratory which uses a membrane filtration method.Why is this important?
For a significant while, pitless adapters and having wells finish above ground has been considered the "gold standard" for well construction.
While wells with pits have been considered something that was a real source of contamination.
Now i have good information from well people that many of the "pitless" adapters have been poorly installed, giving a home owner a sense of security that they really were not entitled to.
What this means is that a home owner still must be vigilant, test the well for bacteria during a rainy, wet period periodically. The fixes still are all about the seals and are usually simple.
The coliform issue is a strange one - i kind of stand in a place of saying it is not that big a deal while everyone gets all excited over it.
Coliform usually do NOT come from septic, but the soil that is everywhere...
There are places where it is an issue and i get excited about that, but a coliform is not e coli is not a major concern in my view.

finding missing pieces

2011-11-08T13:21:00.000-08:00

I asked and received the pieces that were missing from my look at pesticide variability.
But they did not help cement anything because they were taken a full10 days before the one that i believe had a ale to tell.
They were important because i saw a window, a small time frame that might be a time for samples NOT to be taken if i want honest results for pesticides. 5 days was the windo and these were now before that window, they did not prove that my concept was correct, but they did not disprove it either.
The idea is simple - you ave many variables which infuence the water table and the water that a well draws from, this includes really different things like the tide level (in the ground water?, Oh yes!) and rain.
A dry period - a good one that normally occurs in August. But the dry period is not enough because there still is the water from the reduced water table being pulled in from even furrther away. then a significant rain, adding fresh water to the water table, That is when you might get a Not detected. That theory still stands and to protect the integrety of the information - the sampling will not be done around that situation.

Well water Summary

2011-11-04T16:34:00.000-07:00

This is a revision and update of something i did back in June, when the old fresnel glasses were what i had.
There were errors and this is the first revision. there will be more. I have all the data and there are sevral question i am asked.
One is about radon and is it really correct oplace it at the top? I have supporting data that i can not use because i do not have a "hard copy" of the results from someone who tests and did a comparrison that ranks very similar to my information (a bit down from my numbers, but very significant).

Thefollowing is a summarization of water tests that have been submitted to orperformed by the Stamford Health Department Lab and the various issues andproblems that have been found. We usedsimple criteria of having more than 25 tests results (0.5% of wells inStamford).

Thefollowing tables are an overview. The sameevaluation parameters are used for each item in this table. Samples with treatment are not included. Multipletests from one location only show the highest results. Tests for pesticideswhich were performed by the one lab not certified to do so and were usingunapproved methods were removed (7 addresses). This also includes older test where the detection limit was limited to0.1ug/L (51 addresses, 12 repeated by newer tests).

TABLE 1a – Health Dangers related to cancer

item	Average in number tested	Highest value found	Number of addresses recorded	Descriptions
item	Average in number tested	Highest value found	Number of addresses recorded	Percentages
Radon	35,316 pCi/L	555,000 pCi/L	99	At or Above RL (5,000 pCi/L)	At or Above CT average (7,000 pCi/L)
Radon	35,316 pCi/L	555,000 pCi/L	99	75.76%	72.73%
Uranium	0.020 mg/L	0.77 mg/L	46	present	At or Above MCL (0.03 mg/L)
Uranium	0.020 mg/L	0.77 mg/L	46	56.52%	6.52%
Arsenic	0.0022 mg/L	.010 mg/L	134	present	At or Above MCL (0.010 mg/L)
Arsenic	0.0022 mg/L	.010 mg/L	134	43.28%	2.24%
Dieldren	0.0258 ug/L	1.30 ug/L	499	present	At or Above AL (0.03 ug/L)
Dieldren	0.0258 ug/L	1.30 ug/L	499	15.03%	9.02%
Chlordane	0.0416 ug/L	2.90 ug/L	499	present	At or Above AL (0.3 ug/L)	At or Above MCL (2.0 ug/L)
Chlordane	0.0416 ug/L	2.90 ug/L	499	9.62%	4.21%	0.20%
Other pesticides	0.0035 ug/L	0.32 ug/L	499	present	AT or Above MCL (various)
Other pesticides	0.0035 ug/L	0.32 ug/L	499	4.01%	0.00%
Total pesticides	0.054 ug/L	2.90 ug/L	499	Present	At or Above MCL
Total pesticides	0.054 ug/L	2.90 ug/L	499	19.04%	9.62%

Each ofthese items have some indication to a risk for cancer, the following is a discussionon risk by other agencies and studies. Dieldren is seen as being the most controversial item as far a cancerrisk, with many studies NOT implicating it. While there is some controversy concerning Radon in water, there is adirect link to Radon in air and lung cancer and a general rule as far as howmuch water borne radon contributes to air radon (every 10,000 pCi/L in the water, contributes 1.0 pCi/m³in the air)

Arsenic - Skin damage or problems withcirculatory systems, and may have increased risk of getting cancer^[1]

Chlordane - Liver or nervous system problems;increased risk of cancer^[2]

Dieldren - In 1987, the US EnvironmentalProtection Agency (EPA) classified aldrin and dieldrin as category B2carcinogens, i.e. probable human carcinogens, based largely on the increase inliver tumors in mice fed either organochlorine insecticide. At that date, therelevant epidemiology was deemed inadequate to influence the cancer risk assessment.^[3]

There is noconclusive evidence that aldrin or dieldrin cause cancer in humans. Aldrin anddieldrin have shown to cause liver cancer in mice. The International Agency forResearch on Cancer (IARC) has determined that aldrin and dieldrin are notclassifiable as to human carcinogenicity. The EPA has determined that aldrinand dieldrin are probable human carcinogens.^[4]

Radon - The radon in your water supplyposes an inhalation risk and an ingestion risk. Research has shown that yourrisk of lung cancer from breathing radon in air is much larger than your riskof stomach cancer from swallowing water with radon in it. Most of your riskfrom radon in water comes from radon released into the air when water is usedfor showering and other household purposes.^[5]

Uranium - Increased risk of cancer, kidneytoxicity^[6]

Theprobable sources for each of these items are from.

Arsenic – Erosion of natural deposits; runofffrom orchards; leeching from pressure treated wood (1940 to 2004, especiallysince 1970), runoff from glass and electric production wastes.

Chlordane – Residue of banned termiticide

Dieldren – Residue of banned insecticide,breakdown product of aldrin (also a banned pesticide used in agriculture forroot vegetables)

Radon – Erosion form natural deposits

Uranium –Erosion from natural deposits

[1]http://water.epa.gov/drink/contaminants/index.cfm

[2] http://water.epa.gov/drink/contaminants/index.cfm

[3] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10555138

[4]http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxfaqs/tf.asp?id=316&tid=56

[5] http://www.epa.gov/radon/pubs/citguide.html#radonwater

[6] http://water.epa.gov/drink/contaminants/index.cfm

The revision of an old well statue

2011-11-01T13:15:00.000-07:00

From the state of CT on well testing and report.

This is a revision of Section 19a-37 of the public healthcode.

I believe it was an attempt to clear up language concerningreporting laboratory testing of water for home sales.

I read it through a couple of times and my eyes hurt.

I received some advice on how to review it and not to try todo it in my head.

Okay that was good advice; it meant that they read this blogand know this is legalese, not math.

It still hurt my head.

The attempt was, I believe, to say exactly who needed toreport what to whom and under what circumstance.

For those of you who are scratching your head, there wassomething in the public health code that said, in effect, if you sell yourhouse, the water must be tested 6 months before or 6 months after the sale andthe results must be reported to the local director of health and while one labdid this (not including me), no other lab in the state did it.

This one says it must be reported to both the directorof health and to the state by the lab doing the test.
There is more. a lot more and it begins to restrict power of how legislation can do and what health directors can and can not do.
The one that disturbed me was one limiting the health director from requiring pesticide tests unless there was a dump or nitrite levels were over 10(my plain langauge, not theirs)...this bothers me on many fronts. pesticides do have to do with fertilizer, but not always, they have something to do with dumps, but not always. I feels that they are trying to take control of something that shuld not be taken control of in the way they are.
There is a lot more.
This is the link to the whole giberish:
http://www.cga.ct.gov/2011/ACT/PA/2011PA-00242-R00HB-06618-PA.htm

the thought process

2011-10-29T07:11:00.000-07:00

if i told you 90% of what i write here is "solved" in my head before i post, would you believe me?
The complex equations of how ground water flows, i "see" clearly in my head, but to explain so others can understand it seems many times, difficult.
The why i reach the conclusion i do, is where i grasp.
i had this problem in High school and the teachers hated me.
The algeabreic concepts that fell into place so easily - the answers came with out a second thought. Me reading a book or playing chess and they would call on me to see is they could catch me and they could not untill they asked me to go through the proof. Writing down a proof systematically would show so many little errors that my mind, in an instant corrected. A minus sign misplaced, addition of 1 + 1 = 3. Writing down gave issue, but in my head i always had the correct answer.
so i stuggle with math that can not be explained easily to write it down, so you can understand and i make errors, but the conclusions are , i believe correct.

pesticide variance again

2011-10-24T13:11:00.000-07:00

Again i reviewed data from the state and my weather data and relized that i have answered my question from the last post on this subject many times...
there are 2 sources for every well with a septic system!
Once a well has pesticides in it, the septic system does also and since around here the septic is a major source of recharge for the well, you have very rapidly another source...not fun.
Now what does this mean? When the weather is very dry - you will not get recharge from the septic.
From the data, i found a particularly bad time August 2010...

Mold –the real dangers and its prevalence

2011-10-20T13:00:00.000-07:00

A long time ago, I had heard that Connecticut along thecoast had the second highest mold problem in the nation. I am unable to verify this as a fact, butthere is logic around this.

Why, you ask?

1) Elevation rises rapidly from the coast line, in land, trappingmoisture from the Sound,

(550 feet in10 miles).

2) There are a lot of trees and therefore leaves on the ground,trapping moisture, (even with all the leaf pick-up, they go some where).

3) Summers, generally are warm and humid, winters, generally arecold and damp.

4) We are a wet coastline, this is not Southern California.

That all the logic I have.

Now all molds can be hazardous, allergies can kill you. Mold can kill you; any mold not just theones that make the news. Now I happento be sensitive to mold, I walk into a room with a high concentration and Istop breathing. Really!

I follow a scientific site out of the UK, http://www.aspergillus.org.uk/updates/AllNewsletters.html

This keeps me updated on all things mold.

Lately there have been a lot of calls on molds. Many people have spent lots of money testingthe air in their homes for molds. Now,most knew there was mold and now they have a fact.

There is a simple reality that these testing companies donot want you to know:

WHERE THERE IS WATERGETTING INTO A HOME, THERE IS MOLD.

You have a leak in your roof, the ceiling will get wet andgrow mold.

You have a window that leaks; there will be black formingaround it. This is mold.

Mold, in order to propagate, produces spores, which are airborne. You will breathe them in.

Mold is everywhere outside and for it to live inside itlikes a nice damp, dark place (sunlight is molds #1 enemy, Clorox is another).

You can kill mold by exposing it to sunlight, removing themoisture and hitting it with Clorox (some precautions about Clorox use in amoment).

If it is growing, it will produce spores that will stillaffect you, even after it dies. Clorox does destroy those allergens, butproduces hydrogen chloride gas in the process, which can be worse.

So when you use Clorox, YOUMUST VENT THE AREA! Go outside and takean “air” break every few minutes (5 is maximum). WEAR GLOVES! USE A MASK!(Still take those air breaks (unless you have an oxygen fed mask, rare formost, not for me).

Make sure that water does not get back in and you will nothave the problem again.

One person asked if it can from the drinking water, no itcomes from the air.

Another asked about a specific mold type being worse thananother, they all can be bad.

Another wanted me to test the black stuff growing around thewindow to see if it was mold, I would not because it is.

That is all the insight that I have on mold.

We have had a very wet year and mold is liking it!

pestcide variance - an attempt to view

2011-10-13T12:37:00.000-07:00

I had a brainstorm last night – it was concerning howpesticides vary in the amount in a well over time and how I could view that asa fact and what might the issues be.

The source is the testing done by the DEP (now DEEP) onfilters they installed in Stamford on wells which tested positive forpesticides.

They did the testing quarterly and I have been recording theinfo, but really did not know what to do with it…until now.

Then I began reviewing the data and realized that I had notcritically looked at the data – if I had I would have noted some issues.

There are times when the “raw” (without or before thefilter) sample had no pesticides, but the sample after the first filterdid. Unless something happened and thefilter was exposed to high (I mean above the boiling point of water) heat,pesticides should not have been released. This means that samples were mislabeled or switched in the lab (ithappens, you know, we are not perfect). I could accept this and correct for it. It almost meant that no one else looked at the information criticallyeither.

I also, generally do not get a copy of the lab’s paperwork,only a summary report from DEP. Onetime I did get the lab’s paperwork and the sample was not received at the labat the proper “less than 6 C” and the lab had (rightfully so) a disclaimerabout the results.

Additionally, the testing is done, by request, by the 508method. Now the reality about thismethod is that is identical to the 505 method except that it starts with a muchlarger sample volume. I do not have aproblem with this.

The final problem was not with the results, but withme. As I have been struggling with myrecovery, there are times that I make mistakes and do not enter thing properly(it is all about the eyes, all about the eyes). I try to keep the paper work, but there are times that I lose itand file it in a pile. There wassomething in this batch of numbers that I wanted to check and could not becauseI could not find the paperwork. This ofcourse is very frustrating, but what I have to deal with.

If variables such as temperature and rain and any otherweather condition caused the variances then the difference between pesticidechanges should be similar between the 4 homes reviewed.

They were not similar enough for me to say yes to this idea.

The other variables that i can think of are water usage, multiple contamination points or layers and soil type, this isinformation I do not have.

For your entertainment, the graphs I compared are included:

Beach meeting fall 2011

2011-10-06T19:26:00.000-07:00

Twice a year, the state of Ct and local health and the US EPA get together to discuss the beach monitoring program in CT.
This year we had an additional bonaus, a review of the latest National beach confrence, which discussed information on direction of the national program.
A quick synopsis:
Heavy on epidemilogical studies - mostly discounting the improvement of PCR techniques.
Heavy on relating illness to what ever source might be out there - human and animal.
Strong encoragement on pre-emptive beach closures (which Stamfrd has been using since 1989).
Strong associasion of illness, current indicator bacteria and illness in Urban run off settings (again the kind Stamford has).
I actually felt a bitvindicating since my work comes under fire often from the public, the political machine and some times surperiors.
It was a good meeting.

perigee tides

2011-10-05T03:37:00.000-07:00

The really high ones, i mean. We just had one at the end of September and in my records (which come from NOAA) and by observations by long time fishermen, it was the highest, non-storm perigee tide we have seen. The NOAA tide records seem to say the same with another one coming at the end of October.
Why the big deal?
We finished our final, close out beach sampling during the peak of one of those tides and the numbers were astronomical (bacteria wise). This is something that is in my sights as far as predictive modeling - washing out storm drains by high tides.
This was the highest we have seen and the only one which indicates it might b real.
We will be vigilant for future perigee tides.

The Cure, worse than the problem?

2011-10-03T19:06:00.000-07:00

Bed Bugs, a scourge, a nuisance, a pest...
living off the blood of humans. Inflicting them with severe bites,
but strangely enough do not transmit disease.
They tried - they used Hepatitis B (a virus that is known to still be active for 3 weeks in a dry pool of blood), fed bed bugs the infected blood, but it did NOT transmit.
A recent edition of MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) disclosed problems associated with the control of bed bugs.
Am i surprised? No, they are talking insecticides and oil spray delivery systems all of which can cause real health issues.
What to do? Suffer?
There are other ways to control - they are not easy, bed bugs have been around a long time. They survived chlordane.
They are susceptible to extremes of heat and cold. They will be killed by alcohol vapor, both isopropyl and ethyl - i proved that in the lab and wrote on it here. there are even companies which use it.
Same effect the bed bugs are killed, they will come back, just like with regular pesticides.
it might be something to consider.
Well searching, the US EPA has not certified any alcohols for bed bug eradication. CDC and the US EPA do have a joint statement that is interesting.
The interesting non pesticide is diatomacious earth.

Pesticides - the myth of home owners use

2011-09-17T19:22:00.000-07:00

For a while, it looked like it was true.
I was seeing a pattern, most, not all, wells that showed pesticides in the tests, were close to a homes foundation. That was a pattern. Then the health department did its "50 well survey" and we ended up with only 35 tests (that was because out of 130+ people contact, only 35 responded in a "we want our water tested") and we also checked out other information. Also, when some one would call to ask about submitting results, i would ask how close to the home the well was.
It turns out that most wells in Stamford were drilled or placed within 30 feet of the foundation.
This meant that all my earlier thoughts were null and void. If a majority of wells are close to a home's foundation, you can not make a coorelation to the quanity testing positve to pesticides with the closeness of a well to a home.
Of course this is not everything that made me change my view...I had one well sampled where i knew there was pesticide application down, i had even found a bottle of chlordane in a storage shed there in the 80's. The well is an old one, dug in the early 1900's (1905 in think) and is only 50' deep with a well pit. It is just outside the back door. Knowing all of this, i expected it to come back positive - nada - zip, no trace down to 0.005 ug/L.
Of course on the other side of the coin, there are a number of deep wells drilled in the 1990's, that have come back positive.
This would lead me to say it was more the way we disposed of those chemicals, rather than the way we used them.
So the garnering of information goes on...

Rememberance

2011-09-16T13:44:00.000-07:00

Today is a quiet day of remembrance because last Friday a close friend and colleague past away.
Peter Dombrowski was arguably one of the most dedicated environmental professionals that i had the privilege to know. To me he was someone who could make you smile and my fondest memory is at a Health Department Staff meeting where division directors were asked to present on stage - and he sang a rousing number from "The Pirates of Penzance".
The following are excerpts of what others have said:

Carolyn Baisley:
It is with great sadness that I send you this message of losing a great friend and co- worker to cancer. After becoming ill several months ago, Peter was hospitalized for a few weeks and sent home with a course of treatment. Although he seemed to be responding well, he suddenly took a downward turn. Some of you have worked with Peter over the years since he worked for the City of Stamford for 28 years. During that time he served as the city's Director of Environmental Health for ten years . Upon retirement from Stamford, he returned to his roots as a Registered Sanitarian and came to work at the Greenwich Department of Health for almost 13 years. In serving the public for 41 years in total he made a significant contribution to the field of public health. Above all he was a wonderful person to know and we will miss him a great deal. At this time, I do not know the service arrangements however, I am sure it will be in the Stamford Advocate shortly. If you would like to send a card to the family it can be sent to them in care of the department( address listed below). Please inform your staff since some of them either knew and/or worked with him.

Patice Urban-Sulik:
I was devastated to hear this news. Peter was one of my closest colleagues from my days in Stamford. He spent a lot of time training me. He was a wonderful person and had such a great sense of humor. His psychology background was arguably the most valuable skillset to bring to the position.

A. Dennis McBride (Dr McBride)I am so grieved by losing Pete that it is difficult to speak about it. Here’s a
try.
Many years ago, I promoted a reluctant Pete to be Stamford's Environmental Health
Chief. (He was just too modest to outright accept the offer. I think that Scotty,
his wife, finally convinced him.) After several years, he retired to work happily
in a second career in Greenwich.
Pete was as simply brilliant public health practitioner. He taught me more about
local environmental health than anyone. Pete unselfishly shared his knowledge.
His approach to problem solving was both practical and imaginative. In all of my
jobs, I have used profusely what Pete taught me. Pete was a loyal, committed and
courageous worker.
Pete’s people skills were phenomenal. Something had to be wrong with you, if you
didn’t like… no love Pete. Pete could close a restaurant and the owner would
defend Pete and say, “it wasn’t Pete’s fault.”
But his sense of humor was notorious. “Pete” stories are reverberating in the
Stamford and Greenwich Health Departments bringing about both laughter and tears.
I know that Pete would like us to laugh but, now, we are stuck with tears.

Politics and money and our health do not mix

2011-09-15T16:59:00.000-07:00

The US Epa recently decided not to revisit rules on ozone, even though new information was availible. The reason? Because it would be too costly to industry in these bad economic times.
Now this is typical of the US EPA, but this attitude then does tricle down to the state and local level. Even in Stamford, the well water ordinace is being considered in not just a health light..."Pavia said he has received the ordinance but hasn't looked at it yet. He said he wants to find out more about the cost and staffing implications associated with the legislation before signing it.
This from the Stamford Advocate...
Read more: http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Water-testing-ordinance-goes-before-mayor-for-2168944.php#ixzz1Y4K2JPyL

Of course this means that things have gotten down to money, not just health...it shold not be this way.

Well Caps

2011-09-15T16:44:00.000-07:00

Since they were available, pitless adapters have been strongly recommended for all wells which had "pits" - dug 2 to 3 foot in diameter pit that a well was sunk into as much as 20 feet. They are usually lined with stome, to prevent colapse and almost alwats had water in them, cover the actually well head. The pits were considered a major way that surface water could get into the well.
The truth be told, in 5,000 some tests, a surprising few alctually had problems, even in the worst of conditions.
Now pitless adapters are a good thing, they raise the well head above the ground so that water can not (or should not) penetrate, allowing normal soil to do its thing and clean the water that is taken from a well.
Today, I had two examples were the work done to setup a pitless adapter was so poor, that it made the situation worse.
One a unevenly cut casing had a loosely fitting cap place on top of it. bacteria was found in the well.
The other, the pitless adapter was loosely attaches to the main casing, so that the seal rotted away, allowing soil bacteria to get into the well.
How do you prevent such things? The only way I can think of is to test the water for bacteria in a heavy rain situation to see if the work holds up.

Disgusting

2011-09-13T14:08:00.000-07:00

I have been aware that after heavy storms, sewage plants which combine sewer treatment and storm water, by pass large amount of untreated or minimally treated sewage.
I have also known that older pipes for the sanitary sewers are usually built below everything else and when it rains, the is infiltration of storm water into them.
What i did not know was that our multi million dollar state of the art sewage treatment plant, without having storm water to contend with would stop being able to treat sewage using the new UV system because of this infliltration of storm water. This apparently has been going on since the system was installed some years ago, but never reported...that is until the person in charge finally retired earlier this year.
That this occurs is not as upsetting as the fact that the information was hidden from state and local officals who need to be aware of such things. The hiddeness is also upsetting because there are many people, including myself, who has supported the idea that the sewage treatment plant was one of the best run in the nation. That might not be so.
Do i think it impacted swimming areas - no. The FDA did a dye test which showed it took more than 24 hours for the discharge waters to travel a mile to the end of a point at the end of the harbor the plant discharges into.
Do i think shellfish waters are affected - yes, especially with new research showing that viruses are much longer lived in shellfish (the study was specifically about oysters, but...) than bacteria and that the normal time for cleaning (called deputerization) after problems for viruses (which are the main culprit in sickness) is much longer than any one thought.
Thanks for hiding those facts from us. .. NOT!

Research Salinity

2011-09-06T14:24:00.001-07:00

I often look at things, try to see if i have a good idea and then test it...this is such research, which ended up with me rejecting the use of salinity as a quick way of figuring out what might go wrong at Stamfords beaches....
There was something that i did find out that is useful, there has been some ideas that there is a large influx of fresh water going into the sound from "Ground water" as oposed to surface water. A quality control sample taked 1 mile off the Stamford shore line had no more salinity than the normal levels found at the beaches. Does not seem to be the case.
This also shows that no matter what test you might use, if you know your shoreline and what affects it, history and action because of that knowledg,e is far faster than any test.

Salinity– a tool without promise and not as quick as a preemptive closure

Abstract

Over the course of several years, the Stamford health Department Lab has been doing additional work on all Long Island Sound recreational waters. Besides the traditional bacteriological tests, various chemical parameters have been measured, pH salinity, chloride, nitrite and turbidity. While all have had some promising results and most had drawbacks, salinity showed the best correlation, in Stamford, with bacterial levels. The one very simple statement that can be made is that salinity gave us information we already knew. When fresh water intruded into the beach water, from rain that was significant enough to cause a significant decrease in the salinity, the beaches were already closed by a policy of preemptive closure due to a measured amount of rain. Small variances (± 0.5%) in salinity did not indicate more than normal tidal flow and were not useful in determining bacteriological quality, but could help in understanding currents along the shore.

Sampling Discussion

Since August of 2010, the Stamford Health Department has been analyzing all recreational beach water taken for enterococcus bacteriological quality for salinity also. This is only 195 samples for the Stamford recreational beaches, but does include samples taken at various tides and weather conditions. This is obviously not as large a sample set as our predictive model, based on rainfall amounts, which used over 8,000 samples to confirm its efficacy, however for Stamford, we can make conclusions even on this small sample set.

Previously, we attempted to use chloride measurement (using an US EPA titration method), however because dilutions needed to be great, large errors were introduced into the results and this data was not used.
Small variances (< 0.10%) between samples of each sample set were understood when comparing to known fresh water influences and the currents based on tides.

Instrumentation, Standards and Method

Oakton SALT 6 Acorn series battery operated Salinity meter

Salinity standards 3.5 % and 1.65%
Used in the laboratory only – though this is a portable model
Internal quality control check when turned on
Standardized with use at 0.165% and 3.5% initially
One standard reevaluated at 10 samples and at the end of the series
A sample was analyzed in duplicate for each set
A known amount of sample was added to perform a standard addition evaluation
Duplicate samples were taken and evaluated for each sample set
A sample set was taken from 1 mile off shore at Buoy 38 to ascertain if there is a “plume” of ground water influencing the salinity of bathing water
Temperatures were recorded before each sample set reading
Rain is recorded for each sample set

Quality Control

The low standard (0.165) average recovery was 102.33% with a minimum of 97.56% and maximum of 109.76%

The high standard (3.5) average recovery was 99.13% with a minimum of 93.71% and maximum of 100.29%
The standard addition average recovery was 99.32% with a minimum of 97.97% and maximum of 100.00%
Duplicate reading of the same sample had a comparison average of 100.26% with the minimum of 98.93% and a maximum of 101.65%
The end standard average recovery was 100.52% with a minimum of 98.57% and a maximum of 112.50%
Duplicate samples had an average difference of -0.01 with a standard deviation of 0.01
Samples from 1 mile off shore had % salinities of 2.84, 2.89, 2.88 and 2.89 which is a difference of less than 0.3 from the onshore average
Temperatures were in the range of 21 to 26 C during the readings

Results

8 samples had enterococcus levels greater than 104 CFUs/100 mL. Salinity measurements were below average in 3 of those samples. A rain event greater than one inch was recorded for 7 of the samples and the other sample had a rain event greater than 2”, two days previous and is near a storm drain. The salinity did not indicate a problem with fresh storm water intrusion at that sample, but previous testing had showed this particular sample location was prone to bacterial elevations 2 days after a rain event greater than one inch.

Conclusions

Not only was salinity not a good indicator of bacterial elevations more than 50% of the time, rain measurements had already closed the beach water for swimming before the samples were taken, making the identification of the problem using salinity pointless.

It does not take Rocket Science

2011-09-03T10:18:00.000-07:00

As the summer closes i again am amazed at the number of swimming pools that could not get things correct.
I mean to keep you pH at somewhere around 7.4 and free chlorine between 0.8 and 3 is really not that hard, but most "operators " just do not care.
The number of complaints of pools ( not city run, but at condos or clubs) is amazing, but what really gets me is the number who fail not once or twice, but three nd four times after they have been told what to do.
Green pools with no chlorine, pools with so much chlorine it would peel the cloth right off a swimmer, spas too hot...this gets me fairly insenced and still it goes on...

I have not post in a bit

2011-08-28T11:05:00.000-07:00

At least here and there are many portions to it.
It is NOT because...
i have lost interest in the environment
i do not have any thing new to say.
It is because i have become a bit discouraged, i am tired of fighting so many battles on so many fronts.
I fight disinterest with direct supervisors who really want issues to disappear and who contradict me at every chance they get.
I fight politicalizations on subjects that should never be politicalized.
I fight myopic ideas and policies (the refusal to see past a single problem).
I fight people who absolutely ignore any fact that is different than their own opinion.

To say i get in a lot of trouble is an understatement.
In the process of looking at any problem, alway come up with a theory or a direction first (this is typical scientific inquery) and i let my self be guided in myfindings and many times come up with new conculsions. This happen recently when i was of an opinion that the water along the coast was affected by ground water, reducing the salinity. Turns out after i ask and got the proper samples, it was not so. Easy to change my mind, i am not invested in my answers or my conclusions. Most people are.

snow contamination

2011-01-17T12:58:00.000-08:00

I was told that New York City does not allow the snow piled in the streets to be dumped into the rivers or inlets because they might pollute the water.
When it melts where do they think it goes?
Just who do they think they are kidding

changing knowledge

2010-11-30T13:59:00.000-08:00

I have decided I am no longer using "antibacterial" soap.
The first reason is that it really isn't necessary, regular soap with its basic nature (pH) does it just fine.
The second is that i really have not bought into the "bacteria are bad" thought, they are necessary. Without them, we would not be alive. Controlling the bad ones is important, but the good ones sometimes take out the bad ones.
The other reason is more and more information on the long lasting effects of the chemical used as the "antibacterial" in soaps.
This was the link to the straw that broke the camels back from Environmental health News.
What will i use?
Chlorine, Hydrogen peroxide, vinegar, lemon juice, regular soap.
That will be enough.

Mill River Park - Revisited

2010-10-08T15:11:00.000-07:00

Recent articles talked of plantings that dies due to lack of water.
Well of course they had some die off, it was a hot and dry summer and the plantings occurred in late spring, after the flooding, but the native weeds grew and grew well and they are what clean up toxic messes best.
I saw the company involved the other day, putting in more planting.
This time they got the best time, the fall.
I talked to them and they said at most, they lost 10%, most down stream.
I thought about this and realized most of the sludge from the pond. loaded with H2S, would have traveled down stream and effected the lower planting the most.
All is well and things will get better.

Learning

2010-10-07T19:12:00.000-07:00

I am a big proponent of sharing information, we learn things.
During the recent study performed by many people on their own and shared with us at the Health department, I learned much.
Some was about the pesticides and I have shared about that, but also about other things.
One report on radon in water was elevated without the air being elevated.
That was contrary to my previous observations.
The well was not near the home so the material emitting the radon gas was not going into the home. The level was high in only the water meaning that other radio-nucleotides may be present.
We know that in our area, radon is very sporadic, a had home 500,000 picocurries/L in the water (there was one, found because the radon in air was very high also). The neighboring homes had low levels.
Something to be diligent with.

The pesticide dilemma

2010-09-23T18:43:00.000-07:00

So much more learned and understood since undertaken the review of the information gathered from many well reports in my neck of the woods.
So much politics in an area public health should prevail, but this was what I learned.
When the pesticide, chlordane was first discovered to be a potential health problem, the US EPA banned its use in agriculture, but continued to permit its use in private residences. That was an economic issue, there was a lot manufactured and much to use up and homes had to be protected from termites, more money damages.
That was finally stopped in 1988.
During the first period, 1948 to 1977, we ingested many pounds of the pesticides eating our veggies.
Most of us did not have serious effects, some of us did.
Dieldren, the other pesticide in question in my area, is still not even regulated by the US EPA, their statement is that it is not manufactured any more so does not pose a threat.
Both of these pesticides were applied on excavated areas before a home was built.
Dieldren does not seem to have a discernible half life, samples taken from the same home in 1996 had virtually the same levels in 2008.
Chlordane does degrade into alpha and gamma chlordane over time. Alpha and gamma chlordane are not regulated.
Some of this was very surprising, some of the things that were not are listed below.
Farms would have large disposal areas for their product waste and that would include large amounts of any pesticide applied.
Normal, everyday people would dispose of waste pesticides or clean out private sprayers, some where in the same place in their own back yards.
Distance of a well to a home was not regulated and so a well could be dug directly adjacent to a foundation.
Percentage of wells with contamination varies directly with how close the well is to the foundation.
Wells within 25 feet of the foundation have the greatest chance of having some trace amount of pesticides in the well. Well greater than 75 feet did not have an occurrence of pesticide in the water.
Substances found in the outfall from Scofieldtown park (a former dump site), were not found in any near by wells.
Same was true of pesticides found in the soil at Bartlett Arboretum, they were not found in any well adjacent to the property nor on the property.
That is what I have learned..

NRDC reports on beaches

2010-07-31T06:14:00.000-07:00

There are many things that one can say on these yearly reports and i find much of my attitude toward them as "they still do not really understand at all".
Why?
While they do provide open discussion about the quality of swimming water in America and do raise awareness of what we have done to our planet (not that it would matter much if we were suddenly gone, the planet would heal itself), but they have missed balance.
Balance? What does that have to do with anything?
If you believe the ideas and myths presented of the "American Indian" and how they lived in harmony with nature (not totally in reality, but better than we), there is to be harmony and balance between man and nature.
The NRDC and the US EPA are "clean water" agencies and that means they would be very happy if all the water in the world was without any materials of any kind other than water.
That, to me, would mean sterile water with no life
Why?
The reality is that water carries with it normal things from the land to water that provides life for the tiniest organisms which allow other organisms to feed and the cycle goes upward.
Man partakes of this food chain at thew higher levels and so must put back a proportional amount to balance the equation.
Of course we have not done this.
We have put things in there to kill things we do not like (pesticides and other poisons). We have put things from the manufacture of items to kill our selves (lead and mercury). We even have put all of our waste, with out any sorting of good from bad, in the same waters.
So the organisms the US EPA is worried about and uses to monitor water quality are organisms that are common to humans, enterococcus and fecal coliform, but they have many, many natural sources as well and are part of the cycle of life.
They also are linked to human illness.
So when a town like Stamford, closes its beaches after a heavy rain, it is not because of man-made pollution, it is because the normal cycle of washing the earth has brought these organisms into the water for a time. It will eventually increase aquatics life and bathers are inconvenienced for a day.
This of course is not what the US EPA nor the NRDC wants, they want no beach closures ever and i think it is rather selfish of us to think this way.

Public health beginnings

2010-06-29T18:14:00.000-07:00

The beginnings of public health started with infection diseases transmuted by sewage tainted water.
While there have been many advances, expanding into all communicable diseases and infirmities caused by different kinds of pollution, (some natural and some man made) , much of public health's triumphs have been in the area of preventing the transmission of disease through human sewage influence water.
Sewage treatment plants deal with vast quantities of effluent and use various methods to destroy the bacteria and viruses that cause human disease.
What would you think if a treatment plant notified proper authorities of a spill and those authorities did nothing to warn people who might be exposed to that water?
That is my question today...

The turning point generation

2010-06-14T13:37:00.000-07:00

And we are it!
Why from 1947 to 1977, we used pesticides and other sort of manufactured chemicals to "improve" our quality of life.
Pesticides were sprayed heavily on all fruits and vegetables making the consumption of such things "normal" . This was to make crop yields higher and reduce damage by insects.
There was no such thing as organic and the amounts of pesticides those of us who are 33 or older have consumed are astronomical.
Some one some where figured out this might not be good for use and a quiet revolution that began in the 1960's, blossomed into a realization of what we were doing to our selves.
We also dumped, EVERYTHING, in OUR OWN BACKYARDS.
We did not have recycling centers and waste oil from changing our own cars oil to paint brush cleaner where dumped somewhere on our own property.
Slowly we became smarter to realize that may be this was not a good thing.
Pesticides were slowly changed or eliminated, recycling began, but we are the product of the things we and for some of us, our parents did.
We find this stuff everywhere and as we become aware, we try to eliminate it so our children do not face the same toxins.
The "blame game" that is so much a part of the current Scofield circus is sad. Clean it up, absolutely!
Change the rules that allowed this, yes.
But we or our parents did this and we are the turning point generation, the ones who have to make sure our children do not deal with the same.
It is not time to blame anyone, but to work together to make change.

A question of when, not if...

2010-05-28T14:06:00.000-07:00

Work is now being done on the Mill River park again, ignoring the political and economic issues associated with this work, i find my self wondering what kind of engineers are they using?
Earlier in the year we had some significant rain, it was not all that unusual, large amounts of rain and flooding occur often in the spring and fall and sometimes in the summer.
This a picture of the flood...

This is a picture of the planting they are doing.

All will be under water and those were very strong flows!

It just will not hold for one of those floods.

Risk Factors

2010-05-12T13:56:00.000-07:00

Well over 30 years ago, i worked at an adhesives and plastics corporation.
It was not my first venture into the chemical industry, but it was eye-opening.
The company received a request from a very well known food company that there was a taste and odor problem in some of their product and could we help determine the cause.
There were consumer complaints.
This company's role was that they manufactured plastic adhesives to meld food packaging with product advertising packaging and this was used with the packaging for the product.

What we found was that the solvent used in the adhesive were still present in the finished product and that included some nasty, carcinogenic and toxic solvents.
The fix was that the heat sealer had broken and had been so for some months and was replaced at the packing plant.
The tainted product had been in the consumer market for over 4 months.
No recall was issued, no government agency was informed and life went on for the company (both of them) as if nothing had ever happened.
I was young and kept no documentation and so this is considered "hearsay".
but if one company can do that, how many others do it?
We wonder why there is such an increase in cancer and other problems?

The US EPA, my tirade

2010-05-03T14:00:00.000-07:00

I think most people reading this blog realize I have a bit of a disdain for the US EPA.
Recently, in the news, the issue of PCB's in caulk at New York Public schools were brought to a climax with an agreement to "study" the real health issue.
They set a standard in 1977 (?) and now are kind of backing down because of the huge cost for remediation.
This is mostly the case for Us EPA policy.
Another example is that there were many pesticides banned for commercial use in 1977, particularly in agriculture, but pest control companies were allowed to use them for residential homes termite remediation! Where it may well be part of the issue in some of the wells in the North Stamford area.

Money and health do not mix, except at the US EPA.

One Norwalk Shellfish operation

2010-04-17T17:46:00.000-07:00

I know that Soundbounder did a post recently on Norm Bloom's shellfish operation, but i got to go visit with Stamford's shellfish commission.
The first thing that struck me was the smells, the fresh sea smells. No decay, rest a wonderful sea salty smell that reminded me of Galveston and the shrimp boats.

Then there are the oysters and clams -piles and pile of them.
They made my mouth water!
Here are pictures:

First the oyster, just harvested, piles of them!:

Then we get to some of the workings:

A few boats in dock:

Then to an incoming boat:

The real cultivating of the oysters that he does is incredicble.

Sadly, no samples were available for organoleptic testing.

Phobias

2010-04-02T05:13:00.000-07:00

We all have them, if we admit it.
Fear of germs, bugs, insects, spiders, snakes, SUV's. etc...
How do they effect us and what we do to the environment?
Farmers had a phobia of insects ruining their crops and insecticides were created and used (that goes back a long time to Egyptian times by the way).
I think that one will cause us problems for a long time to come.
Of course that one still continues to day and has spread to urban dwellers (to control roaches and bed bugs) and suburban dwellers (to control, ants, ticks, termites. etc...).
I do not use them. I will use a bug spray on my self, but that is because of the next one...
Then there is a fear of germs and so everyone uses antibacterial whatever to try to stop them.
We will never and they are so necessary that it is a good thing.
Bacteria, most bacteria are very beneficial and necessary for life (and death) and we try to randomly stop them all.
I will admit to using chlorox, but I am mostly trying to stop bacteria "mats" from forming and making things slippery.
Having dealt with some of the worst bacteria this world has to offer (note I did not say viruses, thankfully we are not that sophisticated), Clorox is my lifeline. At the same time, I don't really care about all the grimy every day bacteria that are in the soil and door knobs. When I cook food, I wash my hands very, very often, too many of those nasties live in the food we buy and I prefer not to pass them on to the people I serve.
Now the question, what happens to all those antibacterial products we use when we are finished with them?
They go down the drain and many keep killing, long after their job with you is done,
I do like Clorox because it tends to get destroyed by common soil organics, Some of the by products I do not like, but some of the others keep killing at very small concentrations,
What about peroxide? great stuff, but does not penetrate the bacterial mats well enough for me, And surprise as a very reactive substance, it also creates unusual compounds with soil organics, but it is not too bad.
So my statement?
I would like not to use anything and regular soap does a great job of removing bacteria from your hands with out destroying the rest of the world. Yes regular soap, the pH and lathering does wonders! So does hot water.
Use the tough stuff only when you have to and sparingly.

The Mill River has the last laugh!

2010-04-01T15:36:00.000-07:00

With all the rain the past month, the Mill River has over flowed its newly prepared banks each time around the now deconstructed Mill River Park.
While pictures are worth a thousand words, I really only have the over flowed river.

The large boulders that were to be the rivers right bank edge are now almost an island as the river has had its way with the ways of men,
When will we ever learn?

Confusion

2010-03-24T18:34:00.000-07:00

It was way too cold this winter, it started late in New England and I had parsley from my garden for Thanksgiving for the first time since i have been up here.
The cold weather reached Florida this year and the tomato crops were killed.
There was a lot of snow, all over the country, but the East coast has had record breaking warm weather for mid march, unheard of.
There are already floods on the rivers from all the snow melting.
This is the confusion about global warming or rather climate change.
We, who are not studying it, think with what we experience on a daily or seasonal basis and it becomes confusing.
Climate change means things are less predictable, an El Nino forms are the weather gets strange, we get more storms, more snow, more cold in one part that is typically very cold and another gets warmer weather. Storms become harder to predict, a 25 mph front becomes a 80 mph hurricane.
It is the unpredictability of the weather that makes it climate change, not how cold or hot it is today or tomorrow or even this year. Those are all variables. It is the difference from normal patterns that spells a significant change. It is abnormal fluctuations that are the problem and then there is the average temperature of the entire globe, which, despite cold in one place or another, is still going up.
We are in a solar minimum and that effects things greatly. If it were not a minimum, the temperature would still be hotter. The sun has a lot to say about it, so do we.
Now what about our part in it?
It is arrogance for us to think we do not effect the planet in very significant ways.
Is ours a major player? No the major player is the sun and volcanoes, but we still have a part to play.
The climate changes and swings naturally also, but for us to deny that we contribute is arrogance or worse, greed. Because it takes money and effort and it affects the bottom line for a company not to have an impact.
Will it happen any way? I would say yes.
Will it happen sooner if we do not do something to stop it? I would say yes.
so why not try to help at least our grand children and they may be able to adapt.
It is clear that politicians and companies have no clue the way the debate rages on.
It is time to stop listening to either side of that debate, listen to the entire earth, we might see something.

Poll results

2010-03-18T16:44:00.000-07:00

I was surprised and learned some things.
The first is that there is a movement away from bleach usage, but it is very small and most people have no idea about it.
While the poll was not scientifically random, it did include a wide cross section of people.
27 responders
3 no longer use bleach or try to use other products labeled "eco-friendly"
that left 24 in the category of "Who does not use bleach?"
To me, the 3 are significant in that I was not aware of any do not use bleach movement.
I had no responders from out of the USA.
The 3 were from different areas of the country, were different age groups and different politics (I am very sure of this in 2 cases, but not the third).
I learned something.

Information needed

2010-03-12T11:31:00.001-08:00

This is an informal poll and is an attempt for me to gain knowledge and change my attitude if necissary.
I recently have had a couple of people tell me they never use bleach or bleach products,
Bleach products would include products that have chlorox in them (laundry bleach, cleaning products with bleach, mildew stain removal products, many disinfecting liquids), most pool disinfecting chemicals (bromine is another), most automatic dishwasher detergents and many other cleaning products.

The question starts with my statement that I do not know anyone who does not use some product with bleach in it.
Do you know anyone WHO DOES NOT USE ANY product with bleach?
Please respond with the location of the world (Provence or state and country) and what is the alternative used.

scofieldtown dump - the investigation

2010-03-10T18:38:00.000-08:00

As meeting progress and people leave and new people come and ideas change hands and people get angry. I am still waiting for the science. Yes, I am admitted "Squint" (as coined in the TV show; Bones).
All those homes that were tested (I count 197, plus some that were done by private home owners and then shared), what was the big deal?
The START survey contracted by the US EPA found pesticides in some wells on Hannah's Road. They found a spot with some Dieldren in the playground are of the dump, but what else was found?
It is not talked about. The public talks VOCs.SVOCs. Heavy metals, but the things found in the greatest concentrations in the area where the water drains out of the dump, were none of those.
It was old pesticides, DDT and its family (DDE and DDD) and a PCB pesticide Archlor. Those levels were hundreds to tens of thousands of times greater than dieldren found. If the dump was a source, they would be in the wells. They were looked for, they were not found even in a trace amount.
The START testing looked at VOCs. I was interested in VOCs, which are solvents and components of oil and gasoline. The START testing found acetone, but in the quality control a "field blank" is carried with the sampler to ensure that any false contamination would not be introduced into the other samples. The field blank had acetone. Eliminate that as a VOC.
So out of the 197 homes tested, all for VOCs. what was the outcome? Mostly chlorination and bromination by-products, all easily attributable to pools and hot tubs in the area and household bleach use. There were a couple of strange chemicals found in 2 wells in trace amounts (Chlorotoluene), and two wells which had oil or gas residue. One well with a paint solvent. All of then very separate from each other.
The big thing about the site is there was a salt dome that was kept there, uncovered for years and some anecdotal evidence that the salt was buried into the dump after each season. This would mean that thee are tons of water soluble sodium chloride flowing underground.
The wells in the area are very similar, most less than 300 feet in depth and only have 20 feet of casing. there are many treatment softening systems used most disposing of the regeneration brine into their own septic systems. Salt levels are varied, mostly along the lines of where the softeners are. This can be further verified by levels of potassium, where the regeneration brine used was potassium chloride.
There are many other factor, the Villa Maria complex was an old farm house which farmed a large area. there was a road leading south to what loos like a dump site for the farm, this is where Very Merry Rod ends.
Many wells were dug very close to the homes, there are no regulations and some of them abut the foundation. Any termite treatment, which digs a hole 3 to 4 feet into the ground and then has an insecticide solution poured into it at intervals around the entire foundation of the home would effect a well that close to the foundation.
The issue is complex, but who fault is it?
All of ours because it is the years of not understanding what these chemicals could do to us and using them so haphazardly.
The dump is not the issue, all of us are the issue.

The anatomy of an outbreak

2010-03-08T11:31:00.000-08:00

It starts with a report because somewhere someone was sick enough to either be admitted to a hospital or get their doctor concerned enough to check out why they were so sick.
Then another report.
The second report should trigger an investigation, sometimes it does, some times not, but the third does.
Interviews are performed and a location that fits the time frame is uncovered.
Workers are then queried:
Is any one sick? The response is usually a unified no.
More questions about what they do, when they work.
Then general food handling practice.
What do they work with?
Do they use gloves?
Do they wash their hands?
They all know the right answers, but occasionally some one blanches on a question nad we know the truth.
Stool samples are required of every worker.
They do not report all the people who work there, but samples form the workers come back positve.
Some confess they have been sick. They know that if they are positive they will be out of work for at least 2 weeks.
The owner gets upsets, "we cook our chicken to 550 degrees!", he exclaims.
We look at each other and tell him it is not the chicken. that it probably was someone who was sick working with out gloves on the salad. he blanches and asks, gloves? Salad?
A worker comes in, not on our list.
They work nights.
They were not told about the problem.
They have been sick.
They say everyone has been sick.
We know, we say.
More positive stools and now the restaurant is closed because all their workers test positive, even the owners.
We are told of people having been sick who ate there, but it is now a long while and they are okay.
When did it start? We do not know.
How many people got sick? A lot, many more than we will ever find.
Why. why don't they wash their hands?

The great Oxygen debate

2010-02-19T12:03:00.000-08:00

Lack of oxygen in the Long Island Sound is increasing. That is bad news, but it gets worse, the algae and nitrogens everyone blamed, are also decreasing.
The EPA had a large research boat in Long Island Sound several months ago, everyone is still waiting for the results.
The results have not been released because they do not know what to make of them.
Things are not what they expected.
Check the iron out guys, check what has happened to the iron.
That horrible black sludge loaded with sulfides, iron sulfides, gobble up oxygen like a hungry Pac man.
The oxidation process uses lots of oxygen.
The anaerobic conditions create the sulfides and the sulfides maintain them.
This is not a good situation.

Conffusion about Global warming

2010-01-31T16:57:00.000-08:00

That is what you get if you look at the weather outside on any single day.
Global warming is about a cumulative effect over time. Yesterdays and today's cold weather here in CT mean nothing because, If I wanted to look at it that way, I was picking parsley for dinner at Thanksgiving.
Neither tell a full story.
We can measure a definite increase in CO2 in the atmosphere that has been happening since the industrial revolution. That will warm things up, but it will also make the weather even more unpredictable than it already is because things get unstable,
On the other side people want to blame global warming for loss of fidh in the Long Island Sound and that is not so easily proved.
As I have pointed out, man still was a major contributor, but our clean-up efforts have not occurred with our full understanding of what the impact is.
So in the freezing Northeast (Today) or the snowy Mid Eastern seaboard (today) or in warmer Arizona (currently) we will see what tomorrow will bring.
What ever we do, we have to think it through carefully.

Scofield

2010-01-24T17:06:00.000-08:00

I said I would not post until things were finished, they are not finished I and will not yet go into details, however, i will explain about my role.
From June 2009 when they gave me the results from the START testing performed under the direction of the EPA, every bit of analysis and result has passed through my hands. And I have given each piece scrutiny.
Every single local official involved has heard my take on things, every single one has ask me multitude of questions.
Actions do not have to be based on what i say, but what ever i have said, has been heard.
Any resident calling in has heard the same story from me from almost day one. My story has not changed and the case i have made has had more evidence come in its favor.

On the professional level, i have done this type of thing for 30 years. I have directed investigations and found answers. i have been brought before courts and what I have had to say has been borne out.
I have approached this just like any investigation, environmental, forensic or whatever comes into the lab.
I have nothing to lose by making anything up and anyone can be annoyed at me for what i say, but the reality is, I am the expert in this town.
What I have heard in the papers and in the meeting, i do not think anyone really wants to look at the big picture. No one, not the residents, not the DEP, not the local decision makers want to face what may very well be a national issue.

Enough said on that.

As every one bickers over one thing or another, looking for some one to blame, they forget, we all are to blame. Me also, because we never thought these things we used so profusely in the past, would effect us today. it does not matter if we did not use them, we allowed them and now we pay the price.

The strange logic is no one is looking how all hydrologist view water wells of the depth that they are in Stamford. They draw down and there is only twenty feet of casing between them and the surface.
Every hydrology books talks of it and all of them talk of septic systems being the primary recharge for a relatively (less than 500 feet) shallow water well

Enough of that.

If this becomes a legal issue, I still will not post on the subject and you will not here from me again unless you ask me as a resident in person.

H1N1 Influenza Novel update

2010-01-14T11:49:00.000-08:00

We are currently in the second round (from all that I gather), round of the H1N1 influenza virus coming around.
I hear they are expecting it again.
The vaccines have been effective for those who received them and now the clinics are being openned to everyone, not just children or people with children.
The last clinic the Stamford health Department jad in the beginning of January had close to 1,000 people get vaccinated.
People do take this seriously now that the "Hysteria" has died down.
There will be another one at the end of the month, so keep looking at the Health Department Website for more info.

New Info about hypoxia

2009-12-19T07:51:00.000-08:00

This is a follow up to a Long Island Sound Muck sample.
It may have provided some answers, unexpectedly.
It may be pointing to a disaster that regulation will no longer solve.
The issue came about when I was asked by Art Glowka if there was any iron in the Sound sediment.
I knew there was because the H2S /carbonate/sulfate laden muck had now some Iron Oxide showing.
I had sealed the container some time ago and the only oxygen that would have been in there would be from the Quart container.
I never thought much about it, until Art asked the question.
I had thought that the H2S would deal with the oxygen and there would be no chance of oxidation, but here it was, not the entire contents, but small portions.
And the oxygen was gone from the container.
Someone else has proposed that there are anaerobic sink holes from the oxygen data in the sound.
The oxygen in the container was scavenged by the iron, that would cause a sink hole.
What has happen has happened, but no amount of regulation is going to get rid of this oxygen scavenger.
This is permanent and the only way to fix the problem will be to provide large amounts of oxygen to the system...directly.

Scofield

2009-12-16T11:19:00.001-08:00

I did not know where to post this, really.
One part is a commentary on people and my own attitude to my problems, the other is environmental.
The Stamford Advocate predicted a difficult meeting tonight on Scofieldtown issues.
People expect that the board will say that the contamination issues are not the dump and that the board is lying and covering up.
The question would be why would they cover it up?
Very few of them have anything to gain by covering it up, but what if all the facts point to the current contamination found not being from the dump?
Everyone wants someone to blame. They have health problems that "must" be coming form contamination.
As I have written before, this country has a long history of misuse of pesticides and it is coming back to bite us.
The problem will be if the "city" does not take some action to help the people who have or may have a problem.
The personal part; when they found that big old tumor in the back of my head, i was scared, but I did not blame anyone for its presence in my body. It was there, it had to come out.
It was no ones fault, get it out and let me go on.
That was the solution. it had serious consequences. That was not anyone's fault either. I am learning to deal.
The problem will be if officials say; "well its not the dump. Its your problem, we won't help in anyway."
That would be wrong.
A testing program needs to continue. When there are problems, filters must be provided.
Water company water should be expanded where it can. Wells need to be abandoned.
The dump needs to be cleaned up so it will never be an issue again.
That is all.

It is all our fault

2009-12-08T13:02:00.000-08:00

We have not been active enough.
We were not concerned enough.
We took to long to act when we knew it was necessary.
While I will not yet share all the the things I have seen in the study of the wells around Scofield park, I still believe it is all of the environmental professionals fault that this issue has occurred.
We did not know enough and did not require the proper observations to protect peoples health.

The expert thing and global warming

2009-11-26T18:38:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I have made myself into some kind of an expert according to this blog, but what does that mean and why?
First I no way did I every intend to be an expert, I just wanted to be a bench chemist, that is the work I love.
I did not go for a masters degree because that would mostly mean administrative work and i really wanted to be on the bench. I did not want to get a PhD, but obviously with the peer reviewed research i have done, I guess I could have, but that is not what I wanted to be known as.
What I wanted to do was two fold - I wanted to feel useful to others and i wanted to satisfy my curiosity.
The job at the Health Department was the door, my boss was the vehicle, he let me "go" in anything environmental as long as we did not have to spend too much money getting there.
When i worked for private industry, what you did with a sample was strictly limited to what you were asked to find, even if you "saw" hints of something that might be important.
At the Health Department, if I wanted to look at chloride for every sample that came into the lab, I could. If I decided nutrients were a was of time for beach samples, it was my decision.
The restriction was my curiosity.
That of course led to the first paper on softener discharge and increased salt levels in the water nearby wells.
The learning programming languages and databases help all of that, I could compile information easier and look at more variables with much greater ease.
Curiosity is then my major thing. If i saw nitrite in well water, i looked for bacteria. If they had a softener treatment on the water, I looked for chloride levels.
Learning about bacteria at beaches help begin processes at a national level.
I was just curious.
And that brings me acknowledgment from state and Federal scientists, that certified me as a expert, but it was all curiosity, always asking questions. Always asking: "What is this telling me?"
Global warming - I said i was going to say something about this.
It is based on a simple observation this year.
I have lived in Connecticut 33 years and seen 33 winters and 33 Thanksgiving and I always wanted to have parsley from my garden in the feast.
This is the first tine in 33 years that has happened.
Global warming is real.

What has happen, we have done to ourselves!

2009-11-15T08:15:00.000-08:00

This is not about the dump, even though the Advocate wrongly says the underground water for North Stamford is bad.
No, this is about a whole host of things that have happened as we push "suburbia" further into undeveloped land.
The first portion of this is Lyme disease, it was discovered relatively recently, but in all actuality, it has existed for a long time.
As we pushed housing developments further into the woods, we eliminated the various predators of deer and the white footed mouse. The change in species allowed a proliferation of both and Lyme and the tick became more prevalent. This is not my study, this was a study done in Westchester county and clearly categorized the changes in species, but anyone could easily tell that the deer population has increased.
The second portion is Long Island Sound - this year there were fewer fish than ever before and everyone who has concerns is worried because all the things they have done to "clean up" the Sound have failed miserably.
How we changed the Sound and made it dependent on our "organic" pollution (Read treatment plant waste) and then fed into it all the things we put on ur lawns to make it prety has killed the Sound. Although I am involved, the biggerstudies have been done by the Marine fisheries division of NOAA and some graduate students in New York.
The third portion has to do with our drinking water - This is more complex, but still our fault.
Small farms , which prospered after World War II, did so using the new and amazing chemicals we made to control pests. Soon it was not profitable to have a farm of only a 100 acres or so and the land became more valuable as real estate. Small farms were subdivided into lots where houses were built and who would ever think that they were time bombs? They were away from public water and wells were drilled.
So for 30 to 50 years, these homes have been pulling down the clean out products of the farmer. the land was not pristine, it was hazardus, for after every spray with these "wonder" chemicals, the farmer had to clean out his canisters and those become hot spots.
Others of us dumped still more chemicals into land fills and backyards and into septic systems never dreaming that there would ever be a problem.
This has been found by epidemiologist studing developed farm land and cancer clusters.
We did it to our selves in our precieved needs and our lack of understanding.
All of these occur because

H2S not out of the picture

2009-10-31T05:58:00.000-07:00

The other day, as I was relaxing a bunch of chemical "balancing" equations came to mind, mostly having to do with the Long Island Sound Oxygen deprivation.

2O2 + H2S + CaCO3 → H2CO3 + CaSO4
NH4+ + 2O2 → NO2 + 2H2O
NO2 + O2 → H2O + NO3-

The reality is that we are getting a lot of low oxygen levels with no or little plankton/algae present.
What i saw in the sediment suddenly came to life as I realized that it was the reaction of H2S with carbonates, using up significant oxygen in the process.
The issue Art Glowka brought up for consideration is not out of the equation, rather may be an even more important part of it.
He brought to mind cyano bacteria, bacteria which fix nitrogen into ammonia and then to Nitrite and then on to Nitrate. They are not facultative anaerobic organisms and so need oxygen to survive, unlike the organisms that are and many times produce H2S as a byproduct.
The high level of Sulfate in the water fits the balanced equation.
Still asking questions about all of this, so this is not an end post.

H1N1 Influenza A - update for Stamford

2009-10-27T10:48:00.000-07:00

Please refer inquiries for H1N1 vaccine to our website (www.cityofstamford.org) -- link on front page, or our hotline 977-4213. We are now extending the vaccine to healthy children 2 years to 6 years of age and healthy non-pregnant parents, care-givers, and household contacts of infants less than 6 months of age.

Questions and more questions

2009-10-26T13:21:00.000-07:00

As I scratched my thoughts about H2S and Hypoxia, several new things have emerged.
First a paper published on Lake Erie (so definitely not by me) gave phosphorus and phosphate a new role as the limiting factor in algae growth in marine waters (this has always been true of Fresh water, but the thinking has always been that it was different for salt water).
This apparently has gotten many from the EPA to question their direction in the Sound (about time).
Two questions were posed to me by Art Glowka.
The first was concerning cyano-bacteria, which are now known as blue-green algae. They fix Nitrogen, meaning that they take available nitrogen and turn it to ammonia, which in turn is changed to Nitrite (2 oxygens) and then Nitrate (3 oxygens). Could this be a pathway causing Hypoxia?
The second has to do with a graph, long published in the New York water quality report and now omitted, showing the beginning of significant Hypoxia in the Long Island Sound occurring around 1977.
This coincides with two events, me moving up to Connecticut and the beginning of sewage treatment plant "clean up".
Is it all coincidental? For one part of that, I certainly hope so, the other is a question that we may try to answer when I try to get back to the Long Island Sound.

What is the deal (H1N1 Infuenza A novel)

2009-10-19T19:02:00.000-07:00

The CDC stopped tallying cases,
They estimated the US has had already had 1 million cases!
The Normal Flu season does not start until late November, we are experiencing large numbers of Flu cases...
it is ALL H1N1 at this point.

The vaccine is available, just like all other flu vaccines, except they have a way to give it with out sticking you.

Get the vaccine...if your doctor recommends it.

influenza

2009-10-16T13:14:00.000-07:00

I saw this in a public health presentation and knew it must be posted.
Normally i am very serious on the site and the various influenzas we are dealing with have many people concerned.
The vaccines are here. I got the regular one already and the H1N1 will be distributed soon, I will get that one also.
How about you?

The use and misuse of hysteria

2009-10-09T12:25:00.000-07:00

This week has been an interesting week with news concerning the H1N1 influenza novel circulating about, the arrival of the vaccine at the health department, some differed knowledge about rabies, more information and misinformation on the Scofieldtown dump and surrounding wells and several unrelated well water issues.
The news about the influenza is that there are deaths, which is not surprising, all flues kill an amazing number of people. The issue is that this flu is particularly dangerous for Healthy individuals. the vaccine is here and we should be fore armed with it.
The rabies info had to do with a scratch of someone pregnant. I do not know the issues with the rabies vaccine and pregnancy. I deferred that info to more qualified persons. The person calling called the incident minor ( a scratch by a raccoon), but I had to say that because a raccoon is a major vector of rabies, it is still serious.
The hysteria about the dump is currently very difficult to manage, there a lot of erroneous information being spread by word of mouth that only heightens fear and serves basically none one. The most ridiculous one was that the water company uses the water from the Rippowan river for drinking. that was a malicious lie and anything else that person spreading that lie should also be disbelieved.
The demand for heavy metal testing is one I can understand because most people do not understand metals. in the environment, especially here in Stamford a well drilled 50 feet away from from a well high in the normal metals found in the area (iron and manganese) will not have any.
The reason is because metals tend to turn into not just insoluble compounds of oxides, chlorides, carbonates, sulfates and the like, but these compounds actually bind with the surrounding soil making it almost impossible for them to move through the ground. This is true of most of the metals found at the dump. they will be carried above ground by rivers and streams and rain, but in the ground they do not move well at all.
Of course because of the real concerns in the Hannah's Road, Very Merry Road and Larkspur Road, many people are becoming aware that they need to have their water checked.
Well's have seals that over time can fail, about 5% in a 30 year period. When the water does not taste "right" suddenly, check for bacteria.
Such was the case this week and it was contaminated with bacteria. The issue is that the seal on the well can deteriorate and allow surface water into the well and also the bacteria it carries. It is not an underground problem, it is an above ground issue, soil carried the bacteria we look for, wells should not have it. Of course the question was first asked by the homeowner, "We do not live anywhere near the dump, how could this be?" Of course it had nothing to do with the dump.
The final story had to do with a plumber/ well person calling me hysterical because I called Hydrogen Sulfide dangerous. Strange, you can look in any hazardous chemical book and find out how dangerous it really is. the source may be very simple, a uncared for "swimming hole" which was full of decomposing organics (leaves and such) creating an anaerobic (without oxygen) situation where bacteria creates hydrogen sulfide. The well was close to this spot and so would draw it down. the battery of treatment units on the water did not remove the problem. There were other issue with the home, but the constant head aches can be linked to constant exposure to the hydrogen sulfide at low levels over time.
The good news? Water company water is readily available.

Other issues had to do with bacteria being found in homes with carbon filters. Carbon filters do NOT remove bacteria, but the tests were done by outside labs but when I repeated the test, there was no "coliform" bacteria. There were a few non-coliform colonies which the people will take the info to their doctors because of special situations. the bacteria may have been introduced by plumbing work (most likely).

So endeth the lessons.

What goes in the ground....

2009-09-21T17:10:00.000-07:00

The protection of well water.
We will start with what people do not want to hear first and go from there.
If you are on a well, I would never add man made fertilizer or insecticides or herbicides to the lawn. Period.
It will get into the well.
A well draws in a manner that can be almost considered conical. That deep water "aquifer" that seems to be a prevalent notion is not all that is talked about.
Bedrock is not a solid impermeable mass that keeps surface water from deep water. It is full of cracks and crevices and areas where the water from top goes down into the water bearing rock.
The recharge area for a well can be describe as a direct relation between its depth and yield. The deeper a well or the more yield it has, the further the draw range of the well.
Rain water provides a good portion of the water that comes from a well, so what you put on your lawn, you drink.
Soils filter out a great number of things - bacteria, very quickly and many common items that are nutrient based.
Gasoline and oils, not at all. And pesticides. even though they are not generally water soluble, will slowly find their way to a well.
If the well is near a river, what is in the river, what is dumped in the river, will also find its way into the well. A river will skew the conical draw of a well with it giving more to the well than the rain.
Then there are septic systems, usually put on the other side of a house, but septic systems are considered the primary recharge for wells. All the normal stuff is well filtered out by 25 feet, but what if you clean out your oil based paint brushes in the slop sink leading to the well? Right into your drinking water.
How far is this influence of a recharge zone? Deepends on the draw of the well, the depth and yeild, but it can be up to 200 yards, easily.
What about a dump?
It could effect wells near it.
Here though is also where the idea of an "aquifer" comes to play. Ground water and subsurface water slowly seeps in a down slope manner.
In Connecticut, the Glaciers created a general movement North to South.
You look to the south of a dump for the worst of the situation here.
How much well contamination is from homeowners? Most.
How much from dumps? Too much.

Water woes

2009-09-19T18:04:00.000-07:00

There will be a couple of posts to clarify the main subject of this post.
This first one will deal directly with what I believe are import elements when searching for contamination in the ground.
I will focus first on the searching at Scofieldtown dump area.
Lots of things were dumped there, so a review of what should not be looked for is important.
The first 2 are metals, arsenic and mercury. They are not good things period and may or may not have been dumped at the site, but guaranteed they are in the soil. Why?
Arsenic was the primary insecticide for apple trees for years. Guess what Connecticut used to (and still does in some parts) grow abundantly? Apples.
Do I expect to be able to find arsenic in wells? Yes. Is it related to the dump? No.
Is it important? Very and my predecessor will have a machine to be able to do those surveys. I just could not coax the necessary sensitivity out of the 1985 Perkin Elmer graphite furnace AA that I got for our lab.
Mercury. the reason we have to be careful of the fish we eat is mercury and in Connecticut its main source is the Ohio coal burning electric power plants that the EPA refuses to regulate.
Right now of course the big furor is over pesticides and the residents have every right to be concerned, they are dangerous, but did it come from the dump? I doubt it.
The pesticides found were used extensively for years. Are they dangerous? Yes.
Do they get into wells after years of not being used, Yes again.
The wells in question are only a few feet from the homes, but that is a topic for another day.
The city needed to help the people. That was my push. They did.
So what should one look for?
Solvents. VOCs is the technical term, but when I find methyl ethyl ketone or toluene or trichloroethylene or any oil cutting solvent in any of the test results, that is definitely coming from the dump.
Chromium would be anothwer one, but all the past and recent tests do not show it even at the dump site.
That is my thinking.

The H2S Issue

2009-08-28T17:48:00.000-07:00

Now that we have some time to digest what we found, I can share.
We took 2 sediment samples from one point off of Todd's Point and one in Stamford harbor.
Both reasonably deep water (30 feet)
They were black and heavy, they did not smell of Hydrogen Sulfide.
The initial test I forgot to take a pH, we will do that again.
Adding acid released a lot of H2s and CO2.
When I did the actual test one came back with 2 mg/L (they were suspended in Sound water) and the other 5 mg/L
They were trapped in the carbonate material which was released during the first part of the test.
Sulfate (SO4) was 2,000 mg/L and 4,300 mg/L respectfully.
The H2S smoking Gun did not prove itself.

The Theory, the pitfalls, the execution, intial results

2009-08-20T13:09:00.000-07:00

I now have enough samples with some that do not fit the mold to understand what I am seeing.
The Theory - was that pH would allow me to tell if fresh water (and thus water with bacteria) was influencing the beaches.

The pitfalls - Although it is a determined fact that the pH of fresh water in this area is more acidic than the Estuary of Long Island Sound, there are other factors which will affect the reading.
Temperature will drive CO2 out of the water and you will get a more basic reading.
Fresh water does indeed "float" on top of the saltier and denser Long Island Sound Water.
There maybe still another temperature defendant reaction which makes the water more basic as the temperature climbs.

Because of these variables, I have also been measuring chlorides (simple way to measure salinity) and there is a good correlation between the intrusion of fresh water and pH.

Measurements were conducted of beach water (3 feet deep), shellfish waters (up to 20 feet deep) and spots in the Sound itself (up to 80 feet deep).
Outfalls from treatment plants and rivers were also measured.
This is a minimum of 20 samples a week.
All samples are taken at about 1 foot depth.
Samples were measured for pH and chlorides along with the normal bacteria densities I would perform.
Duplicate samples were used to determine validity of samples and testing and that is where the first surprise occurred. On one sample set. there was no duplication between either chloride of pH.
Since we also maintain a log of rain events and weather conditions, we could see that a 0.2" rain the night before had not mixed yet.
Tides are known and added in to the mix.
pH and chloride levels matched with information we already had deduced on tidal currents in 2 places.

Initial results - What I believe is this is an excellent method to determine flow and current in the shoreline.
Since the flows in the shoreline is difficult at best this provided a tool to assist determining this for different tide levels.

What it feeds

2009-08-03T13:06:00.000-07:00

Rain that is. June 16th we had one of those heavy rains - 3 + inches. I said then things may improve.
I was right!
Before this there seemed to be nothing living in the Sound. There was no algae, there were no small bunker (peanut bunker), there were no small game fish. There were no big fish. The jelly fish that started early in the year had also disappeared. The Sound appeared to be a dessert.

July 13th Art Glowka told me that he was suddenly seeing some algae and seaweed around. I said 3 or 4 weeks for life to come from the food that was washed into the Sound, lets see when the fish come.
This last weekend apparently the cycle came to fruition and everyone was catching, well everything!
Listen to the creatures and what they say!

Learning

2009-08-01T18:03:00.000-07:00

Approaching a new idea is not always an easy road and there are many pitfalls. So it is with my understanding of what pH and chloride levels mean in the water.
I already have maybe 40 or so samples in a week and I think I am seeing patterns of flow from the results.
I will keep looking and see what shows.

Something simple?

2009-07-27T13:21:00.000-07:00

I get "Eureka" moments when I am in the lab.
What it usually entails is more work for me to figure if something is valid or not.
Fortunately, I have the samples coming in.
It has to do with something simple. It has to do a connection I need to prove.
The first step is to show that it will work for Stamford, CT. It does not have to work any place else.
The second is to verify many times that pH and salinity are related.
The third will be to show a correlation between pH and bacteria.
This is based on the fact (already proven many times in 30 years) that all of the elevate bacteria levels come from fresh water sources.
I already have one fact, all fresh water sources have a pH more acid than the Sound.
If I can show this correlation, someone will be able to go down to the beach and determine is the water is being affected by enough fresh water to initiate a closing.
There is no waiting period for the reading, it is instantaneous. If this works, it will be far better than anything anyone has thought of.
Will it work?
I have to test this theory to find out.

The truth about what goes into the Sound

2009-07-26T07:01:00.000-07:00

You know I have been doing a significant study with Art Glowka on the discharges from treatment plants.
What I am beginning to understand is how the Sound does and does not mix with the fresh water coming from shore.
The pH reading surprised a bunch of PhD's at the Marine Fisheries Division of NOAA.
I decided to test a theory put to me by Art, that the lower pH was because the fresh water was not mixing with the Sound water because of its salinity. He was right on the money. chloride levels and pH do have a great deal of correlation.
Not a real surprise there, but it gave me a number of good ideas and one was that pH might be useful at predicting fresh water intrusion (and thus bacterial pollution) at beaches.
Another was even tho the 2 do not mix well, the nutrient load from fresh water is rapidly absorbed into the Sound and used up.
That is an important concept and one not widely accepted by anyone.

Beaches, Beach Closings and why Stamford does it

2009-07-23T12:06:00.000-07:00

An article in the New Haven Advocate had me bemused. New Haven does not close the beaches when they have high bacteria levels.
They have not figured out that it is better to protect the public's health (and what then is a Health Deaprtment?), than sit on their hands and do nothing. They feel the data comes late and so is not valid.
I figured some of it out over 20 years ago. I did the testing and saw a pattern. Rain caused an elevation in bacteria at the bathing beaches.
We figured (We had a very proactive Health Director then and was very supportive) it was better to close a beach before we had proof positive that it would cause trouble (the bacteria tests) than to let people get sick.
In 1988, we had many reports of illness from people who ignored our warnings when we put up signs saying it might not be a good idea that they swim. The next year, we were more forceful about it and because many remembered the year before, they stayed out of the water.
We were also sure this was not sewage. We did know when there was a sewage problem and that was easy to close down areas affected, but this was not.
After a year of exhaustive testing, we found out it was the storm water.
We first thought it was all the raccoons that were living in the storm drains, but in 1990, rabies came and dropped the raccoon population 95%. The water was not as bad, but it would still close the beach for bathing.
The reality, we are an urban environment, water washing over the land and into the Sound did not get treated naturally, it was piped directly to the Sound. It was not "bad" water, but while it was coming out, we needed people to stay out of the water. It only took 24 hours till it was no longer in the water. We asked why and other people, part of the USGS, figured it would go into the sand and lie there waiting to be distrurbed, but unless there was an additional "load", it would not reach health concern levels.
We looked every year at the data, learned new things, saw new patterns, learned a lot. The marine police, the lifeguards, the recreation department all could observe things and help us out. It worked. People do not report being sick from swimming in the water at the beaches. They all lnow that you do not swim after a heavy rain. They even figured it would affect the fresh water lakes and ponds, People are smart, they need to be informed and they need to be protested. Since is my part.
Whats wrong with New Haven?

Ticks and Disease

2009-07-18T08:38:00.000-07:00

It is time again that the main ticks that are active are the little larva, the ones who never fed on any thing yet and have never tested positive for any disease organism. Besides that, they are so tiny (the size of the dot in my "i") that I am always surprised when some one brings one in.
The good news is that for the next 3 months, there will be very little transmission of Lyme disease into the human population (the other ticks mostly are not feeding) until mid October!
We are still getting back reports from all the submission we have had ( it can take 6 weeks, but mostly 4 weeks) for us to get a report back from the CT Agricultural Station .
Why so long? Because they are testing all of Connecticut! That is a lot of ticks for a limited staff doing the work for free (these are really good people,trust me).
In the mean time, I put some thing on my plate that I probably should not have (see my post on overwhelmed). I was looking at tick data, data that no one else has because I will call every positive from the CT Ag Station to make sure people understand and go to their doctors. I also ask a few questions.
One thing we keep stressing is that if you find one tick, there is a chance there are more.
So when people report having symptoms and the tick is not positive or is unengorged, we make a very rational assumption that there was another tick.
While the Ag Station will put a disclaimer on all their tests, it is a very, very good test. It tests for the spirochetes in the tick by PCR. It has found the disease in ticks with no body, so it is very good!
So symptoms are the big thing. Why?
Besides the one issue I just raised, there are other issues, there are other diseases. While Lyme is spread by the white footed mouse, who remains infected for life (3 years) once it is infected. Deer do not get Lyme and can not transmit it, but they are know to carry babesia and Ehrlichia organisms. I have only had 5 posts on Lyme, so it gets to be more interesting to me than a lot of things.
Why all of this? Because one of the things I found in the survey was people having real symptoms when the tick they submitted was either not infected or unengorged.
Many doctor do treat quickly. There many cases of single dose Doxycycline being given, with no reports of symptoms afterward.
There were also cases where the doctor would not treat with out a positive blood test even though there were classic symptoms and a positive ticks.
The variance on the treatment was amazing, different drugs, different time periods, very little would even be considered standard.
That is the medical profession.
Should the Health Department take the lead on education? I think so, but it is not going to happen, the interest in being a front runner in anything is minimal.
There are many doctors who are very proactive in this area and this is a good thing.
This was just the begining of me taking apart my little survey. It does make life interesting.

Treatment plant outfall tests and why

2009-07-14T17:14:00.000-07:00

I will not probably post the raw data anymore. I will tell you that the testing was performed verifying each tests using standard, USEPA and FDA methods, quality control and collection procedures. That is if you are interested, they are logged in at the Lab.
The results are some what surprising and you may question why I did certain tests.
An example is pH. Salt water oceans tend to be significantly more basic than the fresh water feeds. This tells me more about mixing of the two than anything I could think of. Why not salinity? Because treatment plant discharge will have significant salinity (not as much as the Sound, but still, I needed a better handle and pH seems to provide that).
Turbidity? The measure of particles in the water. comparable to secchi disk readings? maybe or maybe not. Rough water would increase the reading and might give a rise in the bacteria that I looked for.
Reactive phosphate - a nutrient, suggested ny one group as the limiting factor in the Sound for algae growth.
Nitrite - nitrogen - allwos be to look at possible bacterial activity and for the test performed alows me to determine Nitrate nitrogen.
Nitrate nitrogen is the bad boy according to the US EPA, but the levels have remained consistant inthe Sound for 50 years of testing.
Total coliforms - a good general bacteria that might live anywhere.
Fecal coliforms - more of fecal origin (all kinds), but are like total coliforms saphorites (meaning they will grow in warmer water). This is used as a standard by the FDA to determine if it is okay top harvest shellfish.
E. coli - the natural kind (not H 0157) again fecal in origin.
Enterococcus - a group D spterptococcus and used by the US EPA as an indicator of health at bathing beaches. It Likes salt water!
That is what I tested for and why.

Hysteria - again

2009-07-11T06:27:00.000-07:00

The hysteria over swine flu appears to have ebbed.
The initial hysteria (mostly created by media misunderstanding) seems not to have effected to many people, yahoo recently reported that the US led the world in Swine Flu cases, there does not seem to be the initial hysteria at this point but why is this so?
It has to do with the shear volume of testing done in the US as part of routine surveillance.
What do the statistics really say?
I will use Stamford since I have access to all of that data.
in 2009 we have a total of 197 reported cases of influenza, this is more than all the other years and almost 2/5 of the total cases recorded since 2002 (7 years). This is all because of testing!
Influenza A (the normal one) accounts for 60% of the cases, H1N1 Novel (swine flu) accounts for 27%. There other types that are also being reported.
In May and June (when we began looking for the swine flu) 58% were normal influenza (even though it is NOT flu season). 37% were the H1N1 Novel (swine flu).
So cases are here, there is no need to panic or get hysterical.
The average age it affects is mostly of health young adults (~21 years) and it is not causing deaths (at least in Stamford).
The reality is that we are really looking hard and finding out more than ever before!

Combating Hysteria

2009-07-11T04:45:00.000-07:00

All who have met me in my 30 something years of working with the city, know that I am a fairly no nonsense kind of guy when it comes to m work (I won't go to out of work or non-work areas with that attitude though).
When the data has been against the city, I stand against the city, when the data does not support what the public thinks, I am sorry, I will not make things up for anyone's convenience.
StamfordNotes has a quick review of the new "documentary" about Lyme and I also heard some discussion on NPR concerning the info on the movie.
I have a rather strange stand when it comes to Lyme disease, there is a lot of unnecessary hysteria over the disease and a lot of mind boggling complacency also.
The complacency comes in the form of doctors not being proactive when it comes to treating when symptoms are present, preferring to rely on blood tests.
I take my cue in this from the state health department lab, which a number of years ago (10?), stopped offering a blood test for Lyme, even tho it is on the significant illness list of reportable diseases. Their Reasoning? The test was inaccurate! That was more than enough for me. After years of working on it, the tests still relies on an antibody response from humans to be effective. We do not all get the rash, we do not all or can identify that lousy feeling that comes form the infection. Those are immune responses, without them, the test will not work.
Now for the hysterical part. Lyme is every where, it is spreading, it will get us all.
Partly true, mostly because of man. An environmental organization in Westchester presented that the rapid spread of Lyme has been mostly because of our own push into the suburbs and the decline of predators of the white footed mouse.
Well we know that the deer population explosion is due to us and our desire to protect "Bambi", but what woth the mouse?
The mouse is the primary vector of Lyme disease, not deer. They get infected and stay so for their entire 3 year life. The deer do not get and can not pass on Lyme.
We have given them great hiding spots in loose stone walls and have pushed creatures like owls out of the area. Even the raccoon population has decreased by over 95% since 1`990 (this is due to rabies, not specifically man) and they did feast on the mice as well.
But Lyme disease has remained at a constant infection level since 1989 (when we did the first testing), It has not increased in prevalence and the reality is that we were very late is discovering something that has been in this country for long before we were.
So whay is not every one crippled with Lyme?
Thjat is the next point of hysteria - when doctors prescribed antibiotic for just about everything, a person with sudden aches would go on a quick course and weather theree were other things involved or not any possibility of Lyme disease was stopped in its tracks.
The organism is very susepible to antibiotics. Its effects may linger for years, but that is not the disease anymore, it is not dissimilar to syphilus in that way, if you do not treat it early, you will always have a "marker" showing you have been exposed.
Quick treatment works!
The studies on the single dose have been performed and by several orginizations, the New England Journal of Medicine and the Chicago Journal of Medicine are a couple.
It works, convincing doctors of that is a different sstory, the CDC refers to those orginizations in regards to the single dose of doxycycline within 72 hours of a tick bite, other wise it is 4 weeks.
Convincing people who have not discovered a problem until months after and having doctors who now are reluctant to treat gives great rise to hysteria.
It is actually understandable, but it is not the end of the world and we are not all going to be horribly crippled by untreatable Lyme.
And yes I have had Lyme, twice and do understand it well.

What happens in Greenwich

2009-07-10T19:46:00.000-07:00

The following are taken in similar intervals as from Stamford's treatment Plant. There are major differences! The tides are incoming on both samples (Greenwich and Stamford).

Outside Captain's island (Basically in the Sound)
total coliform CFUs/100 mL 20
fecal coliform CFUs/100 mL 2
Escherichia coli CFUs/100 mL 2
enterococcus CFUs/100mL 16
phosphorus as reactive phosphate less than 0.221 mg/L
nitrite nitrogen less than 0.003 mg/L
nitrate nitrogen 0.588 mg/L
pH 8.33
turbidity 1.52 NTU

mid Greenwich harbor
total coliform CFUs/100 mL 44
fecal coliform CFUs/100 mL 4
enterococcus CFUs/100 mL 32
Escherichia coli CFUs/100 mL 4
phosphorus as reactive phosphate less than 0.221 mg/L
nitrite nitrogen less than 0.003 mg/L
nitrate nitrogen 0.647 mg/L
pH 8.22
turbidity 1.36 NTU

Indian Harbor Yacht club
total coliform CFUs/100 mL 500
fecal coliform CFUs/100 mL 90
enterococcus CFUs/100 mL 160
Escherichia coli CFUs/100 mL 70
phosphorus as reactive phosphate 0.224 mg/L
nitrite nitrogen less than 0.003 mg/L
nitrate nitrogen 0.772 mg/L
pH 7.90
turbidity 2.15 NTU

Grass island Boat Ramp (near the treatment plant discharge)
total coliform CFUs/100 mL 670
fecal coliform CFUs/100 mL 120
enterococcus CFUs/100 mL 190
Escherichia coli CFUs/100 mL 80
phosphorus as reactive phosphate 0.471 mg/L
nitrite nitrogen 0.004 mg/L
nitrate nitrogen 0.935 mg/L
pH 7.72
turbidity 2.30 NTU

Note the gradual increase in Nitrogen . Phosphate and turbidity and decrease in pH as the samples approach the treatment plant discharge.

Statistics and epidemiology

2009-07-09T13:19:00.000-07:00

I am posting this so that you will take the next post(s) with a proper understanding of what you can and con not say using statistics.
The following is a very good example of the convoluted way to say something that is absolutely WRONG by using statistic (and epidemiology).

For those of you who watch what you eat, here's the final word on nutrition and health. It's a relief to know the truth after all those conflicting medical studies.

1. Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.

2. Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.

3. Africans drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.

4. Italians drink large amounts of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.

5. Germans drink a lot of beer and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.

CONCLUSION: Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you.

You will be referenced to this page after the next post(s) when appropriate.

Joey K on the Environment

Public Health a review

What is public health?

A day in the life of a Health Department

questions, not answers

Flu News

CDC confirms two human infections with novel influenza viruses

Shellfish Harvesters, The Sewage Treatment Plant, Rain and a "Perfect Storm"

The ticks are coming after us!

The Dieldren controversy

Ticks!

finally something worth while...

finding missing pieces

Well water Summary

The revision of an old well statue

the thought process

pesticide variance again

Mold –the real dangers and its prevalence

more questions pesticide variance

pestcide variance - an attempt to view

Beach meeting fall 2011

perigee tides

The Cure, worse than the problem?

Pesticides - the myth of home owners use

Rememberance

Politics and money and our health do not mix

Well Caps

Disgusting

Research Salinity

It does not take Rocket Science

I have not post in a bit

snow contamination

changing knowledge

Mill River Park - Revisited

Learning

The pesticide dilemma

NRDC reports on beaches

Public health beginnings

The turning point generation

A question of when, not if...

Risk Factors

The US EPA, my tirade

One Norwalk Shellfish operation

Phobias

The Mill River has the last laugh!

Confusion

Poll results

Information needed

scofieldtown dump - the investigation

The anatomy of an outbreak

The great Oxygen debate

Conffusion about Global warming

Scofield

H1N1 Influenza Novel update

New Info about hypoxia

Scofield

It is all our fault

The expert thing and global warming

What has happen, we have done to ourselves!

H2S not out of the picture

H1N1 Influenza A - update for Stamford

Questions and more questions

What is the deal (H1N1 Infuenza A novel)

influenza

The use and misuse of hysteria

What goes in the ground....

Water woes

The H2S Issue

The Theory, the pitfalls, the execution, intial results

What it feeds

Learning

Something simple?

The truth about what goes into the Sound

Beaches, Beach Closings and why Stamford does it

Ticks and Disease

Treatment plant outfall tests and why

Hysteria - again

Combating Hysteria

What happens in Greenwich

Statistics and epidemiology