-Caveat Lector-
Fluoride Accumulations Killing
Fish, Pine Trees, And
Poisoning Environment
By Gary Ghioto
Sun Staff Reporter
http://www.azdailysun.com
3-20-1
Although the first public drinking water supply in this
country was fluoridated 56 years ago, the impact of
fluoride on the environment has only recently begun
to be studied.
Unlike health impacts, which have been the subject
of hundreds of research articles by university
scientists published in academic journals worldwide,
the buildup of fluoride in water supplies and in
plants and animals has received short shrift.
But in recent years, researchers have begun to
explore links between fluoride buildup and
environmental problems as diverse as delayed
salmon migration, ponderosa pine needle
discoloration and lead ingestion by children. Most of
their findings have not been published in
peer-reviewed journals, but they are beginning to
raise questions about the need for broader studies.
In Flagstaff, fluoride in drinking water would be
introduced into the environment largely from the city
wastewater treatment plants, which discharge 1.7
billion gallons of wastewater into the Rio de Flag
each year. An additional 537 million gallons of
recycled water provided by the city to irrigate golf
courses and public parks would also bring fluoride
into regional ecosystems.
The Environmental Protection Agency's standard for
fluoride concentrations in drinking water is a
maximum of 4 parts per million, but Flagstaff intends
to keep its level at 1 ppm.
Surface runoff from sprinklers, car-washing,
fire-fighting and watering lawns would also bring
fluoride into the Flagstaff environment.
Ponderosa pine is an "indicator" plant vulnerable to
fluorides in the environment, according to a study of
the effects of fluorides on plants, say researchers
Alan Davison, an agriculture and environmental
scientist at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne,
U.K, and Leonard Weinstein, an environmental
biologist at Cornell University.
Coniferous forests such as ponderosa pine can be
damaged by accumulations of fluoride at one part
per billion or less, some researchers say.
Plants absorb fluoride as a gas when it evaporates
from standing water or when it's sprayed into the air,
say from sprinklers at a golf course or home using
fluoridated water or recycled supplies.
"... young ponderosa pine needles first exhibit a
lightening in color which turns light brown to
reddish-brown at the tips and progresses ... along
the needle. The discoloration is often accompanied
by narrow, dark banded zones, which may be the
result of intermittent exposures to fluoride spaced at
different periods," wrote Davison and Weinstein in
Earth Island Journal.
Fluoride exposure kills pine needles, flecks leaves
on corn and causes bark on fruit trees to turn
mottled and kills their sensitive leaves, the
researchers found.
They noted that because a ponderosa pine or fruit
tree is visibly injured by fluoride, it is not necessarily
dying and that "there have been some cases of
spectacular recovery of trees after severe injury."
"Conversely, just because a plant does not show
visible injury does not mean that there is no effect of
fluoride assimilation or growth. Predicting the effects
of fluoride is not a job to be undertaken lightly,"
Davison and Weinstein wrote.
INDUSTRIAL POLLUTANT
Fluoride contamination, from industry and public
water supplies, has concerned some government
agencies and scientists for the past 25 years,
reports Gar Smith, editor of Earth Island Journal, a
San Francisco-based environmental journal.
Smith said that the effects of fluoride on plants and
animals is being slowly documented in various
national and international studies ranging from the
National Research Council to Environment
magazine and the National Park Service.
Some researchers have warned that fluoride
contained in water released by wastewater
treatment plants appears to concentrate in water
bodies at levels higher than recommended levels.
"Because fluoride does not break down, it slowly
accumulates in the environment," Smith wrote in a
Journal special report.
Airborne fluoride has long been a problem in areas
near aluminum smelters and other industrial sources
of the chemical. The National Research Council
warned in 1971 that fluoride pollution from U.S.
industry had caused damage to plants and posed a
serious risk to livestock grazing on grasses exposed
to concentrations of fluoride less than 1 part per
billion. The Council found that livestock some 20
miles from a fluoride-emitting aluminum smelter had
accumulated levels of fluoride that were "200,000
times" more than those found in ambient air
samples.
A U.S. Department of Agriculture handbook quoted
in Earth Island Journal said "airborne fluorides have
caused more worldwide damage to livestock than
any other air pollutant." The symptoms of fluoride
damage in animals and humans include dental
mottling, respiratory distress, stiffness in knees and
joints, anemia, weakness and nausea.
SALMON AT RISK?
In addition to industry, the accumulation and
migration of drinking water fluoride currently is being
suspected as a cause for the decline of the salmon
fishery in the Northwest U.S. and British Columbia
by researchers Richard G. Foulkes and Anne
Anderson in Earth Island Journal. The pair sifted
through 21 articles and studies conducted on the
issue by U.S. and Canadian water quality and
fisheries scientists.
The salmon's "critical habitat" has been found to
have measurable levels of fluoride flowing from
fluoridated communities and aluminum industry
smelters. The researchers said the presence of
fluoride maycause salmon to delay migration as
they avoid the chemical that contributes to
increased mortality and reduced chances to spawn
successfully.
One peer-reviewed study of salmon migratory habits
that were found to be disrupted by fluorides was
conducted from 1982 to 1986 by researchers
Douglas Dey and DM Damaker and published by
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration. The researchers found that after
fluorides discharged by an aluminum plant were
greatly reduced, salmon migratory delays and
mortality decreased to "acceptable levels".
FLUORIDE AND LEAD?
Dartmouth College research professor Roger
Masters is president of the Foundation for
Neuroscience and Society, and he has studied the
possible link between fluoride ingestion and
increased lead in children. He is worried that most
health studies of fluoride have focused on a fluoride
compound used only in a minority of drinking water
supplies.
Research shows that 91 percent of the fluoridated
water in America is treated with hydrofluosilcic acid
or sodium silicofluoride. The remaining communities
use a pure pharmaceutical grade called sodium
fluoride, the same ingredient used in tooth paste
and other dental hygiene products.
While sodium fluoride has been tested extensively
for both its purity and impact on public health by
researchers and fluoride industry groups,
commercial grades of fluoride-bearing chemicals
"have not been properly tested for health and
behavioral effects," he said.
Added Masters: "If you feel a bit funny, it makes a
big difference if you take an aspirin or cocaine."
Mastersasked the EPA directly for all its studies on
fluoride-bearing chemicals such hydrofluosilcic acid
and their effects on health and behavioral effects.
Two letters dated June 23, 1999 and Nov. 16, 2000
from the EPA responding to inquiries from Masters
and the U.S. House Subcommittee on Energy and
the Environment conclude that no "empirical
scientific data" on the "health effects" of
hydrofluosilcic acid is in the EPA's possession.
Pure sodium fluoride, used in about 10 percent of
community fluoridation systems, "disassociates" or
breaks down into molecules easily. Safety and
purity tests are conducted on sodium fluoride have
been used to justify the safety of hydrofluosilcic acid
and other grades of commercial fluoride added to
public drinking supplies, Masters said.
This lack of scientific study on a chemical
introduced into the drinking water of an estimated
100 million Americans upsets Masters. His data,
published recently in neuroscience and toxicity
science journals, said silicofluorides are "associated
with lead toxicity, including learning disabilities and
higher rates of crime."
Masters said his data "strongly suggests that
silicofluorides enhance the human body's uptake of
lead from environmental sources." Lead is prevalent
in the atmosphere from gasoline additives.
Kneka Hayward, chief of the Arizona Office of Oral
Health, insists there is no connection at all between
fluoridation and the maladies and social
consequences outlined by Masters' research at
Dartmouth College. But she said she was not
familiar with Masters' work and did not offer any
evidence to reject his claim other than a blanket
statement that fluoridation has not been linked to
such mental health problems.
Clean water advocates in states, such as New
Hampshire, are trying to pass laws requiring that all
chemicals, especially fluoride, that are put in
drinking water be tested to ensure that they don't
contain harmful contaminants like heavy metals.
Masters recently testified in favor of a proposed
New Hampshire law requiring the testing of
chemicals. The bill is opposed by state Department
of Environmental Services as setting "vague and
unattainable standards."
ARSENIC IN FLUORIDE COMPOUND
Testing of hydrofluosilicic acid, which city of
Flagstaff officials indicated would be used if
fluoridation is approved here, has found minute
quantities of heavy metal contaminants, such as
lead, mercury and arsenic, according to the National
Sanitation Foundation, the chemical industry
watchdog group monitoring fluoride.
The NSF, in a report made to Congress July 7,
2000, said that when detected, the "average" level
of arsenic contamination found in the acid would
create arsenic levels of about 0.43 parts per billion
when diluted. The maximum amounts of arsenic
detected by NSF chemists would result in arsenic
levels approaching 1.66 parts per billion.
The EPA is changing its current acceptable level of
arsenic contamination in drinking water from 50
parts per billion to 10 parts per billion in June. One
part per billion is roughly the equivalent of having a
pound of material in 120 million gallons of water.
Flagstaff officials expect to spend up to $300,000
for filtration equipment to remove current levels of
arsenic to comply with the new EPA standards.
The National Resources Defense Council says that
even the new EPA standards are not adequate to
protect public health.
The environmental group cites a National Academy
of Sciences warning that a 3 parts per billion
arsenic exposure "could pose a fatal cancer risk
several times higher than EPA has traditionally
accepted in drinking water."
National Academy of Science studies have found
that drinking water with just 0.5 parts per billion
levels of arsenic presents a 1 in 10,000 risk of
developing cancer of the liver, prostate, bladder,
lungs, skin and kidneys.
Gary Ghioto can be reached at
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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http://www.rense.com
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