Worried COVID will kill you?
As dozens of governors continue to impose coronavirus lockdown restrictions despite declining death rates, as college administrators continue to ban all partying and limit any social gatherings despite data showing college students are among the least likely to get sick with the virus, millions of Americans across the country continue to face a much larger death threat than COVID-19.
As vox.com reported on 17 April: “Millions live without access to clean water in the U.S.”
The latest toxic water crisis emerged on 27 September when Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared a “state of disaster” after a six-year old boy died from a brain-eating microbe called Naegleria fowleri. Residents in the city of Lake Jackson, along with the other 375,000 residents living in Brazoria County, were originally told to not use their water for any use other than flushing toilets.
Two days later, Toby Baker, Executive Director of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), stated, “The path forward for the citizens of Lake Jackson is not going to be one that’s short. Chlorine is being pumped through the entire county’s water system, which will take about 60 days.”
Later in the week, TCEQ notified residents they could use water for drinking and cooking, but only after boiling it. Residents in those communities continued to be advised to not let water get into their noses when bathing, showering, and washing their faces.
The CDC confirms the deadly microbe can destroy brain tissue and cause death within a week.
Millions of Americans at Risk for Toxic Water
For decades, the Trends Journal has been reporting on the health crisis of toxic water supplies throughout the U.S. and its effects, which are far deadlier than the coronavirus.
In our 2 February 2020 issue, we reported:
- Aside from the tons of chemicals, pesticides, and industrial poisons pumped and sprayed into the earth, water, air, and food, the Defense Department has cited 401 bases in the U.S. that release the firefighting foam-containing chemical polyfluoroalkyls (PFAS), toxic chemicals that are in drinking water in cities and suburbs across America… including some of the country’s largest metropolitan areas.
- On 22 January, the non-profit Environmental Working Group mapped PFAS contamination in almost 1,400 sites in 49 states and stated Environmental Protection Agency data showing 110 Americans may be drinking water contaminated with PFAS, is probably too low an estimate. The report adds “PFAS are known as ‘forever chemicals’ because once released into the environment they do not break down, and they build up in our blood and organs.”
- A 2018 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences stated: “Drinking water contaminants pose a harm to public health. Some can cause immediate illness, such as the 16 million cases of acute gastroenteritis that occur each year at US community water systems… water quality violations are widespread, with 9–45 million people possibly affected during each of the past 34 years.
- On 17 August 2017, USA Today issued a report revealing “As many as 63 million people – nearly a fifth of the United States – from rural central California to the boroughs of New York City, were exposed to potentially unsafe water more than once during the past decade, according to a review of 680,000 water quality and monitoring violations from the EPA. The findings highlight how six decades of industrial dumping, farming pollution and water plant and distribution pipe deterioration have taken a toll on local water systems.”
Flint Fiasco
America’s most publicized water pollution crisis of recent years was in Flint, MI, when, in April 2014, the politicians and health officials (a.k.a. sociopaths and psychopaths) in charge shifted the city’s water source to a highly toxic river to save money, yet they neglected to install proper safety devices.
Toxic lead from antiquated pipes began leaching into the public water, which exposed over 100,000 residents to toxic lead levels, including some 12,000 Flint children, causing deaths and infecting thousands with debilitating neurotoxic health issues. On 19 November 2019, The New York Times reported, “The contamination of this long-struggling city’s water exposed nearly 30,000 schoolchildren to a neurotoxin known to have detrimental effects on children’s developing brains and nervous systems.”
According to the CBS 60 Minutes report on 5 July this year, “Three years after the crisis began, the percentage of third graders in Flint who passed Michigan’s standardized literacy test dropped from 41 percent to 10 percent.”
Due to the efforts of citizens to sue, the city of Flint had replaced about 85 percent of the contaminated pipes by early 2020. In April of this year, however, the work was stopped after the state ordered a lockdown to deal with the coronavirus.
Government Response: Do Less
Despite the evidence of widening water pollution health concerns across America, Reuters reported last December, “Over the last decade, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s budget and work force have both decreased by 16 percent… Most U.S. states have cut environmental budgets and staffing since 2008.”
According to the Environmental Defense Fund, “For the third year in a row, the Trump administration proposed deep cuts to EPA. These reductions would allow more lead, toxic chemicals, and contaminated water – jeopardizing the health and safety of all Americans.”
On 24 January, The New York Times reported, “The Environmental Protection Agency has made it easier for cities to keep dumping raw sewage into rivers by letting them delay or otherwise change federally imposed fixes to their sewer systems, according to interviews with local officials, water utilities and their lobbyists.”
Recently, on 31 August, the Trump administration announced it was lowering standards required by coal-fired power plants for releasing wastewater infused with pollutants from lead, arsenic, and other toxic pollutants.
TRENDPOST: The media, politicians, and Presstitutes rarely report on the tons of poisons, pesticides, and chemicals pumped every year into the earth, water, and air.
And nary a word on the unreadable and unpronounceable artificial ingredients, colors, and pharmaceuticals injected into foods, fish, and game… that slaughter millions of the world’s population each year.
Instead of focusing on what can be done to reverse the poisonous destruction of life on earth… from politicians to Presstitutes, from little children to the elderly, the main concern of a masked-up, locked-up society is fear of dying in the COVID War, which, as we have detailed, over and over again, is a minor threat compared to real dangers that confront us.