Environmental Health Class Blog

The sewage facilities (or wastewater treatment plant) for Pinole and Hercules are located in Pinole. This plant removes about 97% of waste from the 3.5 million gallons of water processed everyday. The remainder is then disinfected with hypochlorite. The hypochlorite is then removed and the water is finally released into San Pablo Bay. Knowing that most waste is removed from the water and that the rest is disinfected is a little reassuring. However, this water being released back into the bay is not. One can't help but wonder if the remaining 3% waste is truly and thoroughly disinfected and taken from the water before being released. The San Pablo Bay, which is the north eastern part of the San Francisco Bay, is home to many animals and plants in the area. It is also the site of many recreation activities that a lot of East Bay residents take part in. This puts everyone in contact with the water at risk of being exposed to the contaminants and waste potentially missed by the wastewa...

This was a very interesting video. It touched upon points that I had thought of before such as the unnecessary spending on bottled water. I do not usually drink bottled water. Instead, I filter my water and have bottles to carry it with me if I need to take it anywhere. An interesting topic that the video brought up was the concept of manufactured demand. By using scare tactics on the public, these companies are convincing everyone to buy their products. I think this is definitely used by a lot (if not most or all) companies in order to increase their sales. An example that comes to mind is the beauty industry. Either way, it brings about a ton of unnecessary spending that could be redirected to improving water quality in places where they need it most, and in turn reducing the waste produced by the large amount of plastic bottles thrown away each year.

I live in Pinole, and the water system company that serves the area is the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD). Most of the water that reaches the area comes from the Mokelumne River watershed on the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. This water is then treated at a water treatment plant (WTP) in Orinda, although it could also be treated in a WTP in El Sobrante in case of unmet needs in the area. The quality of the water that we get in Pinole is excellent overall. Of the maximum contaminant levels (MCL) regulated for public health, only haloacetic acids and trihalomethanes exceeded the maximum levels allowed. None of the MCLs regulated for aesthetics were above the maximum levels allowed. None of the unregulated contaminants' levels exceeded those that would require a state notification. I have to say that, one of the things that surprised me about the water in my community is that it's in excellent quality. It might be because I'm so used to receiving bad news in this...

I was not aware of how dependent we are on ground water! I can only imagine how depleted our ground water in the central valley is now because of the drought we had for years. We are only able to observe the levels of surface water, so the increasing levels of lakes and rivers are not good indicators of our water reserves. This is of utmost importance since the agriculture, not just of the state, but also of the whole country, depends on it. It is possible, as mentioned in the video, that it will take decades to replenish the groundwater to healthy levels, so that puts us at a greater risk, since it is possible to have more droughts in the years to come and thus increase the rate of depletion. On top of all that, we have to worry about the contamination of the little water that we do have. The Clean Water Act of 1972 is definitely a good start, but more similar laws with stricter implementations could be needed.

In order to reduce exposure to fragrances at work or at school, a marketing campaign could be put in place to discourage the use of fragrances at these locations. Posters and flyers could be distributed to spread the educational information of the adverse health effects of the chemicals in fragrances. Different cleaning requirements could be implemented so that scents are not able to stick on surfaces for too long. Installing good ventilation systems or designing buildings to have better natural ventilation could reduce the exposure to these harmful chemicals. As shown on one of our previous blog assignments, the fragrance component of many personal care products is usually the most harmful chemical in them, so reducing the use of these products (or encouraging the use of safer products instead) will have a great effect in diminishing the exposure to them. This, in turn, will potentially help alleviate ailments and symptoms that some people could be suffering from unknowingly as a resu...

Perchloroethylene (also tetrachloroethylene or PERC) is a liquid used in the process of dry-cleaning fabrics and degreasing metals. A short exposure of breathing high levels of PERC fumes can cause dizziness, headaches, nausea, irritation of the eyes and respiratory tract, among other symptoms. Long term exposure to PERC can cause cancer. Since this chemical is mainly used in such a commonly used cleaning method for our everyday clothes, exposure is widespread. People working and/or living close to dry cleaners have a higher exposure and thus a greater risk for long term exposure risks like cancer.

Since radon is pollutant found commonly in homes, I would choose my target population for the awareness campaign to be homeowners, landlords, and/or head of households. Advertisements run on television, radio, or online, posters or billboards on the street, or flyers distributed directly to each home would be a few good ways to reach this population. Promoting radon testing, like in the commercial, is a good way to spread the awareness in the community, and potentially subsidizing these tests so that they can be done at no cost would potentially increase the households tested for radon. Since this is an important public health issue, some potential collaborators would be local departments of public health, for a more focused reach within each community, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for a farther-reaching, more widespread dissemination of the campaign.

I think it's a great initiative to promote better transportation systems including public transportation. As explained in the APHA article, this has a lot of effects on the environmental health of the community. Additionally, as mentioned in the US Department of Transportation article, encouraging people to walk or bike by making a community's paths more accessible and walking-friendly, has a positive effect on the community's health as a whole. This just goes to show how something that may seem trivial in regards to health, such as transportation, can actually have a big impact on it. The APHA's promotion of affordable, safe, and equitable transportation is a great step towards a safer community environment with less carbon monoxide emissions, less automobile accident fatalities, and a healthier community. I'm all for it.

I currently live in Pinole, California, zip code 94564. After inputting this in the scorecard.org website, it provided the following information about Contra Costa county: Who and what are the top polluters in your zip code? Shell, Tesoro Refining, and Chevron are the top three polluters in Contra Costa county, each with around 1 million pounds of pollution released. What percent of the homes in your zip code have lead-based paint? 1% of houses in Contra Costa county are at high risk for lead hazard. Are there Superfund sites in your zip?  (In your BLOG, make sure to tell us what a Superfund Site is) Superfund sites are sites that produce the worst kind of toxic waste. In Contra Costa county, there are three: Concord Naval Weapons Station (CNWS), GBF, Inc., and United Heckathorn. However, Contra Costa county ranks among the 20% cleanest counties in all the country when it comes to number of superfund sites. What can you tell us about the Superfund sites that ...

Overall, minorities are usually at a disadvantage in many aspects in our society. Environmental injustice is another way in which people belonging to minority communities are at a disadvantage that affects their health. It's sad to think that we actually need summits like the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in order to address issues that should not have existed in the first place. Reading the article "8 Horrifying Examples of Corporations Mistreating Black Communities with Environmental Racism" hit (almost literally) close to home. I lived in Richmond, California for a couple of years when I was a teenager, and one of the "8 examples" was the Chevron refinery in this city. Being in a community composed predominantly of African Americans and other minorities, this refinery has been in operation for many decades and thus exposing this population to many harmful chemicals. This makes me think about the many chemicals that I have unkn...

Public health is a preventive discipline, as opposed to a reactive one like the field of medicine. As public health professionals, advocates, and students, we should always try to find a way to prevent the spread of diseases. The upstreamist analogy is a good way to visualize what needs to be done in order to treat patients more comprehensively. Similarly, knowing the effects that certain chemicals are causing on people, the problem should be attacked by banning these chemicals rather than treating the resulting illnesses. If it has been demonstrated that even in very few parts per billion some chemicals can have adverse effects on humans, then the efforts should be focused on cutting the exposure, especially when the negative effects are issues like infertility that is affecting many other animal species beyond humans.

Watching this clip from CNN's Planet In Peril further confirmed what I've been fearing more and more as we go further into this course. Out of the list of chemicals for which there are no safe levels, the children that were tested in the video had phthalates and PCBs. Anderson Cooper himself had DDT present in his body. At this point it seems inevitable to escape these chemicals. What I thought was interesting is the fact that the children in the video had levels multiple times higher than those of their parents, which leads me to think that the chemicals are mainly in products made for children, not just in refrigerators or microwave ovens. Also, the fact that PBDEs are present in such high quantities in the little boy probably points to a possible special exposure that he has and not his family. Maybe spending too much time on couches since PBDE is used as a fire retardant in various furniture.

After watching the videos for this assignment, the danger that the public is exposed to from daily-use products is evident. It was really shocking to learn that babies were being exposed to almost 300 chemicals from before they were born. Not only that, but a lot of these chemicals had been banned for over 30 years, which means that they can remain in our bodies long periods of time after we've been exposed to them and that they can be passed on to our children. What I thought was a bit infuriating is the fact that a lot of companies that produce these products aren't required to ensure that the chemicals used in their products are safe to use. As it was mentioned in the Ken Cook video, the law is weak and thus needs to be replaced by stricter laws. However, I am hopeful for the future as new laws are coming along such as the Kid-Safe Chemicals Act that will hopefully help keep harmful chemicals out of the lives of the public.

For this assignment, I looked up my dishwashing soap (Gain Ultra Original Scent) and my air freshener (Glade Spray Hawaiian Breeze). The air freshener spray has an overall health rating of 1, meaning that it has a slight health risk, and a reactivity score of 0, meaning that it has minimal reactivity. What caught my attention about this product is that under the carcinogenicity rubric, it reported that the manufacturer did not state whether there are carcinogenic agents among the ingredients of the product. For the dishwasher soap, what surprised me was that there is virtually no information on the potential risks of the chemical ingredients of this product. Apart from the warnings for physical contact exposure to the product, there is no other information on whether the components are carcinogens or potential carcinogens. It doesn't make much sense to me that products like this can be released for sale to the public without having much information on the effects of their component...

For this assignment, I decided to look up the shampoo and deodorant I use on the Safe Cosmetics Database website. The results were surprising, as both of these products actually had moderate overall hazard scores (5 and 3, respectively), while I was hoping they would have low scores. There is a high concern for the fragrance in my deodorant, Old Spice Red Zone Collection Pure Sport, that could cause allergies, irritation, organ system toxicity, and ecotoxicology. The real surprise came when I looked up my shampoo, Dove Men+Care 2in1 Formula Fresh & Clean. This product, like the deodorant, has the same fragrance component, but additionally, it contains the chemical DMDM Hydantoin, which is a known formaldehyde releaser, and has a hazard score of 7 alone. This made me take the decision to drop this brand from my daily use. While the components of every product is information that is available to everyone, what is not conveniently available is the hazard associated with each ingredien...