How Your Water Company May Be Poisoning Your Kids

How Your Water Company May Be Poisoning Your Kids

• By Kevin Drum 
  Mother Jones, August 10, 2012 

Historically, there have been four main sources of lead poisoning: paint, gasoline, tin cans, and water pipes. Lead paint was banned years ago, though old paint still remains a hazard in old housing, particularly in window sills. Leaded gasoline is no longer sold, and its only remaining threat is via old lead deposited in soil, especially in urban areas. Tin cans haven't used lead sealant for decades.

And water pipes—well, they've never been the most important source of lead poisoning, but they've been the most resistant to change. Thousands of miles of lead pipe are still in service, and as Sheila Kaplan and Corbin Hiar report this week, efforts to fix them have not just run aground, but possibly even made things worse.

The EPA wrote a rule in 1991 that forced water utilities to control lead levels, if necessary by replacing pipes. But the utilities sued, saying they didn't have the legal authority to replace the portions of pipe on private property—that is, the last 40 or 50 feet of pipe leading into homes. Eventually EPA backed down, but their solution may have just made the problem worse:

After years of industry lobbying, the agency amended its rule in 2000 to permit the utilities to perform so-called "partial pipe replacements," from the water main to the private property line. In the vast majority of cases, homeowners would be responsible for paying to finish the job.

Few homeowners have done so, to their detriment…Partial pipe replacements can physically shake loose lead fragments that have built up and laid dormant inside the pipe, pushing them into the homeowners' water, and spiking the lead levels, even where they previously were not high. In addition, the type of partial replacement that joins old lead pipes to new copper ones, using brass fittings, "spurs galvanic corrosion that can dramatically increase the amount of lead released into drinking water supplies," according to research from Washington University. Similar findings have been published by researchers at the Virginia Tech and elsewhere.

So why are these partial pipe replacements still commonplace?

One reason is that it's expensive to replace a homeowner's section of pipe. But another reason is that a lot of water customers don't know the danger that partial pipe replacement poses. Utilities are required to provide only vague warnings when they do mandatory replacements, which is bad enough. But the vast majority of partial pipe replacements aren't mandatory. They're just part of normal maintenance procedures:

The level of warning the 13 water companies made dropped even further when the same utilities were conducting routine voluntary replacements during roadwork or to fix leaks—essentially the same procedure, but not ordered under the law. Only around half of the utilities alert residents to the potential for lead levels to spike after a voluntary partial pipe replacement.

Part of the reason these utilities don't give the same warnings when doing basically the same procedure is that they're not required to. EPA offers no guidance for these far more common voluntary partial lead service line replacements done by utilities across the country.

Likely as a result, the vast majority of other U.S. cities that are not under EPA orders to replace their remnant lead pipe systems rarely give any warnings to their customers about lead levels spiking after they do voluntary partial service line replacements.

Full-scale lead removal from the environment would be expensive. It would mean cleaning up all the lead suspended in soil, retrofitting millions of old window fittings, and replacing thousands of miles of lead pipe. But the costs of lead poisoning are enormous too. We've known for a long time that high levels of blood lead in children are dangerous, but more recent research shows that the biggest effects actually come at the smallest levels. That is, the amount of damage is bigger going from 0 to 5 mg/dl than from 5 to 10. And that in turn is bigger than going from 10 to 20. So even if lead levels have been reduced significantly over the past few decades—and they have—there are still huge benefits from getting rid of the last remnants.

Those benefits include higher IQs, less violent crime, lower teen pregnancy rates, better impulse control in teens, less aggressivity, fewer cases of attention deficit disorder, lower incarceration rates, less drug use, and higher lifetime incomes. That's a lot of benefits. It is, almost literally, a crime that we're condemning the future of millions of kids because we're not willing to spend the money it would take to fix all this. It shouldn't be a big yawn, it should be a no-brainer

Why PepsiCo Is Fighting GMO Labeling in California

By Michele Simon 
The Huffington Post, August 9, 2012 

Most people just think of soda when they hear the name "Pepsi." But in fact, PepsiCo is the nation's largest food company and second largest in the world. Its annual earnings top $60 billion, from a dizzying array of brands. Walk down almost any supermarket aisle (soda, snacks, cereal, juice) and you're likely to bump into a PepsiCo-owned product.

This explains why the company is the top contributor among food makers to the "No on 37" campaign in California -- a ballot initiative that would require labeling of foods containing GMO ingredients. Also, as I wrote about recently, PepsiCo is a member of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, a powerful trade group that has so far contributed $375,000 to the No on 37 campaign.

Why would PepsiCo pony up more than $90,000 just to keep Californians in the dark about what they are eating? A closer look at its "portfolio of products" (in corporate speak) reveals exactly what's at stake for the food giant.

PepsiCo brands span five divisions: Pepsi-Cola, Frito-Lay, Gatorade, Tropicana, and Quaker. While most consumers probably think of processed snacks and cereal-type products when trying to avoid foods containing GMOs, beverages are also a major culprit (which explains why Coca-Cola has donated more than $61,000 to the No on 37 campaign).

Estimates are that up to 85 percent of corn grown in the U.S. in genetically engineered, and a significant number of PepsiCo brands contain some form of corn. For example, among PepsiCobeverages sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup are brands such as Pepsi and Mountain Dew, as well as the AMP Energy and Lipton iced tea lines, each of which contain numerous flavor varieties. Even some products within the company's Tropicana line of "juice drinks" contain HFCS. Then there's Naked Juice, which last year became the target of a consumer deception lawsuit over the brand's "non-GMO" claim on the label, among other issues. (Gatorade reformulated its products to replace HFCS in 2010, but is not exactly a health drink either, as recent research has revealed.)

Speaking of GMO-related lawsuits against PepsiCo, I wrote last December about how the company is being sued over several Frito-Lay snack products labeled "natural," despite containing genetically-modified corn and vegetable oils, including corn, soybean, and canola oils. (That case was re-filed earlier this year.) In 2010, Frito-Lay announced that half of its products would be made of "all-natural ingredients," but of course non-GMO isn't part of the company's definition of natural. As I have explained, the Food and Drug Administration unfortunately has so far refused to create a workable definition, which is why companies like PepsiCo are able to deceive customers so easily.

The scope of Frito-Lay products potentially impacted by GMO labeling is vast. Among the brands under this $13 billion division that contain corn include Fritos, Doritos, Tostitos, and Cheetos. And that's not counting the vegetable oils, which are almost all made with GMO ingredients. Even allegedly healthier brands like SunChips contain GMO corn, which is why that product is named in the deceptive labeling lawsuit against Frito-Lay.

Even PepsiCo's relatively healthy division Quaker would be impacted if GMO foods must be labeled. In addition to plain old oats, the Quaker brand makes heavily processed granola bars. I counted six sources of corn -- including HFCS and "corn syrup solids" -- in this new "yogurt" variety (which contains no actual yogurt, but rather "yogurt flavored powder" -- don't even ask). It's one thing for junk foods to bear a GMO label; I can't imagine hard-core Cheetos fans caring too much about GMOs, but Quaker consumers probably would.

Another PepsiCo brand sure to make HQ nervous over GMO labeling is Mother's, which claims its products are "all natural." The Cornucopia Institute tested Mother's cereal and found that it contains GMO ingredients, which is expected since some of the varieties contain corn. Imagine how many mothers would be upset to learn that the cereal named after them is genetically engineered.

PepsiCo's official policy regarding using GMO ingredients is rather bland:

Approval of genetically-modified foods differs from country to country regarding both use and labeling. For this reason, PepsiCo adheres to all relevant regulatory requirements regarding the use of genetically-modified food crops and food ingredients within the countries it operates.

Translation: We follow the law, very impressive. But the statement also points to how the company has different standards around the world depending on what the law requires. More than 40 other nations -- including the entire European Union -- require some form of disclosure for foods made with GMOs.

What a shame that here in its home country, PepsiCo wants to ignore what 90 percent of American consumers say they want: to know which foods contain GMOs. PepsiCo would rather fight to maintain the status quo because it means a continued cheap supply of ingredients for its highly-processed, unhealthy beverages and junk food.