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In Deep Water

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Thursday, June 13, 2024

Throughout history, we have witnessed the fierce pursuit of valuable commodities such as spices, gold, wheat, cotton and oil. Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s new documentary, The Grab, reveals that nations and multinational corporations are now urgently scouring the globe to hoard and control an even more crucial resource: water. Cowperthwaite directed the acclaimed 2013 documentary Blackfish, which investigated the death of a SeaWorld trainer, highlighted the mistreatment of orca whales in captivity, and ultimately led to SeaWorld ending its orca shows.  The Grab (streaming and in select theaters June 14) follows investigative reporter Nathan Halverson and his team from the Center for Investigative Reporting. Together, they have traveled the globe, from Arizona to Zambia, to shed light on the covert acquisition of water-rich lands. As global warming intensifies and water resources dwindle, these areas are becoming hotbeds for profit-driven companies and for nations desperate to sustain their populations.  This film reveals how a Chinese company backed by the government bought the American company Smithfield Foods; now China owns one in four pigs raised in the U.S. In Arizona, a Saudi-owned 10,000 acre hay farm has been using massive amounts of water in the middle of the desert and exporting the hay back to the Kingdom. And former mercenary and Blackwater Security Company founder Erik Prince is leading a group of Chinese investors on a hunt for natural resources and investment opportunities by snatching up land in Zambia and other African countries. Cowperthwaite recently spoke to Capital & Main about her intention to craft The Grab as a geopolitical thriller and the formidable challenges of documenting the global struggle for this increasingly precious resource. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. Capital & Main: What was your approach to covering this complex issue of foreign interests grabbing up land with water resources around the world? Gabriela Cowperthwaite: What I felt like I wanted to do was create a geopolitical thriller. I feel like there are people who need to hear about what’s happening with the grabbing of resources on the planet and need to hear it from the position of power and from the perspective of power. And if we do that, there is a possibility of getting half of this country to see themselves inside this story if we frame it in the context of power rather than going back to Blue State catch words like “environmentalism,” “global warming” and “climate change,” because they turn off the TV if they see those words. So I wanted to find access points that are human and personal to folks that are not in the environmental echo chamber. Finding a way to humanize this issue and put it in a context that they can relate to, which is powerful people surrounding them, making decisions that are going to destroy their livelihoods and communities. Right, like the Arizona farmers in the film having their water dry up because a massive plot of land owned by the Saudis is using much of the groundwater. But how do you get authoritarian countries like China and Saudi Arabia to stop buying up huge plots of land in places like Africa? Gabriela Cowperthwaite and Nathan Halverson. Photo: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images. It’s not just “Oh, there’s these insidious countries and these dark countries and they’re adversarial and they’re doing these bad things.” First of all, we’re doing the same thing. Wall Street, United States, Western Europe, we’re all doing that. And second, they’re fighting for survival just as much as we are. And I think this is the most Sisyphean answer that you’ll ever get, but in my mind there are many, many things to do.  One of the most important, and, I guess, jarring moments for me in the film is when [Chinese leader] Xi Jinping revealed he ate raw pork as a kid [because he was starving]. And for me, it changed everything for me in terms of how I made this film. And that was because if there is someone who has understood starvation at that level — and I’m not talking about feeling hungry, I’m talking about just mass starvation — and that person is now essentially in charge of a country, it is the purview of that leader now to make sure that doesn’t happen again. So it gives you hope that you saw a glimmer of vulnerability in the world’s most powerful authoritarian leader. I think that’s right. I think if I had gone through what he went through, perhaps I’d make similar decisions. We must see ourselves in each other for anything to make sense about how we do life. And so I think that’s why I got into documentary, and that’s what I love about documentaries. But if powerful countries secure resources for themselves, won’t smaller, poorer nations suffer disproportionately? Yes, it will disproportionately affect them. Smaller countries will be hit faster with the ramifications of some of it, but nobody gets out alive is the thing. This is [like] OPEC right? Look at the wars we fought over oil and think about what that would be like over food and water. If all these powerful nations do this, and they control the levers of food and water, that’s going to affect everybody negatively. And if one country fails, whether it’s Zambia or China, we are going to feel it in our food prices. We’re going to feel it geopolitically. We’re completely interconnected. If Zambia starves, that isn’t just a human rights issue. That means disease, and that disease does not respect national borders, as we’ve seen recently. That means refugees. And it means conflict. And that’s geopolitical conflict, because now that’s happening in a place that the world has deemed as a final breadbasket. We’re going to have to go into conflict with countries in areas that are deemed incredibly geopolitically important and are valuable for water, for the future of food. It’s going to affect them. It’s going to affect us. It’s going to affect everybody. What surprised you the most in making this film? What I was the most surprised of was the fear. It was purely the fear. The Saudi cables that suggested that they were terrified that the Arab Spring was going to come to them. Food prices go up, we’re in trouble. Look at what people can do on the streets. Same with China. Fear. They don’t admit it inside their country that there was a great famine [from 1959-1961]. They call it natural disaster, but they remember their grandparents starving. So it’s sort of like it’s fear and a lot of it. VIDEO Speaking of fear, there was a moment in the film when the crew thought they may be being bugged. Did you guys ever fear for your life, or do you fear for your life now? And are you taking any steps to mitigate that? So while we were making the film was the scariest part, I think because you don’t yet have a film, which means the people you are talking to could be in trouble. You could be in trouble. And then if someone does something to you, there’s no smoking gun because you don’t have a film out yet. So that period of time was very scary and very, very sensitive. Our information was on an air gap computer [such a computer is physically separated from and not capable of connecting to other computers or networks]. As you can see, Nate [Halverson] was putting glue into the ports and everything. So we were scared at that point.  Do I think that I was in danger? There was a moment in Zambia where I imagined anything could happen to me and it could just be anyone’s fault. Because everything works in the shadows in those places and the mercenaries operate with plausible deniability. So that was scary. I think what’s scarier and what I’m worried about and was always worried about is someone like Brig [a local Zambian activist in the film]. He’s in the shadows. He’s there surrounded by people who might just say, you’re hurting our profits. It could be people inside Zambia, it could be Zambians, and it could also be mercenaries working on behalf of big governments.  There’s a huge implication in the film that Ukraine was invaded by Russia because they had dammed a water source from flowing into Crimea. Do you really think water was the primary reason behind the current conflict?  It was certainly a big catalyst that nobody talks about. But is it the only catalyst? I don’t think so. I think there’s always a lot of calculated risk that someone like Putin’s going to take, and he’s going to come into that situation for a number of reasons. But the water thing, we felt like it was not given enough attention, especially when you really look at Ukraine being the biggest bread basket in the world and the biggest feeder of poverty stricken nations in the world. So it was something that bore mentioning. Blackfish had a tremendous real-world impact. How important is it for you to create change with your films? I think Blackfish made me realize that you can effect change through a film. And I think that it almost looms over me as a promise that I feel like I’m making when I make my films. Yes, I do hope that it effects change. I don’t go into the nuts and bolts of the filmmaking thinking that, because then I’m creating a 90-minute 1-800 number, and so the impetus when I’m making a film is to make it entertaining and help you learn. But once it’s finished, then I sort of catapult to another sphere, and that’s to get people to do life better, to make us do something after we feel something. So it’s an added pressure I think that I just give to myself. I just feel like that’s my lane because of what I saw happening with my own experience with Blackfish. So ultimately what’s the change you want to engender with this film? Let’s create a national water center that’s going to synthesize all the information about water. There is no national water policy because we’re a federalist country. It’s all state, right? So what we need to understand is how much water we have, which is something else we don’t know as a nation. We have groundwater, we know rivers, but we don’t know how much water we have and where it is. And that information is starting to become available and could become more available. So once we have that, we should create an agency or a national water center that’s really a clearinghouse for information.  It’s such a ridiculous pie in the sky dream. But now I have it, and so I want to just at least try to do that. So I don’t think I can leave this one because it is so ongoing and there’s no sort of decisive end to it. There is no “OK, now everybody’s fine and has water.” It’s continuing because, as someone said, the discussion about water constantly fluctuates, because water constantly fluctuates. Copyright 2024 Capital & Main

Around the world, lands with water and food resources are being snatched up by powerful interests. The Grab director Gabriela Cowperthwaite discusses her documentary that is both a geopolitical thriller and a call to action. The post In Deep Water appeared first on .

Throughout history, we have witnessed the fierce pursuit of valuable commodities such as spices, gold, wheat, cotton and oil. Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s new documentary, The Grab, reveals that nations and multinational corporations are now urgently scouring the globe to hoard and control an even more crucial resource: water.

Cowperthwaite directed the acclaimed 2013 documentary Blackfish, which investigated the death of a SeaWorld trainer, highlighted the mistreatment of orca whales in captivity, and ultimately led to SeaWorld ending its orca shows. 

The Grab (streaming and in select theaters June 14) follows investigative reporter Nathan Halverson and his team from the Center for Investigative Reporting. Together, they have traveled the globe, from Arizona to Zambia, to shed light on the covert acquisition of water-rich lands. As global warming intensifies and water resources dwindle, these areas are becoming hotbeds for profit-driven companies and for nations desperate to sustain their populations. 

This film reveals how a Chinese company backed by the government bought the American company Smithfield Foods; now China owns one in four pigs raised in the U.S. In Arizona, a Saudi-owned 10,000 acre hay farm has been using massive amounts of water in the middle of the desert and exporting the hay back to the Kingdom. And former mercenary and Blackwater Security Company founder Erik Prince is leading a group of Chinese investors on a hunt for natural resources and investment opportunities by snatching up land in Zambia and other African countries.

Cowperthwaite recently spoke to Capital & Main about her intention to craft The Grab as a geopolitical thriller and the formidable challenges of documenting the global struggle for this increasingly precious resource.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.


Capital & Main: What was your approach to covering this complex issue of foreign interests grabbing up land with water resources around the world?

Gabriela Cowperthwaite: What I felt like I wanted to do was create a geopolitical thriller. I feel like there are people who need to hear about what’s happening with the grabbing of resources on the planet and need to hear it from the position of power and from the perspective of power. And if we do that, there is a possibility of getting half of this country to see themselves inside this story if we frame it in the context of power rather than going back to Blue State catch words like “environmentalism,” “global warming” and “climate change,” because they turn off the TV if they see those words.

So I wanted to find access points that are human and personal to folks that are not in the environmental echo chamber. Finding a way to humanize this issue and put it in a context that they can relate to, which is powerful people surrounding them, making decisions that are going to destroy their livelihoods and communities.

Right, like the Arizona farmers in the film having their water dry up because a massive plot of land owned by the Saudis is using much of the groundwater. But how do you get authoritarian countries like China and Saudi Arabia to stop buying up huge plots of land in places like Africa?

Gabriela Cowperthwaite and Nathan Halverson. Photo: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images.

It’s not just “Oh, there’s these insidious countries and these dark countries and they’re adversarial and they’re doing these bad things.” First of all, we’re doing the same thing. Wall Street, United States, Western Europe, we’re all doing that. And second, they’re fighting for survival just as much as we are. And I think this is the most Sisyphean answer that you’ll ever get, but in my mind there are many, many things to do. 

One of the most important, and, I guess, jarring moments for me in the film is when [Chinese leader] Xi Jinping revealed he ate raw pork as a kid [because he was starving]. And for me, it changed everything for me in terms of how I made this film. And that was because if there is someone who has understood starvation at that level — and I’m not talking about feeling hungry, I’m talking about just mass starvation — and that person is now essentially in charge of a country, it is the purview of that leader now to make sure that doesn’t happen again.

So it gives you hope that you saw a glimmer of vulnerability in the world’s most powerful authoritarian leader.

I think that’s right. I think if I had gone through what he went through, perhaps I’d make similar decisions. We must see ourselves in each other for anything to make sense about how we do life. And so I think that’s why I got into documentary, and that’s what I love about documentaries.

But if powerful countries secure resources for themselves, won’t smaller, poorer nations suffer disproportionately?

Yes, it will disproportionately affect them. Smaller countries will be hit faster with the ramifications of some of it, but nobody gets out alive is the thing. This is [like] OPEC right? Look at the wars we fought over oil and think about what that would be like over food and water. If all these powerful nations do this, and they control the levers of food and water, that’s going to affect everybody negatively.

And if one country fails, whether it’s Zambia or China, we are going to feel it in our food prices. We’re going to feel it geopolitically. We’re completely interconnected. If Zambia starves, that isn’t just a human rights issue. That means disease, and that disease does not respect national borders, as we’ve seen recently. That means refugees. And it means conflict. And that’s geopolitical conflict, because now that’s happening in a place that the world has deemed as a final breadbasket. We’re going to have to go into conflict with countries in areas that are deemed incredibly geopolitically important and are valuable for water, for the future of food. It’s going to affect them. It’s going to affect us. It’s going to affect everybody.

What surprised you the most in making this film?

What I was the most surprised of was the fear. It was purely the fear. The Saudi cables that suggested that they were terrified that the Arab Spring was going to come to them. Food prices go up, we’re in trouble. Look at what people can do on the streets. Same with China. Fear. They don’t admit it inside their country that there was a great famine [from 1959-1961]. They call it natural disaster, but they remember their grandparents starving. So it’s sort of like it’s fear and a lot of it.



Speaking of fear, there was a moment in the film when the crew thought they may be being bugged. Did you guys ever fear for your life, or do you fear for your life now? And are you taking any steps to mitigate that?

So while we were making the film was the scariest part, I think because you don’t yet have a film, which means the people you are talking to could be in trouble. You could be in trouble. And then if someone does something to you, there’s no smoking gun because you don’t have a film out yet. So that period of time was very scary and very, very sensitive. Our information was on an air gap computer [such a computer is physically separated from and not capable of connecting to other computers or networks]. As you can see, Nate [Halverson] was putting glue into the ports and everything. So we were scared at that point. 

Do I think that I was in danger? There was a moment in Zambia where I imagined anything could happen to me and it could just be anyone’s fault. Because everything works in the shadows in those places and the mercenaries operate with plausible deniability. So that was scary.

I think what’s scarier and what I’m worried about and was always worried about is someone like Brig [a local Zambian activist in the film]. He’s in the shadows. He’s there surrounded by people who might just say, you’re hurting our profits. It could be people inside Zambia, it could be Zambians, and it could also be mercenaries working on behalf of big governments. 

There’s a huge implication in the film that Ukraine was invaded by Russia because they had dammed a water source from flowing into Crimea. Do you really think water was the primary reason behind the current conflict? 

It was certainly a big catalyst that nobody talks about. But is it the only catalyst? I don’t think so. I think there’s always a lot of calculated risk that someone like Putin’s going to take, and he’s going to come into that situation for a number of reasons. But the water thing, we felt like it was not given enough attention, especially when you really look at Ukraine being the biggest bread basket in the world and the biggest feeder of poverty stricken nations in the world. So it was something that bore mentioning.

Blackfish had a tremendous real-world impact. How important is it for you to create change with your films?

I think Blackfish made me realize that you can effect change through a film. And I think that it almost looms over me as a promise that I feel like I’m making when I make my films. Yes, I do hope that it effects change. I don’t go into the nuts and bolts of the filmmaking thinking that, because then I’m creating a 90-minute 1-800 number, and so the impetus when I’m making a film is to make it entertaining and help you learn. But once it’s finished, then I sort of catapult to another sphere, and that’s to get people to do life better, to make us do something after we feel something. So it’s an added pressure I think that I just give to myself. I just feel like that’s my lane because of what I saw happening with my own experience with Blackfish.

So ultimately what’s the change you want to engender with this film?

Let’s create a national water center that’s going to synthesize all the information about water. There is no national water policy because we’re a federalist country. It’s all state, right? So what we need to understand is how much water we have, which is something else we don’t know as a nation. We have groundwater, we know rivers, but we don’t know how much water we have and where it is. And that information is starting to become available and could become more available. So once we have that, we should create an agency or a national water center that’s really a clearinghouse for information. 

It’s such a ridiculous pie in the sky dream. But now I have it, and so I want to just at least try to do that. So I don’t think I can leave this one because it is so ongoing and there’s no sort of decisive end to it. There is no “OK, now everybody’s fine and has water.” It’s continuing because, as someone said, the discussion about water constantly fluctuates, because water constantly fluctuates.


Copyright 2024 Capital & Main

Read the full story here.
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Helene’s health risks include contaminated water and mold: Doctors

Floodwater with sewage or other harmful contaminants in it can lead to infectious diseases, according to an epidemiologist.

(NewsNation) — As authorities in the path of Hurricane Helene continue to hunt for missing people, the dangers for those who survived the wind and flooding are many, including contaminated water and mold. “Symptoms from infection with waterborne pathogens can include gastrointestinal upset, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, fever, and headache,” said Alasdair Cohen, an assistant professor of environmental epidemiology with the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine. The danger is worse for anyone with any sort of skin break, even a small scrape or a condition like eczema. “Floodwater with sewage or other harmful contaminants in it can lead to infectious diseases, particularly among people who are already ill, immunocompromised or have open wounds,” epidemiology professor Jennifer Horney at the University of Delaware wrote on the nonprofit news website The Conversation. In some regions, damaged water treatment plants may not be operational for weeks. A lack of power means that private wells, which require electricity to pump and filter the water, are not a reliable source of safe water. Another dangerous legacy of Helene’s rain and flooding is mold, which may be especially dangerous to people who rush to clean their homes of storm damage. “There are multiple health effects from mold exposure,” said Dr. Colin Swenson of Atlanta’s Emory University. “Probably the best known are those with asthma and other sorts of airway-based diseases,” he told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Mold can enter your home through open doorways, windows, vents, and heating and air conditioning systems,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Mold in the air outside can also attach itself to clothing, shoes, and pets (and) can and be carried indoors." The site offers several tips on how to clean mold but stresses that “if you see or smell mold, you should remove it. You do not need to know the type of mold. If mold is growing in your home, you need to clean up the mold and fix the moisture problem.” Swenson adds that while you might not see any mold, your sense of smell will tell the story. “The best single way to determine if you have mold in the home is ‘the nose knows’ that sort of musty odor that the mold gives off. These are volatile, organic compounds that can oftentimes predate the development of any visual signs,” he said.

Thousands without clean water across U.S. Southeast, 1 week on from hurricane hitting Florida

Hurricane Helene's abating floodwaters have enabled residents across storm-hit Southeastern states to return home, but health officials warn survivors now face threats including contaminated water and mold.The big picture: More than 180 storm-related deaths have been confirmed as teams search for missing people, thousands of people still have no power and are without clean water access one week on from the hurricane making landfall in Florida and dumping flooding rains across the Southeast.Critical materials like new water pipes continue to arrive in Asheville and are in the process of being connected to our water service system. We are grateful to our state, federal and private sector partners for their critical assistance. pic.twitter.com/myR19mHbbD— City of Asheville (@CityofAsheville) October 2, 2024 "Access to safe and potable water remains a top concern in Western North Carolina," per a Tuesday statement from the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services that noted about 160 boil water advisories were in effect and 27 water plants closed and not producing water due to the storm. Asheville's nearly 100,000 residents may have to wait "weeks" for clean water, city officials said. Meanwhile, boil water and conservation notices were also in effect in Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia. Thousands of people were estimated Threat level: "Access to clean water is one of the most urgent health concerns after a flood. People need water for drinking, preparing food, cleaning, bathing, even flushing toilets. Contact with contaminated water can cause serious illnesses," wrote disaster epidemiologist Jennifer Horney in The Conversation on Wednesday."Floodwater with sewage or other harmful contaminants in it can lead to infectious diseases, particularly among people who are already ill, immunocompromised or have open wounds," added Horney, who's originally from N.C. and now works as an epidemiology professor at the University of Delaware.Symptoms from infection with waterborne pathogens "can include gastrointestinal upset, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, fever, and headache," according to a statement from Alasdair Cohen, an assistant professor of environmental epidemiology with the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine.Floodwaters pose risks like gastrointestinal illness, dehydration, and carbon monoxide poisoning from improper generator use, per a statement from Julia Gohlke an associate professor in the Department of Population Health Sciences at the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine. "Pregnant women face an increased risk of premature labor or preterm birth, and long-term mold exposure can exacerbate asthma."The bottom line: "Flooded regions will need long-term help," Horney notes.More from Axios:Hurricane Helene damages could hit $35 billionStudy reveals thousands of long-term deaths from hurricanesView from space shows path of power outages from Hurricane Helene

Hurricane Helene's abating floodwaters have enabled residents across storm-hit Southeastern states to return home, but health officials warn survivors now face threats including contaminated water and mold.The big picture: More than 180 storm-related deaths have been confirmed as teams search for missing people, thousands of people still have no power and are without clean water access one week on from the hurricane making landfall in Florida and dumping flooding rains across the Southeast.Critical materials like new water pipes continue to arrive in Asheville and are in the process of being connected to our water service system. We are grateful to our state, federal and private sector partners for their critical assistance. pic.twitter.com/myR19mHbbD— City of Asheville (@CityofAsheville) October 2, 2024 "Access to safe and potable water remains a top concern in Western North Carolina," per a Tuesday statement from the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services that noted about 160 boil water advisories were in effect and 27 water plants closed and not producing water due to the storm. Asheville's nearly 100,000 residents may have to wait "weeks" for clean water, city officials said. Meanwhile, boil water and conservation notices were also in effect in Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia. Thousands of people were estimated Threat level: "Access to clean water is one of the most urgent health concerns after a flood. People need water for drinking, preparing food, cleaning, bathing, even flushing toilets. Contact with contaminated water can cause serious illnesses," wrote disaster epidemiologist Jennifer Horney in The Conversation on Wednesday."Floodwater with sewage or other harmful contaminants in it can lead to infectious diseases, particularly among people who are already ill, immunocompromised or have open wounds," added Horney, who's originally from N.C. and now works as an epidemiology professor at the University of Delaware.Symptoms from infection with waterborne pathogens "can include gastrointestinal upset, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, fever, and headache," according to a statement from Alasdair Cohen, an assistant professor of environmental epidemiology with the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine.Floodwaters pose risks like gastrointestinal illness, dehydration, and carbon monoxide poisoning from improper generator use, per a statement from Julia Gohlke an associate professor in the Department of Population Health Sciences at the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine. "Pregnant women face an increased risk of premature labor or preterm birth, and long-term mold exposure can exacerbate asthma."The bottom line: "Flooded regions will need long-term help," Horney notes.More from Axios:Hurricane Helene damages could hit $35 billionStudy reveals thousands of long-term deaths from hurricanesView from space shows path of power outages from Hurricane Helene

Hurricane Helene leaves thousands without clean water in its wake

Damage to sewage systems and pipes means widespread boil water notices and conservation orders could last weeksHurricane Helene left a path of devastation behind, with storm-ravaged areas struggling to access safe water for days because flooding damaged sewage systems, wastewater treatment plants, and pipes that deliver drinking water to residents in the affected areas.Boiling water advisories and water conservation orders are in place in counties in Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia. Continue reading...

Hurricane Helene left a path of devastation behind, with storm-ravaged areas struggling to access safe water for days because flooding damaged sewage systems, wastewater treatment plants, and pipes that deliver drinking water to residents in the affected areas.Boiling water advisories and water conservation orders are in place in counties in Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia.More than 160 boil water advisories were in effect in North Carolina as of Tuesday. On Sunday, officials in Asheville said that nearly 100,000 residents may not get access to water for weeks.“Extensive repairs are required to treatment facilities, underground and aboveground water pipes, and to roads that have washed away which are preventing water personnel from accessing parts of the system,” the city’s press release read.Some residents have resorted to bathing in creeks, and relying on water from streams to flush toilets, according to the Washington Post.Sydney Evans, senior science analyst at Environmental Working Group, said that “after catastrophic storms like Hurricane Helene, many water systems and private wells are compromised by dangerous contamination like bacteria and other pathogens, industrial pollutants and animal waste that pose an immediate threat to people’s health”.Many in the affected areas, particularly in the Appalachian region, rely on wells that require electricity to access drinking water. But in the aftermath of Helene, which made landfall last Thursday, more than 1 million people remain without power.“Now there are so many additional potential contaminants that may be present in water sources, especially water systems that use surface water,” Elin Betanzo, drinking water expert and president of Safe Water Engineering, said.“Boiling water is effective for addressing acute microbial contaminants, but this might be very difficult with the lack of power in many locations.”Betanzo added that camping drinking water filters and treatments may be another option in the short term.

Honeywell will fund cleanup of contaminated groundwater in San Fernando Valley, EPA says

The EPA said the facilities will treat groundwater in a part of the San Fernando Valley Superfund site, enabling the LADWP to use the water as part of its supplies.

Decades ago, chemicals from manufacturing plants seeped into the groundwater in the San Fernando Valley, contaminating the aquifer. As part of ongoing cleanup efforts, the federal Environmental Protection Agency has announced that the company Honeywell International Inc. has agreed to pay for building water treatment facilities in North Hollywood.The EPA said the facilities will treat groundwater in a portion of the San Fernando Valley Superfund site, enabling the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to use the water as part of its supplies.The agency said in its announcement Tuesday that the agreement was reached after more than a decade of negotiations and that it “resulted from a cooperative process” involving the company, the EPA and LADWP.LADWP had previously announced in 2021 that Honeywell was funding and building treatment facilities to clean up groundwater in the San Fernando Valley.According to the EPA, Honeywell’s predecessors manufactured aircraft parts and other industrial equipment starting in the 1940s at a facility in North Hollywood known as the Bendix site. Regulators determined that operations at several industrial plants, including that site, caused the contamination of groundwater in a part of the Superfund site called the North Hollywood Operable Unit.The groundwater in the area is contaminated with harmful chemicals including trichloroethylene and perchloroethylene.Under the agreement, contaminated groundwater will be pumped, treated and delivered to LADWP. The purified water will be enough to meet the needs of about 144,000 L.A. residents, restoring a local source that will help boost local supplies, the EPA said.Martha Guzman, the EPA’s Pacific Southwest regional administrator, said the announcement “marks major progress on the cleanup of groundwater in the San Fernando Valley.”“This is a key step towards returning the aquifer to use as a drinking water source for the people of Los Angeles,” Guzman said.

Hillsboro voters will advise city whether to add fluoride to water supply

Fluoride is widely used to strengthen tooth enamel, but opponents say it can hurt children’s neurological development.

Hillsboro voters this fall will advise the city whether to add fluoride to the public water supply, weighing in on a mineral that’s widely used to strengthen tooth enamel but that opponents say can hurt children’s neurological development.Hillsboro pediatrician Beth Mossman spearheaded the effort to have city residents vote on the addition of fluoride. In June, the City Council approved placing non-binding advisory Measure 34-338 on the November ballot to ask for the community’s opinion on fluoridation.The measure has brought the fight over fluoride’s health impacts to the forefront. Arguments largely mirror those that erupted in Portland 11 years ago when a similar, highly controversial proposal appeared on the ballot. Voters ultimately rejected it 61% to 39%.Fluoride is added to drinking water in most U.S. water systems to help protect people’s teeth from decay. About 15,000 Hillsboro residents already receive fluoridated water from the Tualatin Valley Water District, which supplies areas east of Cornelius Pass Road and north of U.S. 26. But the remaining 92,000 city residents receive their water from the Hillsboro Water Department, which does not fluoridate the water.Should Measure 34-338 pass, Hillsboro Water Department Director Niki Iverson said her agency would follow the non-binding guidance and fluoridate the rest of the city’s water supply, unless regulations change or costs skyrocket. The department would spread the anticipated costs of around $4 million over at least four to five years and delay non-urgent projects to avoid raising rates, Iverson said.In addition to providing water to most Hillsboro residents, the department also serves the communities of Gaston and Cornelius.Organizations including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention consider fluoride safe at low concentrations, and in most of the U.S., it’s added to drinking water at a concentration of 0.7 milligrams per liter. A notable exception is the city of Portland, the largest city in the U.S. without fluoridated water.Opponents of fluoridation point to a growing body of research showing that fluoride can have adverse effects on children’s IQ. And the Hillsboro vote is coming just as anti-fluoridation advocates notched a major win: A federal judge in San Francisco ruled Tuesday that the Environmental Protection Agency must further regulate fluoride in drinking water out of concerns about intellectual development.In Mossman’s eyes, adding fluoride to Hillsboro’s water is crucial for the tooth health of local children, including her patients. Her advocacy group, Healthy Teeth Hillsboro, has raised about $6,500 to support the measure, campaign finance records show.Last summer, Mossman saw two young children whose teeth had deteriorated to the point that their parents had to sell their car to pay for dental care. They lived less than a mile from homes that receive fluoridated water, she said. And if they’d lived across that border, she thinks their teeth wouldn’t have deteriorated so much.“So I got fired up,” Mossman said. “I went to the City Council, and I said, ‘Please help me with this. There’s no reason Hillsboro should not be fluoridated.’”To Mossman, opposing fluoridation is akin to embracing the anti-vaccine movement. Opponents of the measure, however, argue that fluoride poses too great a health risk to countenance.“What level of hazardous material do we want to put into any water supply?” asked Hillsboro resident Matthew Sztelle, the director of advocacy group Clean Water Hillsboro, which has raised about $5,500 to oppose the measure.Staci Whitman, a pediatric dentist in Portland who works with Hillsboro patients, agreed. She used to support fluoridation, but more than 10 years ago, she dove into the research and changed her mind. She no longer prescribes fluoride supplements for kids drinking non-fluoridated water, she said, because she doesn’t think the benefits of fluoride for teeth outweigh concerns that it could reduce children’s IQ.“Brain health trumps teeth,” Whitman said.No one disputes that at high concentrations, fluoride can have adverse health effects. High, sustained exposure can lead to skeletal fluorosis, a serious bone disease. And a recent meta-analysis by the federal government’s National Toxicology Program found an association between higher fluoride levels of 1.5 milligrams per liter or above and lower IQ. It noted, however, that it had insufficient data to draw conclusions about the impacts of drinking fluoridated water at 0.7 milligrams per liter.Jessica Steier, a Massachusetts-based public health scientist and founder of the podcast Unbiased Science, pointed out that the government report looked at fluoride levels significantly higher than what’s added to the water in the U.S. She said she does not consider standard fluoridated water a cause for concern: “There is absolutely no reason to panic.”But Ashley Malin, who researches the effect of fluoride exposure on neurodevelopmental outcomes at the University of Florida, said adverse effects can occur even at 0.7 milligrams of fluoride per liter. In particular, studies in areas with typical levels of water fluoridation have found associations between higher fluoride levels in pregnant women and lower IQ for their children, she said.“There are growing concerns now, particularly about the impacts on child development,” Malin said. “People are becoming more cautious.”Moreover, Malin said research generally shows that fluoride is best at preventing tooth decay when applied topically — for example, via a fluoridated toothpaste. She described the evidence for benefits from ingesting fluoride as weaker, though the American Dental Association supports the use of both topically applied and ingested fluoride. Steier said the data are mixed, but pointed to research, including a 2018 federal government-funded study, that showed ingesting fluoride does provide benefits for children.Opponents of fluoridation in Hillsboro argue that taking fluoride should be a question of choice. If individual people want to use fluoride for tooth health, they should take supplements or use fluoride toothpaste rather than putting it in the entire city’s drinking water, said Sztelle of Clean Water Hillsboro.But to Mossman, leaving fluoride out of the water supply poses an equity issue. Wealthy parents might be able to take their children to the dentist regularly and provide them with fluoride supplements, but lower-income parents working multiple jobs can’t always afford preventative dental care or ensure their kids have access to fluoride.Fluoridation has a long history of contention in the Portland area. Portland voted to fluoridate in 1978 but overturned that vote two years later. In Washington County, Beaverton, Forest Grove and the Tualatin Valley Water District — minus the Metzger Water District — fluoridate their water.Hillsboro, meanwhile, hasn’t voted on fluoridation since the 1950s. In 1952, residents voted in favor of adding fluoride before rejecting that decision in another vote just one year later. A community group pushed for fluoridation in 2002, but faced opposition. No vote took place then, Iverson said, and she’s not sure how public sentiment has shifted over the past 70 years.“We don’t want to make a shift without really getting that information back from the community,” Iverson said.— Aviva Bechky covers politics and education for The Oregonian/OregonLive. They can be reached at abechky@oregonian.com or on X at @avivabechky.Our journalism needs your support. Subscribe today to OregonLive.com.

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