Chromium
None of us can take anything with us when we're gone. It's what we leave that's gonna matter - Erin Brockovich
image by: HWN
HWN Suggests
We've got the secret to cleaner water: more plastic
Our waterways are teeming with plastic waste. Some five trillion bits now clog the world's oceans, ending up in everything from deep-sea sediments to plankton guts. Nobody wants this - except chemist Abby Knight, that is. In fact, she's adding more.
Abby Knight's array of plastic microbeads grab on to pieces of toxic metal (green) in contaminated groundwater. The balls are doused in a dye to show how much metal each one has absorbed. The darker the pink, the more rubbish they've mopped up.
Since 2011, the 26-year-old post-doc, now at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has been building a vast library of plastic microbeads -- each the size of a grain…
Featured
Erin Brockovich Says 'Superman's Not Coming' To Save Our Water Supply
If terrorists poisoned most of the water U.S. citizens consume, the event would take over the news cycle and it would be the only thing we'd talk about until the situation was fixed. Well, the water is being poisoned — except it isn't coming from terrorists; it's being done by a variety of factories, companies, and processing plants. So why are they not constantly on the news? Well, because they lie about it and settle out of court when it's inevitable, regulatory agencies are struggling to keep up with the widespread problem, and the government often does everything in its power to keep the situation under wraps...
Erin Brockovich Wants to Know What You’re Drinking
Twenty years after her moment in the Hollywood spotlight, the famed water-safety activist has not slowed down.
Articles of Interest
Addressing Chromium-6 in Our Drinking Water
We are taking important actions to ensure that water flowing into our homes and through our communities is safe. We will continue to address the immediate and long-term concerns over chromium-6, and will seek to ensure that our water is safe and that we are dealing with conventional and emerging threats.
Chromium in Drinking Water Causes Cancer
A controversial water contaminant made famous by Erin Brockovich and a small California desert town is carcinogenic. That conclusion by federal scientists, culminating more than a decade of debate, is likely to trigger new, more stringent standards limiting the amount of hexavalent chromium allowable in water supplies.
Chromium Supplements May Boost Cancer Risk
Before reaching for chromium pills, potential users should seriously consider whether there's any real need for a supplementary source of the element. In fact, recent research from a team of Australian scientists has found that when taken in high doses for extended periods of time, chromium could cause cancer.
Chromium-6 Found in Tap Water of 31 U.S. Cities
Chromium-6 is highly toxic and has been found to cause allergic dermatitis, and stomach and gastrointestinal cancer in animals and humans. Used in the manufacture of stainless steel, textiles, anticorrosion coatings, and in leather tanning, it gets into drinking water through industrial pollution. It is also present naturally in some minerals.
Coal Ash Poisons Wells and Community Relations
Coal ash can contain radioactive elements and heavy metals, and there are more than a thousand of the pits scattered across the country.
Hexavalent Chromium: Tap Water Industry Knew About Brockovich Chemical For Years, Reports EWG
The tap water industry has known since 2004 about worrisome levels of a suspected carcinogen in America’s drinking water, claims Environmental Working Group (EWG).
Lead, Chromium Rob Millions of Health
The damage to the mental and physical health of children and adults from lead, chromium and other toxic wastes has emerged as equal to the risk of malaria in three Asian countries — India, Indonesia and the Philippines — a new report shows.
The benefits and risks of chromium
Since chromium deficiency is rare and supplementation studies have shown inconclusive results, it is best to obtain chromium through food. It is not the individual vitamin or mineral alone that make certain foods an important part of our diet, but the synergy of that foods nutrients working together.
The Legacy of Erin Brockovich: Chromium Contamination in Drinking Water
In the years since the movie, there have been some interesting developments on the scientific front — much of what Erin Brockovich and the people of Hinkley, California claimed about hex chrome has been shown to be true.
We’re Blaming the Wrong People for Polluted Tap Water
Recent coverage of hexavalent chromium (also known as chromium 6) in some of our nation’s water supplies vilified the wrong institutions: our municipal water utilities. The real culprits are the industries that dump this and other pollutants into our drinking water sources, and the elected officials who are short-sightedly failing to fund our drinking and wastewater systems.
Resources
15 years after 'Erin Brockovich,' town still fearful of polluted water
As residents leave, the cleanup has progressed and technologies have improved. About 250 acres of alfalfa and other grasses now dot the town where some properties once stood and are used to help convert chromium 6 into the micronutrient chromium 3. But despite the progress, many residents still worry about how much chromium 6 will remain in the water. PG&E is required to clean up to the levels at which chromium 6 naturally occurs in the groundwater — a number known as the background level.
Erin Brockovich
Every day Erin Brockovich is helping people who have suffered because of environmental contamination, bad medical devices and pharmaceuticals.
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
Chromium is released to air primarily by combustion processes and metal industries. Non-occupational sources of chromium include contaminated soil, air, water, smoking, and diet.
EWG
EWG found cancer-causing chromium-6 in tap water from 31 of 35 cities it tested. Americans deserve the protection of official safety standards to protect our water and health. Learn more.
ToxTown
Chromium is a naturally-occurring element found in several forms in rocks, plants, soil, foods such as vegetables and nuts, and volcanic dust and gases. Tobacco products contain chromium. Chromium is also released from burning natural gas, oil, or coal.
WorstPolluted.org
The primary health impacts from chromium are damage to the gastrointestinal, respiratory, and immunological systems, as well as reproductive and developmental problems. Chromium VI is a known human carcinogen, and depending on the exposure route, can increase the rate of various types of cancers.
