Comment letter to California State Water Resources Control Board about its Hexavalent Chromium Workshop

Jeanine Townsend
Clerk to the Board
State Water Resources Control Board
PO Box 100
Sacramento, CA 95812-0100

Re: Comment Letter – Hexavalent Chromium Workshop

Dear Ms. Townsend:

As a contract water treatment operator for Crescent Bay Improvement Company, I submit the following brief comments and response to the White Paper On Economic Feasibility Analysis In Consideration of a Hexavalent Chromium MCL (“the White Paper”), released for public comment by the State Water Resources Control Board in February 2020 and presented in public workshops in April 2022.

Executive Summary

The State Water Resources Control Board’s White Paper Discussion On: Economic Feasibility Analysis of a Hexavalent Chromium MCL does not do what the title claims. It is deficient in its analysis of economic feasibility and dismissive of costs to the consumers, who are purportedly to be the beneficiaries of a new and more stringent Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) for chromium-6 (i.e., hexavalent chromium or CRVI). The White Paper takes a bold stand by using, in essence, the opposite of a progressive tax system. In a progressive system, the richest pay more in taxes than the poor. The White Paper’s approach is to have the poorest pay the most. The White Paper uses a weighted average to whitewash the costs. What level of Dante’s hell is it where a few people will have crushing weights put on them and the majority will be burdened with feathers?

Also missing is any attempt to quantify any benefit of the new MCL, other than to say the Water Board will be able to tout their new MCL is closer to the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment’s Public Health Goal as required in statute. Previous White Papers produced by the Division of Drinking Water have noted the number of cancer cases they expect to avoid at different MCLs. The 2020 White Paper provides no enumerated benefits at all, much less at the different possible MCLs.

To be fair, the authors of the White Paper were handed a fool’s errand. They were to justify the cost of something with an infinitesimal or zero benefit. Consider this: one drop of cola is more than 250 times above the safe level for caffeine. This safe level is known as the Reference Dose (RfD). Interestingly, caffeine and chromium-6 have nearly identical RfDs, and thus nearly identical toxicities. A daily drop of cola or coffee on the tongue does not scare me. Thus, whatever cost for implementation the White Paper’s authors could conjure would vastly exceed the benefit, which is virtually zero.

And the White Paper ignores or elides the fact that 12.9 million Californians (36.1%) live in poverty and people of color are twice as likely as whites to be in poverty.^[1] These low-income communities are often serviced by cash-strapped small public water systems. Furthermore, as noted by the Central Valley Clean Water Alliance (CVCWA), these people face what “Hernandez (2016) describes the ‘heat or eat’ dilemma wherein low-income households are forced to choose between food and energy, oftentimes trading one for the other.”

While my particular water system probably won’t have to address this issue at these levels, I speak on behalf of the two-thirds of water systems in our state serving fewer than 200 connections. The Water Board has noted that 95% of our population is served by large water companies, but two thirds of all water companies that would bear these costs are classified as small.

For an agency that claims to care about minorities and the poor, making a basic need more expensive seems an odd approach, especially considering the diminishing benefits and exponential costs of incrementally lower maximum contaminant levels. The Water Board will continue the beatings until the populace feels better.

Background

Everyone now knows hexavalent chromium as the chemical made famous in 2000 by the movie “Erin Brockovich.” The result, following the movie’s premier, could be described as a moral panic. A moral panic is where media reporting creates a folk devil, and so the public demands the authorities do something about it. This is useful for the state. American journalist, essayist, satirist, and cultural critic H.L. Mencken put it plainly in his In Defense Of Women, “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”

The Erin Brockovich movie, which so many believe to be a documentary, rather than movie fiction “based on a true story,” blamed Pacific Gas & Electric for putting a highly dangerous chemical in their groundwater. It is even in the Water Board’s timeline of events relating to chromium-6.

On July 1, 2014, a maximum contaminant level (MCL or drinking water standard) of 10 ppb (parts per billion) for hexavalent chromium (CrVI) was approved by the Office of Administrative Law. This MCL was 1/10th of the federal MCL for total chromium (100 parts per billion) that was established under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act and 1/5th of the current California MCL for total chromium (50 parts per billion). This new MCL was issued by the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) right before its Division of Drinking Water transferred jurisdiction to the State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board).

On May 31, 2017, the Superior Court of Sacramento County issued a judgment invalidating the MCL on the basis that CDPH had not properly considered the economic feasibility. “Because the Court remands this case to the Department for further consideration of economic feasibility, it need not decide whether the MCL is economically feasible, although, as will become apparent below, it has concerns about the MCL’s economic feasibility for small water systems and their users…. The Department essentially equates its economic feasibility analysis with its cost-benefit analysis.”

For the purposes of determining economic feasibility, the State Water Board must consider the cost of compliance to:
• Public water systems
• Customers
• Other affected parties

Discussion

Background

Chromium-6 is a natural substance and can be found in rocks, plants, soil, and volcanic dust.^[2] This means it can be found naturally in water. This also means that all animals, including humans, have been interacting with and consuming chromium-6 at various levels for millennia. Since we evolved surrounded by millions of compounds, we have incorporated them into our bodies as we evolved. For example, did you know you have 20,000,000 plutonium atoms in your bone marrow? Every animal that has ever lived does and did as well. We interact with our environment; it interacts with us.

Despite incorporating compounds from our environment into our bodies and their function, every compound, no matter how dangerous, has a level at which it is safe, and can even be beneficial. Every compound, no matter how benign, has a level at which it is dangerous. At higher levels, chromium-6 is known to be toxic in two ways. First, by contact. Long duration direct exposure to skin can produce an irritating allergic reaction. And second, by inhalation,^[3] which is why the workers at PG&E wore respirators to protect against chromium-6 fumes. A paper claiming it caused stomach cancers in China was retracted.

Chromium-6 is comparable in toxicity to caffeine. A toxicologically safe dose is called a Reference Dose (RfD). Chromium-6 and caffeine have nearly identical RfDs. The RfD for caffeine is 0.0025 milligrams per kilogram of body weight per day.^[4] That is about 3-4 drops of a Coca-Cola for a 70-kilogram adult.^[5] According to one research paper about toxicity published in the Journal of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists, “[Caffeine’s] final RfD would be 0.0025 mg/kg-day^[6], a very small dose in the same range as RfDs for known toxicants such as hexavalent chromium and potassium cyanide. For a 10-kg child, this dose is the quantity of caffeine in 1/50th of a milliliter^[7] (mL) of cola (based on the content of Coca-Cola, 35 mg per 12 fl oz).”^{^[8]}(Parentheses in original)

And while the Board may well point out that chromium-6 has no use in the body, this is not exactly true, since chromium-6 is ingested and changed to chromium-3 by the body’s functions. Chromium-3 is an essential mineral that the body needs. It is involved in the breakdown and absorption of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, and enhances the action of the hormone insulin. And according to a report by the National Research Council, “In its hexavalent state (as chromic oxide, chromate, or dichromate), chromium is a strong oxidizing agent and readily reacts with organic matter in acidic solution, leading to reduction to the trivalent form” aka chromium-3.[9]

Yet, Erin Brockovich proved there were clusters of cancers in Hinkley due to the drinking water, right? No.

According to Dr. Alex Berezow a PhD microbiologist and science writer, Brockovich used the “Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy^[10].” “By sheer chance alone, patients with particular diseases — even rare ones — can occasionally be found in close proximity to one another.” In fact, an epidemiological survey conducted by the state found no extra cases of cancer in Hinkley than what normally would be expected. He goes on to say, “Ms. Brockovich’s case did not make biomedical sense, because she not only blamed hexavalent chromium for causing cancer but a myriad of unrelated conditions^[11].” In other words, her linkage of chromium-6 to all those diseases was as sound as the ailments listed by people who believe in “chem-trails” or are afraid of genetically modified corn.

Interestingly, the Division of Drinking Water abandoned their typical cost-benefit analysis for the chromium-6 White Paper. “The chrome 6 MCL [maximum contaminant level], adopted by the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) in April 2014, stands out as a significant departure from [CDPH] past practice and from the legislative intent of the 1996 CSDWA [California Safe Drinking Water Act] amendments,” the Southern California Water Coalition noted. “Cost estimates were developed for seven alternative MCLs. However, the incremental public health benefits were not compared to the incremental costs of compliance at each alternative MCL. It also does not appear that a balancing exercise was undertaken to ensure that the small incremental benefits that would be achieved justified the incremental costs and the increased burden on public water systems and their customers.”^[12]

In other words, the California Department of Public Health, for whatever internal reasons, did not do a cost-benefit analysis to show that the benefit to the people of California outweighed the additional burden of cost.

Science

The White Paper states, “The level at which the State Water Board sets an MCL is a policy decision. It is not an arbitrary or capricious decision but based on applying available scientific evidence to rulemaking requirements of applicable statutes.”[13] This is the paper’s only nod to science. We are being asked to believe that science has gone into the review. Yet as physicist Richard Feynman said, “Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt.”

“’Science’ is not a set of facts but a process or method that sets out a way for us to discover information,” said John R. Christy, Professor of Atmospheric Science, University of Alabama in Huntsville in Congressional testimony,[14] “and which attempts to determine the level of confidence we might have in that information.” Anyone can participate in science. That’s the point. Science is a decentralized self–regulating process for legitimizing belief. It usually consists of observations, hypotheses, experimentation, and open-ended public adjudication. In science, nothing is ever settled, except that as more people see evidence and are persuaded by its proponents, a consensus may form and be generally agreed upon.

Toxicology, epidemiology, economics, statistics, risk-assessment, and other scientific disciplines go into providing safe and affordable drinking water to our neighbors. These can be difficult topics to relay in clear language, yet that is what the California Legislature requires the Water Board to do. The Water Board needs to show its work as to the data, the manipulation of the data, the interpretation of the data, and how that affected the formation of a regulation.

The British Royal Society’s motto, Nullius in verba, is Latin for “Take nobody’s word for it.” “Because we said so” is not the intent of the California Legislature; they want the Water Board to be transparent in how they determined this was necessary. The California Legislature through the Administrative Procedure Act mandates the Water Board explain what is being promulgated, the reasons the Water Board believes it will make our world safer, and why it is worth the cost.

Costs

All regulations come with a cost. They are a form of governmental taking, and at the very least, a taking of time. At the very worst, a taking of time and money. In this case, any decrease in the MCLs for chromium-6 will cost money and time. Paperwork, testing, labs, all take time and money, even before factoring in changes treatment processes. In a 2008 report, the Small Business Administration calculated the annual cost of federal regulations in the United States at $1.75 trillion. “Had every U.S. household paid an equal share of the federal regulatory burden, each would have owed $15,586 in 2008.”[15] State, regional, and local regulations then pile on more costs per household. Additional regulation hits small water companies harder since there are fewer people to shoulder the cost.

Weighting the costs, as done in the White Paper, is economic sleight of hand to hide the devastating effect on almost two-thirds of California Water Companies (those serving fewer than 200 connections). Since the Water Board had to resort to hiding the true cost, why pursue this at all?

A table in the White Paper provides estimated Annual Cost per Service Connection (dollars per year) for a range of possible MCL values. Compliance with the proposed chromium-6 MCL (10 parts per billion) will result in a $5,630-per-connection annual cost for users of small systems (less than 200 service connections), $857 for systems with 200 to 999 service connections, $326 for systems with 1,000 to 10,000 connections, and $64 for systems greater than 10,000 connections – based on information derived from the 2014 California Department of Public Health Initial Statement of Reasons.

MCL (mg/L)	Less than 200 Services	200 to 999 Services	1,000 to 10,000 Services	10,000 or more Services	Weighted Average ANNUAL Cost per Connection for all impacted systems	Weighted Average MONTHLY Cost
0.001	$7,160	$1,220	$483	$300	$348	$29
0.005	$6,680	$1,090	$398	$117	$154	$13
0.010	$5,630	$857	$326	$64	$58	$8
0.015	$5,870	$1,310[16]	$280	$37	$37	$5
0.020	$5,470	$1,040	$190	$25	$14	$3
0.025	$4,240	NA[17]	$184	$17	$22	$2
0.030	$4,140	NA	$200[18]	$11	$14	$1

After seeing numbers such as those in their table, one wonders why the Water Board did not simply stop, declare that people would need to purchase bottled water for drinking, and use tap water supplied by public water systems for other domestic uses. They also should wonder why the costs drop to $857 per connection for 10 parts per billion, and costs at 25 and 30 parts per billion are not applicable for public water systems with between 200 and 999 service connections. Please show your work to explain why there is no applicable cost for these categories.

Trade-Offs

I do not know if the members of the Water Board must consider, as I do, the cost of something when considering a purchase. I consider the costs and benefits of a good or a service before I buy. When the cost of something goes up, I buy less of it. Yet, as noted before, the Water Board’s White Paper has tried to hide the cost. As Bjorn Lomborg said when evaluating public health goals, “[I]gnoring costs doesn’t make difficult choices disappear; it makes them less clear.” The White Paper has made options less clear, seemingly by design. California’s public water systems have finite wallets. Some are deeper than others.

The government of California must make some hard choices. They must decide which targets offer the greatest returns on the money and time taken from the taxpayers, who they are supposed to serve. As for the Water Board, where is the balancing act suggested by the California Safe Drinking Water Act and the Human Right to Water Act to both protect public health through maximum contaminant levels and acknowledging the competing demands for limited economic resources? This new contemplated maximum contaminant level is exactly what SB 1307 aimed to prevent. It ignores any checks and balances to prevent unsustainable outcomes. SB 1307 further repealed the requirement that large water systems attempt to reach the Public Health Goal levels. There seems to be no consideration to the disproportionately expensive maximum contaminant level compared to any public health benefit.

One hard choice, since money and time are the most limited of resources, is what is more important to California residents: replacing aging water infrastructure or ratcheting down a maximum contaminant level to possibly prevent health issues that have not been established by the science? Forcing water companies to divert funds from replacing aging infrastructure will have a cost that is more immediate in the form of system failures.

Additionally, there will be unexpected consequences. Increasing water bills will probably have knock-on effects in reduced sanitation, increased risk of infectious diseases when people try to minimize their water use because it has become so expensive.

hy has the chromium-6 White Paper differed so radically from past practice and from the intent of the California Safe Drinking Water Act? Why are there no public health benefits presented to compare to the incremental costs at the differing proposed MCLs as SB 617 requires and past practice with setting other MCLs? What happened to cause this abandonment of using the incremental cost-benefit approach in the White Paper? What is the cost of no change to California’s chromium-6 maximum contaminant level? At the standard $4,000,000 per life, how many dollars (lives) will saved under the proposed chromium-6 maximum contaminant level? Since cancer cases averted has been used in the past, what dollar amount does the Water Board assign to the average cancer case, and why isn’t it assigned here?

Conclusion

I and my customers want more than moral panic and unmoored speculation from the Water Board and its staff. Science is the pursuit of knowledge and understanding of the natural and social world using a systematic, evidence-based methodology. While the numbers and abbreviations can cloud the issue, it seems that the Water Board is mandating a standard based on voodoo toxicology, economics, and other disciplines. The ingestion of less than a drop of something similar in toxicity to cola each day sounds extremely unlikely to be risky.

Science requires observation and measurement of predictions. ‘I believe in science’ is a statement of belief. Belief is the realm of religion; science inhabits that which can be observed and measured. Show us the science behind your reasoning for making this change, show us the benefits expected, and the true, unweighted, costs incurred for each proposed for each level of water company.

Lastly, if the Water Board adopts what I see as an ill-advised step and adopts this lower maximum contaminant level, then the Water Board must develop public health metrics (e.g., fewer cancer cases) to show that the benefit was worth the cost. California has had a maximum contaminant level that is half of the Federal EPA total chromium standard for many years, and yet the White Paper makes no effort to show that this has resulted in any benefit at all. Why should we all line up behind a proposal to lower the maximum contaminant level still further, in the absence of any data at all supporting the first reduction from 100 parts per billion to 50 parts per billion?

I thank the Water Board for taking my statement.

Footnotes

[1] California Health and Human Services Open Data Portal https://data.chhs.ca.gov/dataset/poverty-rate-by-california-regions/resource/ea66eef9-d854-4792-a587-636579780481 (accessed 4/23/22)

[2] https://www.epa.gov/sdwa/chromium-drinking-water accessed Nov. 15, 2021

[3] National Research Council 1974. Chromium. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/20099

[4] That is for every kilogram of body weight the RfD per day would be 0.0025 milligrams, i.e., 2.5 μg/kg

[5] The number of drops of coffee or tea or yerba mate are similar.

[6] That is for every kilogram of body weight the RfD per day would be 0.0025 milligrams, i.e., 2.5 μg/kg.

[7] About one-half of a drop.

[8] Sorell, Tamara L. 2016. “Approaches to the Development of Human Health Toxicity Values for Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients in the Environment.” The AAPS Journal 18 (1): 92–101. https://doi.org/10.1208/s12248-015-9818-5
[9] National Research Council. “Committee on Biologic Effects of Atmospheric Pollutants. Chromium.” National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC (1974).

[10] The sharpshooter fallacy is a form of confirmation bias where certain patterns or data are accepted but others are ignored. The name comes from a joke about a Texan who shoots at the side of a barn, then paints a around the tightest cluster of hits and claims to be a sharpshooter.

[11] California Repudiates Erin Brockovich on Hexavalent Chromium http://www.acsh.org/news/2017/08/02/california-repudiates-erin-brockovich-hexavalent-chromium-11644?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter (accessed August 2, 2017)

[12] Southern California Water Coalition, Position Statement on Economic Feasibility Guidance for MCLs (February 19, 2019)

[13] State Water Resources Control Board, White Paper Discussion On: ECONOMIC FEASIBILITY ANALYSIS In Consideration of a HEXAVALENT CHROMIUM MCL February 2020

[14] J.R. Christy 29 March 2017 testimony U.S. House Committee on Science, Space & Technology

[15] Nicole V. Crain and W. Mark Crain, The Impact of Regulatory Costs on Small Firms. September 2010

[16] Why does it cost more per service connection for 0.015 mg/L than the most stringent standard of 0.001 mg/L?

[17] Why is there no cost associated?

[18] Why does the more lenient MCL cost more per connection?

Once again into the Erin Brockovich breech, dear friends

American journalist, essayist, satirist, and cultural critic, Henry Louis Mencken noted in his In Defense Of Women

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”
HL Mencken In Defense Of Women

Mencken was describing what is now called a moral panic, which an article in Psychology Today says is a “situation in which public fears and state interventions greatly exceed the objective threat posed to society by a particular individual or group who is/are claimed to be responsible for creating the threat in the first place.” Think Satanic Panic. Thus it is that we find ourselves addressing the hobgoblin of chromium-6; you know, the chemical that the movie Erin Brockovich made famous. Once again the California State Water Resources Control Board and the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment have tag teamed the bogeyman of cancer caused by chromium-6 to push through yet another lowering of the MCL (Maximum Contaminant Level).

Below my draft comment letter to the State Water Resources Control Board regarding their proposed changing of chromium-6 limits in drinking water. You are free to use it.

Also, I would love to have your feedback. I want to have an interesting letter that is easily digested. With something technical it is easy to get mired in jargon and esoteric concepts, yet I have to make it understandable. The Water Board’s members are not specialists.

Lawmakers cannot be experts in everything and your input is critical to having rules you can live with. They are primarily lay persons with no special background. If I have not made any points clear to you in this draft, those points will go past the board too.

Please leave comments.

Draft Letter to the California State Water Resources Control Board

Jeanine Townsend
Clerk to the Board
State Water Resources Control Board
PO Box 100
Sacramento, CA 95812-0100

Norman Benson
Water Treatment Operator #37828
Lower Lake, CA 95457

April 7, 2022

Comment Letter – Hexavalent Chromium Workshop

Hello, my name is Norm Benson. I am a licensed Water Treatment Operator. I contract my services to Crescent Bay Improvement Company in Lake County, which has 22 connections, all of those are homes. I am concerned about the proposed standard maximum contaminant level (MCL) for chromium-6.

Would anyone on the Water Board be afraid to put one drop of cola in a six-ounce tippy cup of water and then give that to a child to drink? I would not hesitate. Yet one drop of cola is more than 250 times above the safe level for caffeine. This safe level is known as the Reference Dose (RfD) . Interestingly, caffeine and chromium-6 have nearly identical RfDs, and thus nearly identical toxicities.

According to one research paper about toxicity published in the Journal of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists, “[Caffeine’s] final RfD would be 0.0025 mg/kg-day, a very small dose in the same range as RfDs for known toxicants such as hexavalent chromium and potassium cyanide. For a 10-kg child, this dose is the quantity of caffeine in 1/50th of a milliliter (mL) of cola (based on the content of Coca-Cola, 35 mg per 12 fl oz).”

So the RfD for a 20-pound child for caffeine is about one-half of a drop of cola. Is it the Water Board’s contention that one-half or one drop of cola per day for a toddler is dangerous?

Paracelsus, credited as the Father of Toxicology said, “What is there that is not poison? All things are poison and nothing is without poison. Solely the dose determines that a thing is not a poison.” Or to put it slightly differently, every toxic substance you can name, no matter how scary, has a safe level; and every substance you can name, no matter how natural or benign, even water, has a toxic level.

In 1991, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency raised the federal MCL for chromium-6 from 50 µg/L to 100 µg/L, which is still magnitudes greater than its RfD. Regulatory agencies do not loosen regulations if there is evidence of potential harm. What evidence of harm does the Water Board possess to further ratchet down the MCL for chromium-6?
The State Water Resources Control Board uses the fig leaf of the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) public health goal as its raison d’être for its MCL proposals. To an outsider, it all seems to use a “less is better” model as a heuristic guideline for safety. While this can be a useful rule of thumb, it is not scientific and can lead to unnecessary burdens, especially when we are speaking of MCLs far below the RfD.
And while the Board may well point out that chromium-6 has no use in the body, this is not exactly true, since chromium-6 is ingested and changed to chromium-3 by the body’s functions. chromium-3, is an essential mineral that the body needs. It is involved in the breakdown and absorption of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, and enhances the action of the hormone insulin. And according to a report by the National Research Council, “In its hexavalent state (as chromic oxide, chromate, or dichromate), chromium is a strong oxidizing agent and readily reacts with organic matter in acidic solution, leading to reduction to the trivalent form ” aka chromium-3.

Chromium-6, is a natural substance and can be found in rocks, plants, soil and volcanic dust. This means it can be found naturally in water. The question the Water Board then must answer is “When is the amount of chromium-6 safe for all to use?” If money were no object, then the Water Board’s answer might be to use the “less is best” rule-of-thumb and say “zero.”

But my friends, neighbors, and I live in a world where we must judge the cost of something against benefit to be derived. Regulations are a de facto tax on companies and the people they serve. Completing forms, testing, and labs, all take time and money. In a 2008 report, the Small Business Administration calculated the annual cost of federal regulations in the United States at $1.75 trillion. “Had every U.S. household paid an equal share of the federal regulatory burden, each would have owed $15,586 in 2008.” State, regional, and local regulations then pile on more costs per household. Additional regulation hits our mutual water company harder since we do not have as many people to bear the cost. My neighbors, who are also my bosses, want regulations that make sense. And they certainly do not want their money spent on something whose cost will exceed its benefit. The Water Board needs to prove this regulation is absolutely necessary for safety and not a speculative whim.

The Water Board’s proposed actions prompt me to ask some pointed, but necessary, questions.

How many lives were saved, or illnesses prevented, by California’s requirement of a Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) lower than the US EPA’s MCL?
How many liters of water would a 70-kilogram (154 pound) person need to drink to reach the RfD for chromium-6 at 100 μg/L, 50 μg/L to 25 μg/L, 15 μg/L, 10 μg/L or 1 μg/L? And, would that person have water toxicity before reaching the RfD for chromium-6 at any or all of these levels?
What is the cost of no change of California’s chromium-6 MCL?
How many cancers will be prevented if the Water Board’s Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) is adopted?
How many years of life will be extended for California’s population if the Water Board’s MCL is lowered from its current 50 μg/L to 25 μg/L, 15 μg/L, 10 μg/L or 1 μg/L?
If a community water system is above California’s current MCL but below the USEPA MCL, how many cancers or excess deaths occur per capita?
It is my understanding that the standard metric for assessing the benefits of risk and proposed environmental regulations tradeoff between money and small risks of death is the ‘value of statistical life’ (VSL). Perhaps I missed its use in the White Paper? Why was VSL not employed?
Since California already has tighter standards than the EPA and yet people opt to buy bottled water which use the EPA standard, why is their personal choice of concern to the Water Board?
To see that the Water Board’s MCL is effective, how will the Water Board track deaths, illnesses, and cancer cases that were prevented due its (currently proposed) chromium-6 MCL in drinking water?

In conclusion, I and my customers want more than unmoored speculation from the Water Board and its staff. Science is the pursuit of knowledge and understanding of the natural and social world using a systematic, evidence-based methodology. Science requires observation and measurement of predictions. ‘I believe in science’ is a statement of belief. Belief is the realm of religion; science inhabits that which can be observed and measured. Show us the science behind your reasoning for making this change.

I thank the Water Board for taking my statement.

Norman J. Benson, Licensed Water Treatment Operator
Lower Lake, CA

When California’s Water Resources Control Board Scratches an Itch, Small Public Water Systems Need Stitches

Chromium-6: The Worry Du Jour

“The methodology used in EPA cancer risk assessments is currently designed to make your head hurt, so that you won’t hear that soft little voice of common sense in the back of your head whispering ‘this is all bullshit, isn’t it?’”
“Stupid nonsense dressed up to look like complicated science is still just stupid nonsense.”
A Retired Federal Toxicologist

California’s Water Resources Control Board (Water Board) continues to worry about the hazard of chromium-6, but not its actual risk. There is a rotating cast of hazards they fret about. Every time the hazard’s number comes up, they look at lowering the Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) for that compound.

A hazard is something that could cause harm. For instance, falling into Niagara Falls is a hazard. The risk of falling into Niagara Falls is zero if one stands behind the guard rails. Climbing over the guard rails to get a closer look of Niagara Falls increases your risk of falling in.

The upshot, of course, in my opinion, is they worry about small risks that will cost much, much, much more than the benefit to be had. To me, it’s a lot of money for performance art. So, once again, I wrote them of my concerns.

My Letter

Hello, I am a licensed Water Treatment Operator, and I contract my services to Crescent Bay Improvement Company in Lake County. With 22 household connections, Crescent Bay is classed as a community public water system under the 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act since it provides water to more than the minimum of 25 individuals year-round. You may recall the median community public water system in California serves 95 connections. This means more than half of the state’s public water systems have fewer than 100 households over which to spread their costs. If Crescent Bay’s total annual budget were a Californian, it would be below the poverty line, yet our water bill of $125/month is one of the highest in our county and 10 per cent of that is due to mandated testing and was nearly 20 per cent more this year due to an unexpected mandate for microsystin monitoring.[1]

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it was filled with chemicals. Everything you ate was full of chemicals that have been shown to be toxins, mutagens or carcinogens when studied in rodents. Everything. But don’t worry, if you bought organic food, they were all completely natural toxins, mutagens or carcinogens in rodents.[2] Potatoes, to name just one of the food offerings at Thanksgiving, contain solanine, chaconine, amylase inhibitors, and isonavones —which, respectively, cause gastrointestinal-tract irritation, harm your nervous system, interfere with digestive enzymes, and mimic female sex-hormone activity. Potatoes also contain, all natural, arsenic.

Every toxic substance you can name, no matter how scary, has a safe level; and every substance you can name, no matter how natural or benign, even water, has a toxic level.

As I sit at my laptop composing this letter, I am sipping an insecticide-laced witches’ brew of 2,000 chemical compounds including: acrylamide, benzo(a)pyrene, benzaldehyde, benzene, benzofuran, caffeic acid, ethyl benzene, furan, furfural, hydrogen peroxide, and hydroquinone, many of which are known by the State of California to cause cancer. I put a little cream in my drink, since the insecticide in the drink, 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine, is rather bitter, and is comparable in toxicity to the worry du jour: chromium-6 aka, CR(VI). Yet, I could not find 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine on the Office of Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) Proposition 65 list under its scientific name or its more common name: caffeine.

Caffeine’s LOAEL (Lowest Observed Adverse Effect Level) of 2.5 mg/kg-day is quite close to that of chromium-6. Toxicologists then ramp that dose downward by several orders of magnitude to calculate a Reference Dose (RfD). Dr. Tamara L. Sorell writes, “The final RfD [for caffeine] would be 0.0025 mg/kg-day, a very small dose in the same range as RfDs for known toxicants such as hexavalent chromium [chromium-6] and potassium cyanide.”[3] A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation says one drop of coffee is roughly 270 times above the “safe” level for consumption.

Plants, rooted in soil, naturally incorporate minerals, including naturally occurring chromium-6, into their structure. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates daily chromium intake from “typical North American diets to be 60–90 μg/day and may be generally in the range 50–200 μg/day.” Consumption of alcoholic beverages further increase chromium consumption with “0.45 mg/liter for wine, 0.30 mg/liter for beer, and 0.135 mg/liter for spirits.” Much higher than the RfD of 0.0025 mg/kg-day.

The State Water Resources Control Board relies on OEHHA for its public health goal. To an outsider, it all seems to use a “less is better” model as a heuristic guideline for safety. While this can be a useful rule of thumb, it can lead to unnecessary grief, especially when we are speaking of maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) far below the LOAEL dosage. And while the Board may well point out that Chromium-6 has no use in the body, this is not exactly true, since CR(VI) is ingested and changed to chromium-3 by the body’s functions.[4] CR(III), is an essential mineral that the body needs. It is involved in the breakdown and absorption of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, and enhances the action of the hormone insulin.[5] And according to a report by the National Research Council, “In its hexavalent state (as chromic oxide, chromate, or dichromate), chromium is a strong oxidizing agent and readily reacts with organic matter in acidic solution, leading to reduction to the trivalent form[6]” aka chromium-3.

All Things are Poison

Chromium-6, CR(VI), is a natural substance and can be found in rocks, plants, soil and volcanic dust.[8] This means it can be found naturally in water. The question the Water Board then must answer is “When is the amount of chromium-6 safe for all to use?” If money were no object, then the Water Board’s answer might be to use the “less is best” rule-of-thumb and say “zero.”

But my friends, neighbors, and I live in a world where we must judge the cost of something against benefit to be derived. Regulations are costly. Paperwork, testing, labs, all take time and money. In a 2008 report, the Small Business Administration calculated the annual cost of federal regulations in the United States at $1.75 trillion. “Had every U.S. household paid an equal share of the federal regulatory burden, each would have owed $15,586 in 2008.” State, regional, and local regulations then pile on more costs per household. Additional regulation hits our mutual water company harder since we do not have as many people to bear the cost. My neighbors, who are also my bosses, want fewer regulations, not more. And they certainly do not want their money spent on something whose cost will exceed its benefit. The Water Board needs to prove this regulation is absolutely necessary for safety and not a speculative whim.

As related to me by a retired federal toxicologist:

“The methodology used in EPA cancer risk assessments is currently designed to make your head hurt, so that you won’t hear that soft little voice of common sense in the back of your head whispering ‘this is all bullshit, isn’t it?’

“The very idea of feeding rats massive, chronic doses of potassium dichromate, and pretending that it was somehow relevant to a human being drinking Cr(VI)-contaminated groundwater, is an offence to one’s intelligence, not to mention an inexcusable cruelty to the rat.( Way back when I was a laboratory technician at Duke Medical Center in Durham NC, I used to put on thick, black rubber gloves to put our glassware in potassium dichromate to soak overnight.)

“Ignore for a moment all of the idiotic zero-threshold hocus-pocus on which all such bogus LNT assessments are based – ‘The true risk is unknown and may be as low as zero’, USEPA 1986 – and just consider this:

“The 2.5 mg/kg-day (or less) NOAEL established for Cr(VL) in the 1-year drinking water study in rats would be equivalent to a 70-kg human being consuming, for roughly 50 years, 2 Liters/day of drinking water contaminated with 87.5 mg/L (ppm) of Cr(VI). That’s almost a hundred times the concentration at which Cr(VI) turns water a bright yellow. I have always been more than a little bit skeptical of claims that people living at 2 sites in the world (one in Mexico & the other in China) drank groundwater for years that contained very high levels of Cr(VI).

“Would you drink water that looked like fluorescent urine?

“Stupid nonsense dressed up to look like complicated science is still just stupid nonsense. And, now that I am retired, I don’t have to pretend otherwise.”

The Water Board’s proposed actions prompt me to ask some pointed, but necessary, questions.

How many lives were saved, or illnesses prevented, by California’s requirement of a Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) lower than the US EPA’s MCL?
How many liters of water would a 70-kilogram (154 pound) person need to drink to reach the RfD for chromium-6 at 100 μg/L, 50 μg/L to 25 μg/L, 15 μg/L, 10 μg/L or 1 μg/L? And, would that person have water toxicity before reaching the RfD for chromium-6 at any or all of these levels?
What is the cost[9] of no change of California’s Cr(VI) MCL?
How many cancers will be prevented if the Water Board’s preferred MCL is adopted?
How many years of life will be extended for California’s population[10] if the Water Board’s MCL is lowered from its current 50 μg/L to 25 μg/L, 15 μg/L, 10 μg/L or 1 μg/L?[11]
If a community water system is above California’s current MCL but below the USEPA MCL, how many cancers or excess deaths occur per capita?
It is my understanding that the standard metric for assessing the benefits of risk and proposed environmental regulations tradeoff between money and small risks of death is the ‘value of statistical life’ (VSL). Perhaps I missed its use in the White Paper? Why was VSL not employed?
Why should the Water Board care if people opt to buy bottled water?
To see that the Water Board’s MCL is effective, how will the Water Board track deaths, illnesses, and cancer cases tied to the CR(VI) in drinking water?
Under its proposal, a fruit or kale smoothie or a glass of juice would exceed the Board’s MCL. Is the State of California prepared to have Jamba Juice place Prop 65 notices for chromium-6

In conclusion, I do not believe any tightening of the chromium-6 MCL meets the Water Board’s mission. I and my customers want more than speculation from the Water Board and its staff. Science is the pursuit of knowledge and understanding of the natural and social world using a systematic, evidence-based methodology. Science requires observation and measurement of predictions followed by public adjudication. ‘I believe in science’ is a statement generally made by people who don’t understand what science is. Belief is the realm of religion; science inhabits that which can be observed and measured. Stupid nonsense dressed up to look like complicated science is still just stupid nonsense.

I thank the Water Board for taking my statement.

Footnotes:

[1] SWRCB Order No. 02_03_21m_001_1700519.

[2] If it wasn’t “USDA organic” then 99.9 percent of the chemicals were natural.

[3] Sorell, Tamara L. 2016. “Approaches to the Development of Human Health Toxicity Values for Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients in the Environment.” The AAPS Journal 18 (1): 92–101. https://doi.org/10.1208/s12248-015-9818-5.
[4] “recent kinetics and in vivo genotoxicity data demonstrate that Cr(VI) is reduced to nontoxic Cr(III) in saliva, in the acidic conditions of the stomach, and in blood. In short, at concentrations at least as high as the current U.S. maximum contaminant level (100 ppb), and probably at least an order of magnitude higher, Cr(VI) is reduced to Cr(III) prior to or upon systemic absorption. The weight of scientific evidence supports that Cr(VI) is not carcinogenic in humans via the oral route of exposure at permissible drinking-water concentrations.”

Source: Proctor DM, Otani JM, Finley BL, Paustenbach DJ, Bland JA, Speizer N, Sargent EV. Is hexavalent chromium carcinogenic via ingestion? A weight-of-evidence review. J Toxicol Environ Health A. 2002 May 24;65(10):701-46. doi: 10.1080/00984100290071018. PMID: 12028825.

[5] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/chromium/ accessed 11/22/21 Harvard’s School of Public Health

[6] National Research Council. “Committee on Biologic Effects of Atmospheric Pollutants. Chromium.” National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC (1974).

[7] Grandjean P. (2016). Paracelsus Revisited: The Dose Concept in a Complex World. Basic & clinical pharmacology & toxicology, 119(2), 126–132. https://doi.org/10.1111/bcpt.12622

[8] https://www.epa.gov/sdwa/chromium-drinking-water accessed Nov. 15, 2021

[9] “Cost” is defined as increased deaths or sick leave due to illness.

[10] At present the life expectancy at birth for a Californian is 81.0 years according to https://www.simplyinsurance.com/average-us-life-expectancy-statistics/#section-11 (accessed November 20, 2021)

[11] Feel free to show as many decimal points as needed for the calculated answer.

20 Qs to the SWRCB About Proposed Regs

California ‘s State Water Resources Control Board holds ‘workshops’ to give the public a chance to comment on proposed regulations. I have questions.

In February 2020, California’s State Water Resources Control Board issued a ‘white paper’ titled: Economic Feasibility Analysis In Consideration Of A Hexavalent Chromium MCL

In its introduction, the Water Board states:

On July 1, 2014, a maximum contaminant level (MCL or drinking water standard) of 10 parts per billion (ppb) for hexavalent chromium (CrVI) was approved by the Office of Administrative Law. The MCL was issued by the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) right before its division of drinking water transferred jurisdiction to the State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board). On May 31, 2017, the Superior Court of Sacramento County issued a judgment invalidating the MCL on the basis that CDPH had not properly considered the economic feasibility of complying with the MCL. As part of the next steps in reissuing an MCL for CrVI, the State Water Board anticipates stakeholder involvement in developing options for evaluating economic feasibility during the MCL process.
Due to the inherent uncertainty of placing economic value on numerous factors necessary for cost-benefit analyses, the MCL set by the State Water Board will be through a policy decision that considers traditional concepts such as treatment costs and number of cancer cases averted, as well as the costs and benefits of the regulation, as required by the Administrative Procedure Act, particularly as it relates to non-cancer health impacts on individuals, their families and their communities. This document describes challenges faced by the State Water Board in considering economic feasibility during the development of MCLs and concludes there is no simple formula capable of generating an economically feasible MCL. [emphasis mine]
The State Water Board will hold public workshops to discuss these ideas and hear suggestions by stakeholders and interested persons regarding economic feasibility in the development of drinking water standards. The concepts presented in this document allow stakeholders to engage the MCL development process ahead of the formal public review and comment period required by the Administrative Procedure Act. While this discussion is intended to be specific to the development of an MCL for CrVI, ideas and methodologies arising from the CrVI rulemaking process may be applied in the development of other drinking water standards.
California State Water resources control board White Paper Discussion on: Economic Feasibility Analysis in Consideration of a Hexavalent Chromium MCL, February 2020

My first question, which I will not phrase exactly this way, is “This is all bullshit, isn’t it?”

What I need to remember is they want to do good.

“When you encounter a person with radically different beliefs, you might think they’re ignorant, crazy, or malicious. Resist this inclination and instead consider that they view issues from a different perspective or that they’re acting upon what they think is the best available information. Chances are far better that they mean to help but aren’t great at communicating than that they’re actually ignorant, crazy, or malicious.
“In a disagreement, people frequently assume their partners’ intentions and motivations are worse than they are. Many people, for example, assume conservatives are racist, liberals aren’t patriotic, Republicans don’t care about poor people, or Democrats are weak on national defense. They then go on to assume that these perceived shortcomings motivate beliefs and arguments. This is usually false.”
— How to Have Impossible Conversations: A Very Practical Guide by Peter Boghossian, James Lindsay
https://a.co/anL2UmZ

I have doubts that the proposed Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) will, in fact, make the water safer, but I need to ask California’s State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) some questions to get insight. A dialectical process to find the truth.

Below is my list of questions so far. I would love to hear any thoughts you might have.

Questions for the state Waterboard

1. I think white paper states that with our present Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) there are “health impacts on individuals, their families and their communities.” Just so I’m clear, how many lives will be saved or how many years of life extended, if the Water Board’s Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) of 10 ppb for Hexavalent Chromium is adopted?

2. Can the Water Board provide a value of statistical life (VSL), or quality-adjusted life-year (QALY), or any other economic metric used in a standard cost benefit analysis due to Water Board’s MCL of 10 ppb for Hexavalent Chromium being adopted

3. Given that California has nation’s the highest poverty rate according to the census’ Supplemental Poverty Measure, why is a lower CrVI MCL where the Water Board believes water companies should focus their resources?

4. Most water is used for non-drinking water purposes: laundry, cleaning, watering, etc. Would the water board consider point of use appliances, such as reverse osmosis filters, satisfactory to meet the proposed MCL?

5. Am I correct that the white paper for the hexavalent chromium cost analysis indicates that the public health goal takes precedence over the Administrative procedures act, is this correct?

6. Since the administrative procedures act was promulgated prior to the public health goal, does it not take precedence and priority?

7. On page 5, the board states:

“excluding benefits achieved from reduction of these costs skews the cost – benefit analysis toward excessive costs. However, including the economic impact of these costs is not feasible due to the lack of specific information in the PHG report, especially as they relate to liver developmental and how reproductive toxicity‘s manifest themselves in the human population and their subsequent treatment and recovery. Without that information, the state Waterboard is challenged to establish and identify a complete inventory of the benefits…”
California State Water resources control board White Paper Discussion on: Economic Feasibility Analysis in Consideration of a Hexavalent Chromium MCL, February 2020

Has the state Water Board done a review of existing research on such conditions as they relate to hexavalent chromium? If yes, what did the water board find? If not, why not?

8. On page 6, the Waterboard acknowledges that a majority of the systems it covers have less than 100 connections.

“Analysis of the approximately 2950 community water systems shows that the median community system serves 95 service connections. This means more than half of the water systems have fewer than 100 households over which to spread the cost.“
California State Water resources control board White Paper Discussion on: Economic Feasibility Analysis in Consideration of a Hexavalent Chromium MCL, February 2020

The water board also acknowledges the small water systems already struggle with compliance and maintenance issues and or barely surviving. The board then goes on to say

“setting new or revised drinking water standards only to what is economically feasible for the most disadvantaged public water systems will restrict the development of new or more protective standards.”
California State Water resources control board White Paper Discussion on: Economic Feasibility Analysis in Consideration of a Hexavalent Chromium MCL, February 2020

It would seem that the Waterboard then needs to make sure that the standards they put in place are truly protective and backed by science, does it not?

9. Does the Waterboard believe that they know better than the local water company as to the needs of its system?

10. Does the water board believe that a new standard is more important than upgrades in a water provider’s equipment?

11. No doubt I missed this in the report, but where does the water board say how many lives will be saved if the new standard is enacted? And what peer– reviewed research did they use to come up with this conclusion?

11. It is my understanding that the standard metric for assessing the benefits of risk and proposed environmental regulations tradeoff between money and small risks of death is the ‘value of statistical life’ (VSL). Perhaps I missed its use in the White Paper? Why was VSL not employed?

12. The discussion by the state water board revolves around the public health goal that has been established by the state. Did the water board review the underlying research done to establish this public health goal?

13. All of the research that I have found indicates that hexavalent chromium at the levels given for the EPA maximum contamination limit will be ingested and changed to chromium-3 by the body’s functions. CrIII is used by the body for metabolic purposes, and is therefore needed. What may I have missed in the literature that the state of California has access to?

14. I’m sure I’m missing something in the state’s economic analysis, it appears that the state simply says that the costs aren’t very much and therefore because we have such a public health goal, the costs are worth it, and have not evaluated that the public health goal with regard to toxicological science, then of course it’s worth it. Do I have that right?

15. Even if we do say that the public health goal for hexavalent chromium is, theoretically, a good idea, I am having trouble understanding the logic behind the state recommendation. Can you help me out? Let me give you an example:

Why do we not ban all automobiles, trucks, bicycles, etc., to prevent deaths? Let’s say the state of California bans all conveyances that travel faster than a person can run. Bicycles, automobiles, segues, any equipment that moves faster than someone can run is no longer allowed to operate. This will save millions of lives. No one will die in an automobile accident or a bicycle accident. It is unalloyed good, is it not? If we do not include the cost of implementation of such a rule this skews the considerations all to the benefit side, does it not? Cost benefit analysis is the only way that has been shown to help a state government agency determine whether the cost is worth the benefit.

16. How many lives, based on peer – reviewed research, does the state of California project will be saved with this new standard?

17. Can the provide the number of lives saved for each proposed maximum contaminant level for hexavalent chromium?

18. The water company I do contract work for has been working on consolidating with neighboring water companies for over four years, In its analysis the water board says it might provide a variance two small water companies, for how long would they consider applying this variance given that the average time for consolidation is 10–15 years?

19. The state Water Board follows state policy set forth in the California Health and Safety code section 116365 (a); 116270, respectively, which states “reduce to the lowest level feasible all concentrations of toxic chemicals that, when present in drinking water, may cause cancer, birth defects, or other chronic diseases.” I am having trouble understanding how this statute is being interpreted. Does it mean that any chemical which the state of California lists under the propositions 65 code if found in drinking water is to be mitigated? Or does it mean that any chemical on the proposition 65 list that is at a level known to cause cancer needs to be eliminated to below detectable levels? For example, In your favorite bread stuffing (you know the one with onions, celery, black pepper and mushrooms) you’ll find acrylamide, ethyl alcohol, benzo(a)pyrene, ethyl carbamate, furan derivatives, furfural, dihydrazines, d-limonene, psoralens, quercetin glycosides and safrole. And, as I write these questions, I have about 20,000,000 plutonium atoms in my bone marrow. But before we break out a Geiger counter to check me, let me explain that every animal now or previously on earth does or did too. This most toxic of substances exists all around us and at the background level.

On page 10 the report states,

“treatment technology has developed to the point that almost any contaminant can be removed from water.“
California State Water resources control board White Paper Discussion on: Economic Feasibility Analysis in Consideration of a Hexavalent Chromium MCL, February 2020

Has not detection technology also developed to the point that almost any contaminant can be detected in water, down to the parts per trillion or parts per quadrillion level? Does the Water Board plan to have all chemicals and compounds listed on the Prop 65 list removed below detectable levels?

21. On page 8 the report states,

“…for these reasons, the statewide increase in costs from a lower MCL is not due to increased treatment costs but rather due to the increased number of systems requiring treatment as the MCL is lowered.“
California State Water resources control board White Paper Discussion on: Economic Feasibility Analysis in Consideration of a Hexavalent Chromium MCL, February 2020

What then is the cost on a per life basis?

22. On page 11 the report states,

“Economic feasibility and affordability will be addressed when considering compliance options such as grants, loans, regionalization and consolidation (both full consolidation and various forms of administrative consolidation) as well as the establishment of lifeline rates.”
California State Water resources control board White Paper Discussion on: Economic Feasibility Analysis in Consideration of a Hexavalent Chromium MCL, February 2020

Does the Water Board see this as a solution that can be implemented quickly enough for the majority of small companies to not violate the new MCLs?

23. As noted previously, the water system I contract for is in its fourth or fifth year of attempting to consolidate with another company–any water company. Like many water companies, we have an aging board and aging operators and will not be able to run the system adequately in 5 to 10 years. We are “one injury or illness away from not being able to operate at all.” Does the state Water Board have any suggestions to help such a water company?

24. In its conclusion on page 11, the Water Board states

“[The California Water Resources Control Board] understands competing needs between protecting public health and keeping water affordable. Water systems struggle to maintain infrastructure and meeting drinking water standards, but assistance is available to offset costs of new regulations (grants, low or no interest loans, point-of-use or point-of-entry treatment, variances, exemptions and consolidations).”
California State Water resources control board White Paper Discussion on: Economic Feasibility Analysis in Consideration of a Hexavalent Chromium MCL, February 2020

I agree with the statement’s preamble. As the Water Board has noted, more than half of California’s struggle daily to maintain infrastructure and meet drinking water standards. And as I have noted before, our rates are the highest in the county despite low wages and volunteer help. Will the state water board please explain how a water company might apply to for any or all of these?

25. I may have missed it, are no toxicological reports listed in the White Paper’s references? And if there are none, why did the Water Board choose to disregard them?

26. What research is the Water Board basing its statement that lives will be saved or extended by lowering the State’s MCL?

#END

I would love to hear your thoughts on these questions. Again, I do not want to come off as hostile, but rather as curious into their thoughts. For example, #9 is a bit dickish on my part. Is there a way to fix it?

Science Evolves & Hello 2021

What a year, huh? Everything about 2020 seemed bad. As the prologue to Dave Barry’s year in review, says:

This was a year of nonstop awfulness, a year when we kept saying it couldn’t possibly get worse, and it always did. This was a year in which our only moments of genuine, unadulterated happiness were when we were able to buy toilet paper.
Which is fitting, because 2020 was one long, howling, Category Five crapstorm.
Dave Barry recaps 2020 with annual year in review | Miami Herald

And here we are on the cusp of a new year, 2021. Our knowledge of the world and how it works evolved. We, as a species, know more at this time than we did at this time last year. We know more about covid-19 now than we did last year, as we began hearing stories coming out of mainland China.

We have revolutionary vaccines in record time thanks to gene technology, which Matt Ridley discusses here in a post about the new vaccine.

The first Covid-19 vaccine … is not just a welcome breakthrough against a grim little enemy that has defied every other weapon we have tried, from handwashing to remdesivir and lockdowns. It is also the harbinger of a new approach to medicine altogether. Synthetic messengers that reprogram our cells to mount an immune response to almost any invader, including perhaps cancer, can now be rapidly and cheaply made.
Why mRNA vaccines could revolutionise medicine

Twenty-twenty was a remarkable year. Yes it was “one long, howling, Category Five crapstorm,” and it was one in which we as a species learned, adapted, found new ways to connect, and, for the most part, muddled through.

Cheers.

You can find me tweeting about science, government, and most everything on Twitter at @timberati

Open Letter to California’s Water Board Regarding Perchlorate

Welcome to California

Home of Prop 65

Division of Drinking Water
Attn: Jeanine Townsend, Clerk to the Board
State Water Resources Control Board
P.O. Box 100
Sacramento, CA 95812-2000

Re: Comment Letter – SBDDW-20-001: Perchlorate DLR

It’s clear the California State Water Resources Control Board cares very much about providing the cleanest drinking water to the most vulnerable consumers, children. Yet the Water Board’s proposed change does not improve their health and may hurt them by taking necessary resources from the poorest of parents who care for those children.
If the Water Board plans to use force (i.e., statute) to make an essential good more expensive, which will disproportionately affect the poor they claim to want to help, they need better reasons than they have provided. It has been 25 years since perchlorate entered the American vocabulary. Over this time, perchlorate has been investigated and our knowledge of its interactions with our bodies has increased. This lowers the uncertainty that is always built into toxicology models of safety.

The Initial Statement of Reasons is long on statutory authority and nonexistent on need. It lists no technical, theoretical, or empirical studies, reports, or similar documents regarding health or the life-years gained by the imposition of the new proposed regulation. As a peer-reviewed paper notes, “Mere detection of a chemical in the environment cannot be equated with increased risk, but must be evaluated in terms of the hazard, dose-response, and human exposure, all steps in the characterization of health risk.” You cannot shortcut this process. This is what you, the Water Board, are mandated to perform, and a lower Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) for an inorganic chemical is not a proxy for “safer”.

Simply put, the Water Board has failed to do its due diligence to research the need for a more restrictive Detection Limit for Purposes of Reporting. (See my comments under section IV, below, with details about relevant empirical studies.)

Below is a discussion on each of the items of the Initial Statement of Reasons provided by the State Water Board.

I. BACKGROUND/AUTHORITY (PROBLEM STATEMENT)

“Health and Safety Code (HSC) section 116270 states California’s legislative intent to establish primary drinking water standards at least as stringent as those under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act and to establish a program that is more protective of public health than the minimum federal requirements…. The perchlorate primary drinking water standard is expressed in the form of a maximum contaminant level (MCL) and associated monitoring and reporting requirements as described in HSC 116275, including a Detection Limit for Purposes of Reporting (DLR) as defined in 22 California Code of Regulations (CCR), section 64400.34. The current perchlorate MCL and DLR are 0.006 mg/L and 0.004 mg/L, respectively…. While analytical methods are available to report data at concentrations lower than the current DLR of 0.004 mg/L, many water systems and laboratories quantify reported concentrations only as low as the DLR. The lack of perchlorate occurrence data at concentrations below the current DLR hinders the State Water Board’s ability to evaluate whether technology can achieve a materially greater protection of public health or attainment of the public health goal than the current DLR of 0.004 mg/L, and determine the economic feasibility of lowering the MCL.”

The Water Board’s Problem Statement has a fatal flaw. It fails to demonstrate a need for a lower standard. If this is a health issue, as the Water Board contends, then a problem statement would list how many people are debilitated by the current standard not being stringent enough.

Instead, the Water Board’s Problem Statement is taking it as a given that less of any substance in drinking water that the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment has deemed a pollutant provides “materially greater protection of public health.”

This supposition by the Water Board is false and not supported by toxicology, epidemiology, or any other discipline of health science. A toxicologist gave me an analogy on safety: he said if you were to stand at the guard rail at the Grand Canyon, you would be quite safe. Being five feet behind the guard rail may make you slightly safer. Five miles behind the guard rail does not “provide materially greater protection.”

Nowhere is there a statement that, without this new MCL, lives are at risk, because no lives are at risk.

III. BENEFITS

There are no benefits to this new MCL. The Water Board fails to give an estimate of increased Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALYs are used to measure an individual’s future longevity and the quality of the individual’s health during that time) were their proposal to be enacted. They assume that it will, absent any analysis.

Paying more for water, already safe under current rules, is not a benefit. There is no benefit to public health or safety, or to the people who would pay more for their water, or to the public water systems required to comply.

The supposed benefits rely on a circular argument on the Water Board’s part. The State Water Board simply assumes that a drinking water program that has lower limits would thus be “more protective of public health than the minimum federal requirements” and thus sets a lower public health goal, which then must be met because a drinking water program that has lower contaminant limits is “more protective of public health than the minimum federal requirements.”

For an example of analysis, according to a 1995 peer-reviewed study by Tamms et. al. , the Cost/Life-year for chlorination is $3100/Life-year, the Cost/Life-year for chlorination, filtration, and sedimentation is $4200/Life-year. Whereas tightening trichloroethylene control of 2.7 (versus 11) micrograms/liter is an eye-watering $37,000,000/Life-year.

Again, mere detection of a chemical in the environment cannot be equated with risk, but has to be evaluated in terms of the hazard, dose-response, and human exposure.

“The repeal of 22 CCR Chapter 12 resulted in the deletion of essential definitions that are referenced in other regulatory sections that were not repealed. Replacing the repealed definitions will clarify the current regulations, which will eliminate confusion by regulated entities.”

Heaven forbid, that you confuse regulated entities! Have you tried reading the bureaucratic argle-bargle you send to regulated entities? It is basically translates to: “we’re going to fine the pants off of you, if you don’t do whatever this says.”

IIII. SUMMARY OF PROPOSAL AND PURPOSE

“The primary purpose of the proposed regulations is to adopt a revised DLR of 0.002 mg/L for perchlorate to allow determination of perchlorate occurrence in drinking water sources at concentrations below the current DLR of 0.004 mg/L. This will allow determination of whether it is possible to amend the MCL for perchlorate, as required by HSC 116365.”

This is essentially a tautological argument for the existence of something unprovable: “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” wrapped in the law (i.e., “as required by HSC 116365”). Science concerns itself with epidemiological and empirical evidence. And due to the studies, that have been conducted regarding perchlorate since the mid 1990s, there is less uncertainty that accompanies the establishment of a safe exposure level. Thus, the need for conservatism in the absence of knowledge has been replaced with data and knowledge, and doesn’t necessitate a lower DLR. In fact, the Environmental Protection Agency has determined that levels found in U.S. drinking water are so much NOT of concern, it has opted to not even set an MCL for perchlorates.

IV. NECESSITY OF PROPOSED REGULATIONS

“HSC subsections 116365(a) and (b) require the State Water Board to adopt primary drinking water standards for contaminants at levels as close as feasible to the corresponding PHGs, placing primary emphasis on the protection of public health, and to the extent that is technologically and economically feasible.” (emphasis mine) …. “The lack of data on perchlorate occurrence at concentrations below the current DLR hinders the State Water Board’s ability to evaluate whether technology achieves a materially greater protection of public health…”

This statement: “The lack of data on perchlorate occurrence at concentrations below the current DLR hinders the State Water Board’s ability to evaluate whether technology achieves a materially greater protection of public health…” is false. The State Water Board does not need that information as to whether such a number “achieves a materially greater protection of public health.” Safety is a matter of dosage. Dose makes the poison. And for perchlorate the RfD (Reference Dose, the safe exposure level for humans) has been studied extensively and is well known with uncertainty for infants accounted for. See Attachment “A” Perchlorate in Drinking Water, pages 22-27 “Assessing the Science Behind the RfD.”

Let me highlight one study in particular: “Crump et al. (2000) conducted a study of newborns (n=9784) and school-age children (n=162) from Chile (a region known for significant levels of perchlorate) to determine the effect of perchlorate in drinking water on thyroid function. …. The authors concluded that perchlorate in drinking water at concentrations as high as 100-120 microgram/L does not suppress thyroid function in newborns or school-age children.” So an amount magnitudes greater than the Water Board’s present MCL has no effect on newborns, yet the Water Board is worried that its present perchlorate MCL is too high and needs to be lowered? Please explain to a layperson, the Water Board’s safety concerns.

Dose determines risk. In the peer-reviewed paper on perchlorate cited above, the authors emphasized, “it is imperative that this cornerstone principle of toxicology be included in any assessment of perchlorate. Mere detection of a chemical in the environment cannot be equated with increased risk, but must be evaluated in terms of the hazard, dose-response, and human exposure, all steps in the characterization of health risk.”

This is not an academic exercise. This is required for you to make an informed decision.
As Frank Schnell, board-certified, PhD toxicologist (retired) explained Dose-Response to me, “Most biological effects, whether adverse or not, are the consequence of a cascade of biochemical reactions initiated when chemical agents (referred to by pharmacologists and toxicologists generically as ‘effectors,’ ‘agonists’ or ‘ligands’) bind to effect-specific macromolecular receptors usually distributed on cell surfaces. It is of supreme indifference to the receptor whether the chemical binding to it is of natural, synthetic, endogenous, or exogenous origin. As long as the ligand fits into the receptor’s active site, the “A sub-threshold concentration of the effector will not activate enough receptors to produce in the cell a significant effect.

“This receptor-mediated mechanism of action accounts for the existence of thresholds of effect and for the S-shaped Dose-Response Curve that typically results when the strength of the effect (from zero- to 100%-response) is plotted on the ordinate (y-axis) against the logarithm of the dose on the abscissa (x-axis).”

“A sub-threshold concentration of the effector” such as the dosages that the Water Board proposes “will not activate enough receptors to produce in the cell a significant effect. (If this were not the case, the effective regulation of normal metabolic processes would not be possible.)” In other words, very little does not do very little; it has no effect.

The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) agrees. In its discussion of health effects of perchlorates, the ATSDR noted:

“In a study of the general population, Li et al. (2001) examined the prevalence of thyroid diseases in Nevada Counties with respect to perchlorate in drinking water. The cohort consisted of all users of the Nevada Medicaid program during the period of January 1, 1997 to December 31, 1998. Disease prevalence in residents from Clark County (Las Vegas), whose drinking water had 4–24 microgram/L of perchlorate (0.0001–0.0007 mg perchlorate/kg/day), were compared with those from another urban area of similar size (Reno, Washoe County), but with no perchlorate in the water, and also with those from all other counties, also with no perchlorate exposure…. Analysis of the data showed no statistically significant period-prevalence rate difference between Clark County and Washoe County. For acquired hypothyroidism, the prevalence was lower in Clark County than in other counties (opposite to what would be expected).”

“Several developmental studies of perchlorate in humans have focused on the evaluation of neonatal thyroid parameters. Lamm and Doemland (1999) examined rates of congenital hypothyroidism in seven counties of Nevada and California with perchlorate contamination in the drinking water (4–16 microgram /L [ppb]) (0.0001–0.0005 mg/kg/day). The investigators analyzed data from the neonatal screening programs of the two states for any increased incidence of congenital hypothyroidism in those counties. The rates for the California births were adjusted for Hispanic ethnicity, which was known to be a risk factor for congenital hypothyroidism. During 1996 and 1997, nearly 700,000 newborns were screened. The risk ratio in the seven counties was 1.0 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.9–1.2) (249 cases observed/243 expected). The risk ratios for the individual counties relative to statewide expected rates ranged from 0.6 to 1.1. While the results showed no increase in rates of congenital hypothyroidism, it is known that congenital hypothyroidism is caused by developmental events that are not suspected of being affected by perchlorate exposure.

“Kelsh et al. (2003) also found no relationship between congenital hypothyroidism and exposure to perchlorate through the drinking water in a study of newborns (n=15,348) whose mothers resided in the community of Redlands, California, during the period 1983 through 1997 and who were screened by the California Newborn Screening Program. Perchlorate was detected in the water system serving the community at a concentration of up to 9 microgram /L (mean, <1 microgram/L).”

“Crump et al. (2000) conducted a study of school-age children from three cities with different concentrations of perchlorate in drinking water in northern Chile. The city with the highest perchlorate concentration was Taltal, 100–120 microgram perchlorate/L (ppb), water from the city of Chañaral had 5–7 microgram/L, and perchlorate was not detected in water from the city of Antofagasta. The study comprised 162 children 6–8 years of age, of which 127 had resided continuously in their respective city since conception. The children underwent examination of the thyroid gland and a blood sample was taken for analysis of TSH, T4, FTI, T3, and antiperoxidase antibody. After adjusting for sex, age, and urinary iodide excretion, the children from Taltal and Chañaral had slightly lower TSH levels than children from Antofagasta (opposite to expected), but the differences were not statistically significant.”

V. ECONOMIC IMPACT ASSESSMENT / ANALYSIS

“The proposed regulations are expected to benefit the health and welfare of California residents.”
Just as moving back from a guardrail at the Grand Canyon from ten feet to ten miles does not make someone safer, lowering the DLR or MCL for perchlorate does not make the water magically safer. Less of nothing to worry about is still nothing to worry about. Forcing people to spend money on an imagined benefit does make them poorer, and your ability to do that, while statutorily authorized, is theft. Who are you to say that you know better how to keep my customers safe? Yours, gentle members, is the tyranny of good intentions.

“Of all tyrannies,” C. S. Lewis wrote, “a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive…. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”

My customers own the public water system for which I work as the water master. They are also my friends and neighbors. Our rates are the cost of operation plus 5 percent for capital improvements divided by 24 which is the number of hookups. Despite our frugality and my modest salary, our rates are the highest in the county at $125 per month. This, for many of them, is a hardship. Tacking more onto their bill does not lessen that hardship.

I would rather my customers use their limited resources for their necessities, rather than a quixotic quest on the part of the Water Board.

VI. REASONABLE ALTERNATIVES CONSIDERED AND REJECTED

“No less burdensome and equally effective alternative has been proposed to the State Water Board for consideration.”

Let me suggest a less burdensome and equally effective alternative to the State Water Board for consideration: Do nothing. Unless your goal is to waste people’s money, and measure for lower levels of perchlorate simply because you can, then please consider doing nothing.

Another option would be for the Water Board to pay for this monitoring. Certainly, if this is about making people safer, the Water Board would be willing to fund it.

VII. PERFORMANCE STANDARD vs. PRESCRIPTIVE STANDARD

“The proposed regulation would impose a performance standard of 0.002 mg/L for the determination of perchlorate in drinking water.”

VIII. UNNECESSARY DUPLICATION WITH FEDERAL REGULATION

“There is no existing federal regulation addressing perchlorate in drinking water.”

No doubt the latest uproar caused by the Environmental Protection Agency declining to set an MCL for perchlorate has caused some consternation among the Water Board and staff. Yet, the Obama administration also declined to set an MCL. That should indicate to the Water Board and staff that there is no “there” there. We can’t blame the Trump Administration’s anti-environmental stance for failing to set an MCL when the Obama Administration also opted to simply follow the science and decline to make it an issue.

This also means that California has a stricter standard than the Federal one already. I realize that California prides itself on its strict environmental standards, but enough is enough already.

IX. TECHNICAL, THEORETICAL, OR EMPIRICAL STUDIES, REPORTS, OR SIMILAR DOCUMENTS RELIED UPON

The Initial Statement of Reasons lists no technical, theoretical, or empirical studies, reports, or similar documents regarding health or the life-years gained by the imposition of the new regulation.

In summary the Water Board has not done its due diligence to research and explain the need for a more restrictive Detection Limit for Purposes of Reporting (DLR). You must show us the data, research, scientific journal articles, or other scientific peer-reviewed articles that this new standard is “more protective of public health than the minimum federal requirements.” Otherwise you are unjustly requiring my customers to pay more for water that will not be safer or cleaner.

Mere detection of less of a chemical in the environment cannot be equated with decreased risk, but must be evaluated in terms of the hazard, dose-response, and human exposure, all steps in the characterization of health risk. No shortcuts. No special exemptions. Do the work.

Norman J. Benson, Licensed Water Master

California’s State Water Board is gnawing on the perchlorate bone, again.

Chemaphobia thrives at California’s State Water Board.

California’s State Water Board hasn’t met a chemical it’s not afraid of.

The State Water Resources Control Board is accepting written public comments on proposed changes to the draft Perchlorate Detection Limit for Purposes of Reporting (DLR).
The public comment period ends on 7 August 2020, at 12:00 p.m. (noon).

The Notice of Public Availability of Changes, proposed regulation text, and addendum to the Initial Statement of Reasons are attached and available at the following link: https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/certlic/drinkingwater/perchlorate2.html
Information on how to submit written comments is available at the following link: https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/public_notices/comments/index.shtml
Additional information on perchlorate may be found at: https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/drinking_water/certlic/drinkingwater/Perchlorate.html

Bloomingcamp Ranch vs California’s Water Board

Bloomingcamp Ranch photo courtesy of Matthew Steinberg

I did more research. More contemplation. I reworked the letter to be less confrontational. More flies with honey than vinegar and all that… By the way should you wish to comment…

SUBMISSION OF WRITTEN COMMENTS. Persons interested in the draft order are encouraged to submit comments electronically. Comment letters must be received by 12:00 noon on June 22, 2020. Unless the State Water Board determines otherwise, comment letters received after the deadline will not be accepted. Send comments to Jeanine Townsend, Clerk to the State Water Board, by email at commentletters@waterboards.ca.gov (must be no more than 15 megabytes); fax at (916) 341-5620; or mail or hand delivery at:

Jeanine Townsend, Clerk to the Board
State Water Resources Control Board
P.O. Box 100, Sacramento, CA 95812-2000 (mail)
1001 I Street, 24th Floor, Sacramento, CA 95814 (hand delivery)

Please indicate in the subject line, “Comment Letter – Draft Order Bloomingcamp Water System”.

So here is my revised letter to the California Water Resources Control Board:

Jeanine Townsend, Clerk to the Board
State Water Resources Control Board
P.O. Box 100, Sacramento, CA 95812-2000

Re: Comment Letter – Draft Order Bloomingcamp Water System

It’s clear the California State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) cares very much about providing clean drinking water to the most vulnerable consumers, children.

Yet it seems a grave injustice to fine a family $13,508 (SWRCB 2020b) for water which, contains—in one liter of their water—the same amount of nitrate found in ~~one~~ four ounces [Ed. note: changed from one ounce to four ounces on 6/15/20 since EPA counts/weighs only the NO3 portion of nitrate] of iceberg lettuce. I propose the SWRCB accept the Bloomingcamp proposal to use bottled water. No one will become ill from drinking Bloomingcamp’s water, which I will show later. And their proposed solution to provide bottled water is more than adequate and thus no reason it cannot be a long-term solution.

This letter will discuss:

The SWCRB’s mandate with regard to drinking water
Prosecution of Duties for Public Health
State Claims Nitrate is a Danger to Humans and Children in Particular
What Are Nitrate And Nitrite?
The present science literature on nitrates
Science as an evolutionary process
Nitrate levels found in food
The importance of dose
The Dose-Response curve
The Unbearable Lightness of Wallet
Summary of the Science
Discretion of officers, prosecutors, judges, and juries in matters of law
Potential courses of action
My recommended action

The SWCRB’s mandate with regard to drinking water

The SWCRB is mandated by California Water Code Section 106.3(a) which states:

It is hereby declared to be the established policy of the state that every human being has the right to safe, clean, affordable, and accessible water adequate for human consumption, cooking, and sanitary purposes. [emphasis added]

Section 106.3(b) then says all state agencies are to use this mandate where other state policies are to be considered.

(b) All relevant state agencies, including the department, the state board, and the State Department of Public Health, shall consider this state policy when revising, adopting, or establishing policies, regulations, and grant criteria when those policies, regulations, and criteria are pertinent to the uses of water described in this section.

(c) This section does not expand any obligation of the state to provide water or to require the expenditure of additional resources to develop water infrastructure beyond the obligations that may exist pursuant to subdivision (b).

(d) This section shall not apply to water supplies for new development.

(e) The implementation of this section shall not infringe on the rights or responsibilities of any public water system.

Prosecution of Duties for Public Health

During the summer of 2010, a “lady with a clipboard” approached Julie Murphy who was operating a lemonade stand at the monthly art fair in Northeast Portland and asked to see the city-issued restaurant license. Not aware she needed one, Julie was threatened with a $500 fine. The seven-year-old then burst into tears. Rules are rules. “Our role is to protect the public,” said Jon Kawaguchi, environmental health supervisor for the Multnomah County Health Department.

On July 17, 2014, a New York city plainclothes police officer confronted Eric Garner and accused him of selling “loosies” (single cigarettes), an illegal activity in the city. An officer placed Garner in a choke hold. Garner complained he could not breathe, but eventually lost consciousness. An ambulance was called but Garner was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.

The officers in both cases were enforcing rules ostensibly for the health of the public. Yet the actions by the officers, most observers would admit, were far beyond necessary. “On the opening day of law school, I always counsel my first-year students never to support a law they are not willing to kill to enforce,” Yale Law School’s Stephen L. Carter wrote in 2014 after New York City officers killed Eric Garner.(Tuccille 2020)

“Of all tyrannies,” C. S. Lewis wrote, “a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive….This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”

The draft order regarding Bloomingcamp Ranch’s water system is, by all indications, a case of “tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims.” (Lewis 1970)

State Claims Nitrate is a Danger to Humans and Children in Particular

On May 4, 2018, the County of Stanislaus issued Compliance Order No. DER-18-R-008 (Compliance Order) to Bloomingcamp Ranch, a bakery and produce stand east of Modesto, which serves, according to California’s records, “6 residents, 4 employees, and 25 or more customers at least 60 days out of the year,” for violation of the maximum contaminant level (MCL) for nitrate found in the California Code of Regulations, Title 22, § 64431.

Among other things, the Compliance Order required Bloomingcamp to submit a Corrective Action Plan (CAP) “identifying improvements to the water system designed to correct the water quality problem,” which is a violation of the Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) for nitrate, and to “ensure that Bloomingcamp delivers water to consumers that meets primary drinking water standards.” Bloomingcamp Ranch’s water contains slightly less than 2.5 times the MCL of nitrate (23.9 mg/liter versus the MCL of 10 mg/liter). (SWRCB 2020a) The Compliance Order also notified Bloomingcamp that the County was authorized to issue a monetary penalty if Bloomingcamp failed to correct the violation. (SWRCB 2020b)

The State claims critical public health reasons for addressing nitrate in water. Darrin Polhemus, a deputy director of the state board quoted in a Modesto Bee article, says the state’s vigilance regarding nitrates is due to the harm they can cause to infants with limited exposure. Specifically, nitrates interfere with the process of carrying oxygen in the bloodstream causing “blue baby syndrome” (methemoglobinemia).(Carlson 2019)

What Are Nitrate And Nitrite?

According to the United States Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), “Nitrate and nitrite are naturally occurring ionic species that are part of the earth’s nitrogen cycle. They typically exist in the environment in highly water-soluble forms, in association with other ionic species such as sodium and potassium. Nitrate and nitrite salts completely dissociate in aqueous environments. Nitrite is readily oxidized (combines with oxygen) to form nitrate. Nitrate is generally stable in the environment; however, it may be reduced to nitrite through biological processes involving plants, microbes, etc.

“In nature, plants utilize nitrate as an essential (key) nutrient.…Sodium nitrite is also being used in medicines and therapeutics; for example, as an antidote for cyanide poisoning and as a treatment for pulmonary arterial hypertension.” (Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry 2015)

The present science literature on nitrates

It is odd that Mr. Polhemus and the State of California have not also prohibited sale of arugula, rhubarb, or vegetable soup since those have vastly higher levels of nitrate than the MCL allowed for water. There is no chemical difference between nitrate found in the water and nitrate found in foods. “Sodium nitrate is sodium nitrate,” says Josh Bloom, PhD, “no matter its source. The chemical is made in factories, in plants (the green kind), and by your body (more on that later) and the three are indistinguishable – identical in every way.”(Bloom 2019)

“The risk of methemoglobinemia among infants depends on many factors other than the ingestion of nitrate in drinking water,” write Ward et. al., in their report, ?Drinking water nitrate and human health. “Some foods and medications contain high levels of nitrate. Enteric infections, potentially caused by fecal bacteria contamination in wells, may lead to the endogenous production of nitrite, as evidenced by numerous published reports of infants with diarrhea and methemoglobinemia but no apparent exposure to exogenous MetHb-forming agents.” (Ward et al. 2005) Nitrates and nitrites would be “MetHb-forming agents.” In the body, red blood cells use the hemoglobin protein to carry oxygen to the body. Methemoglobin (MetHb) is a form of hemoglobin protein that is not capable of binding oxygen and therefore does not deliver oxygen to the cells.

Furthermore, in a letter to ?Environmental Health Perspectives, Avery wrote, “This emphasis in the [?1949 American Public Health Association] survey and indeed the wide and rapid acceptance by the medical community that nitrates in drinking water are the primary cause of infantile methemoglobinemia have created an inherent bias: any methemoglobinemia case with elevated nitrates in the water is assumed to be caused by the nitrates, even though it is now clear that additional factors are critical for methemoglobinemia to occur. Furthermore, these factors have now been proven to cause severe methemoglobinemia without exposure to exogenous nitrates from water or food. Thus, the available evidence suggests that exogenous nitrates from drinking water have the potential to exacerbate, but not cause, methemoglobinemia.” (Alexander A Avery 2001)

Science as an evolutionary process

Science is not a fixed unyielding set of numbers and facts. It evolves as we learn more about our environment. “Science,” Jonathan Rauch writes, “is an open-ended, decentralized process for legitimizing belief. Much as creatures compete for food, so entrepreneurs compete for business, candidates for votes, and hypotheses for supporters. In biological evolution, no outcome is fixed or final—nor is it in capitalism, democracy, science. There is always another trade, another election, another hypothesis.” (Rauch 1999)

The hypothesis of a linkage between blue baby syndrome and nitrate began seventy years ago, after infants fed formula made with contaminated well water showed signs of methemoglobinemia. The effect was ascribed to the high nitrate content of these wells. This has since been disputed by Avery and others. (Alexander A Avery 2001)(Katan 2009)

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), operating on a 1950’s hypothesis and an abundance of caution, set the MCL for nitrate of 44 mg/L (equal to 10 mg nitrate-nitrogen/L or 10 ppm).

Research has since pointed to fecal contamination of the well as the cause and not nitrate. By far, the major pollutant and the largest killer of people is by waterborne diseases. This is why chlorine, a known toxic chemical, is added to disinfect water.

In an experiment in 1948, in which infants who were fed 100 mg did not develop methemoglobinemia. When fed bacteria from contaminated wells, methemoglobinemia did develop. (Katan, 2009)

“Normal functioning of human vasculature requires both the presence of nitrite and nitric oxide…” and “Approximately 80% of dietary nitrates are derived from vegetable consumption; sources of nitrites include vegetables, fruit, and processed meats. Nitrites are produced endogenously through the oxidation of nitric oxide and through a reduction of nitrate by commensal bacteria in the mouth and gastrointestinal tract. As such, the dietary provision of nitrates and nitrites from vegetables and fruit may contribute to the blood pressure–lowering effects of the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet.” (Hord, Tang, and Bryan 2009)

It is not important where the nitrate comes from the chemical is the same. And the European Food Safety Administration notes, “Nitrate per se is relatively non-toxic…[and] recent researchindicates that nitrite participates in host defence having antimicrobial activity, and other nitrate metabolites e.g. nitric oxide, have important physiological roles such as vasoregulation. Despite being a major source of nitrate, increased consumption of vegetables is widely recommended because of their generally agreed beneficial effects for health.” (European Food Safety Authority, 2008)

It has long been known that methemoglobinemia occurs in infants less than 6 months of age without excessive intake of nitrates. “Protein intolerance accompanied by diarrhea and/or vomiting has also been proven to cause methemoglobinemia in infants less than 6 months of age without excessive intake of nitrates through food and water….Moreover, although over 90% of exogenous nitrate exposure comes from food, the only methemoglobinemia cases linked to food have involved high levels of nitrite contamination….All of these observations strengthen the view that endogenous nitrite production, not exogenous nitrate contamination of drinking water, is the primary cause of methemoglobinemia.” (Alexander Austin Avery 1999)

Nonetheless, the idea of a linkage between nitrate in the water and methemoglobinemia remains. “It appears that the biologically plausible hypothesis of nitrite toxicity (eg, methemoglobinemia) has essentially transformed a plausible hypothesis into sacrosanct dogma, despite the lack of proof.” (Hord, Tang, and Bryan 2009) Or as Mark Twain put it in Life on the Mississippi, “There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.” (Twain 1883)

Nitrate levels found in food

Below are the amounts of nitrate found in common vegetables:

Food	Nitrate concentration (mg/kg)	Nitrate concentration (mg/oz)
Arugula	4677	131
Rhubarb	2943	82
Mixed lettuce	2062	58
Butterhead lettuce	2026	57
Beet	1852	52
Swiss chard	1690	47
Curled lettuce	1601	45
Oak-leaf lettuce	1534	43
Belgian endive	1465	41
Lettuce	1324	37
Romaine lettuce	1105	31
Celery	1103	31
Fennel	1024	29
Kohlrabi	987	28
Iceberg lettuce	875	25
Dandelion	605	17
Cole Slaw	559	16
Curly kale	537	15
Radicchio	355	10
Leek	345	10
Broccoli	279	8
Asparagus	209	6
Vegetable Soup	209	6
Bloomingcamp well water	105	3
Sources: Nitrate in vegetables. The EFSA Journal (2008) 689, 1-79 doi: 10.2903/j.efsa.2008.689; Food sources of nitrates and nitrites: the physiologic context for potential health benefits

As a friend of mine who has a PhD and has a background in chemistry, biochemistry, toxicology, and pharmacology, points out, fruits and vegetables contain a lot of nitrate but that is “swamped by endogenous production” (meaning what our bodies produce) which is “a source of nitric oxide – a critical signaling biomolecule with multiple functions throughout the body.” He told me you could use Bloomingcamp’s water to rinse your mouth out after eating a cucumber, if you wanted to lower your nitrate load.

Figure 1 A schematic diagram of the physiologic disposition of nitrate, nitrite, and nitric oxide from exogenous (dietary) and endogenous sources. The action of bacterial nitrate reductases on the tongue and mammalian enzymes that have nitrate reductase

The importance of dose

As I sit at my laptop composing this letter, I am sipping a phenol-laced liquid containing 826 volatile chemical substances, 16 of which are known by the State of California to cause cancer including: acrylamide, caffeic acid, catechol, furfural, and hydroquinone. (Ames, 1990) I put a little cream in it, since the insecticide in the drink, caffeine, is rather bitter. Caffeine by the way is comparably toxic as another SWRCB concern: chromium-6.

Caffeine’s LOAEL (Lowest Observed Adverse Effect Level) of 2.5 mg/kg-day is quite close to that of chromium-6. Toxicologists then calculate a Reference Dose (RfD) from the LOAEL. Dr. Tamara L. Sorell writes, “The final RfD [for caffeine] would be 0.0025 mg/kg-day, a very small dose in the same range as RfDs for known toxicants such as hexavalent chromium [chromium-6] and potassium cyanide.” (Sorell, 2016) A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation says one drop of coffee is roughly 270 times above the “safe” level for consumption. Maybe I should put that drop in a gallon of water to be safe?

Every substance we interact with, no matter how dangerous, has a level at which it is benign; and every substance, no matter how benign, has a level at which it is toxic. Or as Paracelsus (1493-1541) put it, “All substances are poisons; there is none which is not a poison. The right dose differentiates a poison and a remedy.”

As an example: Which of these substances is the least toxic: arsenic, cyanide or vitamin D?

Answer: Of the three, arsenic is the least toxic. Vitamin D and cyanide are identically as lethal. It takes 50 percent more arsenic to kill someone than vitamin D. (National Science Teachers Association n.d.)

The Dose-Response curve

Since dose determines risk, the Dose-Response of the body is critically important. “Mere detection of a chemical in the environment cannot be equated with increased risk, but must be evaluated in terms of the hazard, dose-response, and human exposure, all steps in the characterization of health risk,” the American Council on Science and Health emphasized in a peer-reviewed paper on perchlorate (the principle will be the same with nitrates and nitrites). (Daland Juberg and Stier 2002)

As Frank Schnell, board-certified, PhD toxicologist (retired) explains Dose-Response, “Most biological effects, whether adverse or not, are the consequence of a cascade of biochemical reactions initiated when chemical agents (referred to by pharmacologists and toxicologists generically as ‘effectors,’ ‘agonists’ or ‘ligands’) bind to effect-specific macromolecular receptors usually distributed on cell surfaces. It is of supreme indifference to the receptor whether the chemical binding to it is of natural, synthetic, endogenous, or exogenous origin. As long as the ligand fits into the receptor’s active site, the former will produce the effect mediated by that receptor.

“This receptor-mediated mechanism of action accounts for the existence of thresholds of effect and for the S-shaped Dose-Response (D-R) Curve that typically results when the strength of the effect (from zero- to 100%-response) is plotted on the ordinate (y-axis) against the logarithm of the dose on the abscissa (x-axis).”

Figure 2 Dose-Response Sigmoid Curve

Now, here’s the kicker, Schnell writes that “A sub-threshold concentration of the effector will not activate enough receptors to produce in the cell a significant effect. (If this were not the case, the effective regulation of normal metabolic processes would not be possible.)” (emphasis added). In other words, very little does nothing.

The Unbearable Lightness of Wallet

Since SWRCB’s mandate says people must have affordable water—and in the case of Bloomingcamp water company, the operators are also the paying customers—SWRCB must weigh the cost of caution against the safety (usually given as life-years) it provides. This is not a mere academic exercise; capital is limited resource, once spent for one priority it is not available to spend on another. “Policymakers are used to considering the regulatory environment one regulation at a time from the perspective of the regulator and with a parochial view of their agency as the only relevant player in the field,” wrote Boden, et. al., “This perspective too often ignores the viewpoint of a person starting a business, who must comply with regulations at multiple levels of government across overlapping issues. To these entrepreneurs, the regulatory thicket offers negligible benefits when compared to the added compliance burden.” This “regulatory thicket” “imposes real costs on real people.”(Boden et al. 2019) The Mercatus Center at George Mason University, puts the amount of money lost since 1980, due to added federal regulation alone, at $4 trillion; a drag of 25 percent on the economy. “If regulation had been held constant at levels observed in 1980, the US economy would have been about 25 percent larger than it actually was as of 2012….This amounts to a loss of approximately $13,000 per capita, a significant amount of money for most American workers.” (Coffey, 2016)

What is worse, regulations, with health in mind, may increase mortality. “[M]any regulations result in unintended consequences that increase mortality risk in various ways. These adverse repercussions are often the result of regulatory impacts that compete with the intended goal of the regulation, or they are direct behavioral responses to regulation.” (Viscusi, 2017)

Of course, economics alone should not guide us in decision making. But as Bjorn Lomborg reminds us, “[I]gnoring costs doesn’t make difficult choices disappear; it makes them less clear.” (Specter, 2015)

When we spend money on the wrong priorities, that money is not available for things that could truly save lives. As Frank Schnell told me, “In real life, excess conservatism doesn’t just waste money; it also costs lives, i.e., the ones that could have been saved had the wasted money been spent more wisely.” (Schnell, 2016)

Summary of the Science

In addition to what we eat or drink, our bodies biosynthesize nitrates and nitrites in greater quantities than they get from ingesting foods and we get many of those from eating vegetables and, to a lesser extent, meat. This production by our bodies provides a source of nitric oxide – a critical signaling biomolecule with multiple functions throughout the body. (Bloom, 2019)
Researchers are quite divided on whether nitrate alone causes methemoglobinemia in infants.
Dose makes the poison.
Regulations may be a poor way of providing public health.

But what about the law? The law, after all, is the law.

Discretion of officers, prosecutors, judges, and juries in matters of law

Under California’s progressive system, the responsible regulatory agency writes regulations to flesh out legislation. These regulations then become the law. The regulatory agency then acts as cop, judge, jury, and jailer for the laws they have written. (Leonard, 2015) Officers have discretion. Prosecutors have discretion. Juries have discretion. Jury trials were so important to this country’s founders it is listed in our Constitution three times.

Granted, the low MCL for nitrate is a federal requirement that is beyond the Board’s purview. Yet in its draft “Order Denying Petitions For Reconsideration” the water board uses their rules, regulations, and administrative jargon as a shield.

It is the myopia of adjudicating the infraction and not seeing and treating people as people that harms us all. The State ought to provide clear and convincing evidence of harm, not of an infraction of a rule. Bloomingcamp’s proposals are rational, and since their solution will provide safe drinking water to guests, common sense should prevail. Your hands are not tied.

Henry David Thoreau believed that a person must disobey bad laws as a matter of conscience. Was it justice for the law to return escaped slaves to their masters? After all, slaves were property. “Must the citizen ever for a moment,” Thoreau pondered, “or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward.” (Thoreau 1848)

It is up to you to do the right thing; Thoreau, no doubt, would.

Potential courses of action

Bloomingcamp Ranch could do a “jingle mail drop” and turn the running of the system to the State of California. Of course, the authorities would then operate the Bloomingcamp well and put a lien on the property, but little beyond that.
Water Board passes an order to force Bloomingcamp Ranch spend $300,000 to fix the “problem.”
Water Board accepts Bloomingcamp Ranch proposal to use bottled water at the bakery and place “Non-Potable Water” signs at faucets. Signs in restrooms, I believe, is what is done at Modesto Airport. Such signs provide the public with information and indicates this has worked in a place with presumably more consumers than a bakery and cider house. It should work at Bloomingcamp too.

My recommended action

Water Board accept Bloomingcamp Ranch proposal to use bottled water at the bakery. No one will become ill from drinking bottled water (and, face it, without the bakery, the water system can be classed as private and it’s then none of the Water Board’s business). Or, at long last, does no sense of decency remain in your souls?

Thank you for this opportunity to comment on this important consideration.

Norman Benson

References

Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. 2015. “Toxicological Profile: Nitrate and Nitrite.” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/TP.asp?id=1452&tid=258.

Avery, Alexander A. 2001. “Correspondence – Cause of Methemoglobinemia: Illness versus Nitrate Exposure.” Environmental Health Perspectives 109 (1). http://www.nlm.nih.gov.

Avery, Alexander Austin. 1999. “Infantile Methemoglobinemia: Reexamining the Role of Drinking Water Nitrates.” Environmental Health Perspectives 107 (7): 583–86. https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.99107583.

Bloom, Josh. 2019. “Whole Foods Sells Both ‘Nitrate-Free Meat’ and Nitrate Supplements. Yup. | American Council on Science and Health.” American Council on Science and Health. 2019. https://www.acsh.org/news/2019/10/16/whole-foods-sells-both-nitrate-free-meat-and-nitrate-supplements-yup-14334.

Boden, Anastasia, Braden Boucek, Paul Larkin, Clark Neily, Jonathan Riches, Lawrence Vandyke, and Luke Wake. 2019. “Managing the Regulatory Thicket: Cumulative Burdens of State and Local Regulation State and Local.” https://regproject.org/wp-content/uploads/RTP-State-and-Local-Working-Group-Paper-Regulatory-Thicket.pdf.

Carlson, Ken. 2019. “Stanislaus County CA Fruit Stand Has Water Problems | Modesto Bee.” Modesto Bee. 2019. https://www.modbee.com/news/business/agriculture/article229379199.html.

Daland Juberg, by R, and Jeff Stier. 2002. “Perchlorate in Drinking Water Scientific Collaboration in Defining Safety.” https://www.acsh.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/20040405_perchlorate2002.pdf.

Hord, Norman G, Yaoping Tang, and Nathan S Bryan. 2009. “Food Sources of Nitrates and Nitrites: The Physiologic Context for Potential Health Benefits.” The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 90 (1): 1–10. https://doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.2008.27131.

Katan, Martijn B. 2009. “Nitrate in Foods: Harmful or Healthy?” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 90 (1): 11–12. https://doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.2009.28014.

Lewis, C S. 1970. “GOD IN THE DOCK ESSAYS ON THEOLOGY AND ETHICS.”

National Science Teachers Association. n.d. “ASSESSING TOXIC RISK: STUDENT EDITION.” In . Accessed September 30, 2016. http://ei.cornell.edu/teacher/pdf/ATR/ATR_Chapter1_X.pdf.

Rauch, Jonathan. 1999. Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought, Expanded Edition.

SWRCB. 2020a. “CA Drinking Water Watch: NEW WELL 01 (5000435-002).” State Water Resources Control Board. 2020.

SWRCB. 2020b. “D R A F T In the Matter of the Petitions for Reconsideration By.” https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/public_notices/comments/docs/draftorder_bloomingcamp_051820.pdf.

Thoreau, Henry David. 1848. “Civil Disobedience.” Civil Disobedience. https://thoreau.thefreelibrary.com/Civil-Disobedience.

Tuccille, J. D. 2020. “Riots May Be Destructive, but Abusive Policing Is Tyranny – Reason.Com.” Reason.Com. 2020. https://reason.com/2020/06/01/riots-may-be-destructive-but-abusive-policing-is-tyranny/.

Twain, Mark. 1883. Life On The Mississippi. Boston: James R. Osgood and Company. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/245/245-h/245-h.htm.

Ward, Mary H., Theo M. deKok, Patrick Levallois, Jean Brender, Gabriel Gulis, Bernard T. Nolan, and James VanDerslice. 2005. “Workgroup Report: Drinking-Water Nitrate and Health – Recent Findings and Research Needs.” Environmental Health Perspectives 113 (11): 1607–14. https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.8043.

Open Comment Letter to California Water Board – Draft Order Bloomingcamp Water System

I’m planning to send this letter to California’s State Water Resources Control Board in regard to the Bloomingcamp Ranch water system. I invite anyone interested to do the same. You are welcome to borrow what you wish in order to write to the Water Board. Comments must be received by the Water Board by noon on June 22, 2020.
For more on the plight of Bloomingcamp Ranch see here and here.

Division of Drinking Water
State Water Resources Control Board
Attn: Jeanine Townsend, Clerk to the Board
P.O. Box 100
Sacramento, CA 95812-2000

Re: Comment Letter – Draft Order Bloomingcamp Water System

I propose the California Water Board accept the Bloomingcamp proposal to use bottled water. No one will become ill from drinking Bloomingcamp’s water (more on that later), or the proposed bottled water, and there is no reason bottled cannot be a long-term solution.

“Of all tyrannies,” C. S. Lewis wrote, “a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.”

During the summer of 2010, a “lady with a clipboard” approached Julie Murphy who was operating a lemonade stand at the monthly art fair in Northeast Portland and asked to see the city issued restaurant license. Julie didn’t know she needed one and was threatened with a $500 fine. Seven-year-old Julie Murphy then burst into tears. Rules are rules. “Our role is to protect the public,” said Jon Kawaguchi, environmental health supervisor for the Multnomah County Health Department.

On July 17, 2014, Eric Garner was confronted by a New York city plainclothes police officer who accused Garner of selling “loosies,” single cigarettes, an illegal activity in the city. He did not wish to be hassled but the six officers surrounding him did not leave. Instead, one of the officers placed Garner in a choke hold. Garner complained but eventually lost consciousness. An ambulance was called and Garner was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.

“Government, at its core,” J.D. Tuccille wrote, “is force. The more it does to shape the world around it, the more it needs enforcers to make sure officials’ wills are done.” The draft order regarding Bloomingcamp Ranch’s water system is, by all indications, another case of the enforcers of a rule going beyond good judgment in the application of the law by people who mean well.

The State claims nitrate in Bloomingcamp water endangers children

On May 4, 2018, the county of Stanislaus issued Compliance Order No. DER-18-R-008 (Compliance Order) to Bloomingcamp Ranch, a bakery and produce stand east of Modesto, which serves, according to California’s records, “6 residents, 4 employees, and 25 or more customers at least 60 days out of the year,” for violation of the maximum contaminant level (MCL) for nitrate found in the California Code of Regulations, title 22, § 64431. Among other things, the Compliance Order required Bloomingcamp to submit a Corrective Action Plan (CAP) “identifying improvements to the water system designed to correct the water quality problem,” (a violation of the Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) for nitrate and “ensure that Bloomingcamp delivers water to consumers that meets primary drinking water standards.” The Compliance Order also notified Bloomingcamp that the County was authorized to issue a monetary penalty of up to $1000 per day if Bloomingcamp failed to correct the violation.

Bloomingcamp Ranch’s water contains slightly less than 2.5 times the MCL of nitrate (23.9 mg/liter versus the MCL of 10 mg/liter). And for this, the Stanislaus County health department plans will no doubt force Bloomingcamp into bankruptcy. Apparently, the ranch has offered to serve bottled water to its guests, but the State says “Bloomingcamp’s permanent or long-term reliance on bottled water is an inadequate means to comply with the California Safe Drinking Water Act,” which is no doubt true, but also tone deaf.

The state claims, “there are public health reasons for addressing a worsening problem with nitrate water contamination in wells. Darrin Polhemus, deputy director of the state board, is quoted in a Modesto Bee article. He says the state’s vigilance regarding nitrates is because they can cause harm to infants with limited exposure, and nitrates are a cause of “blue baby syndrome” (methemoglobinemia) by interfering with the process of carrying oxygen in the bloodstream.

Do vegetables, meat, and our own bodies endanger us?

It is odd that Mr. Polhemus and the State of California not also recommend that the public avoid leafy green vegetables, since roughly 80 percent of the nitrates we consume come from vegetables and leafy green vegetables are higher in nitrates. Surely, I must have simply overlooked the warnings from the State of California?

Nonetheless, I invite the state of California’s Division of Drinking Water (DDW), Stanislaus County, or United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to cite at least two scientific peer reviewed papers, or medical or toxicology journals dated later than 1980, to shore up the assertion that Bloomingcamp’s nitrate numbers constitute an elevated risk to infants. I have found many that counter the State’s claim.

“Experts have questioned the veracity of the evidence supporting the hypothesis that nitrates and nitrites are toxic for healthy adolescent and adult populations. It appears that the biologically plausible hypothesis of nitrite toxicity (eg, methemoglobinemia) has essentially transformed a plausible hypothesis into sacrosanct dogma, despite the lack of proof.” (Source: Norman G Hord, Yaoping Tang, Nathan S Bryan, Food sources of nitrates and nitrites: the physiologic context for potential health benefits, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Volume 90, Issue 1, July 2009, Pages 1–10, https://doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.2008.27131)

It appears that the EPA pulled the nitrate/nitrite numbers out of their collective rear-ends, or more precisely, bovine butts. To call blue baby syndrome’s link to nitrate/nitrite levels speculative is giving it far too much credence (I use nitrates/nitrites since they are interconvertible in the body). Research provided in peer-reviewed journals indicates this idea to be simple manure. Literally manure.

The nitrate hypothesis became sacrosanct dogma, despite lack of proof

The hypothesis of a linkage between Blue Baby and nitrate/nitrite began in the 1950s after infants fed formula made with contaminated well water showed signs of blue baby. The effect was ascribed to the high nitrate content of these wells. Research has since pointed to fecal contamination of the well as the cause and not nitrate/nitrite. In an experiment in 1948, in which infants who were fed 100 mg did not develop methemoglobinemia. When fed bacteria from contaminated wells, methemoglobinemia did develop. (Source: Martijn B Katan, Nitrate in foods: harmful or healthy?, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Volume 90, Issue 1, July 2009, Pages 11–12, https://doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.2009.28014)

There is the scant linkage of a hypothesis that nitrate causes methemoglobinemia and ample evidence it was due to bacterially contaminated wells. Again, “It appears that the biologically plausible hypothesis of nitrite toxicity (eg, methemoglobinemia) has essentially transformed a plausible hypothesis into sacrosanct dogma, despite the lack of proof.” There is also ample evidence that nitrates are quite necessary.

It is not important whether the nitrate comes from the water, vegetables, or meat: the chemical is the same. And the European Food Safety Administration notes, “Nitrate per se is relatively non-toxic…[and] recent researchindicates that nitrite participates in host defence having antimicrobial activity, and other nitrate metabolites e.g. nitric oxide, have important physiological roles such as vasoregulation. Despite being a major source of nitrate, increased consumption of vegetables is widely recommended because of their generally agreed beneficial effects for health.” (Source: Opinion of the Scientific Panel on Contaminants in the Food chain on a request from the European Commission to perform a scientific risk assessment on nitrate in vegetables, The EFSA Journal(2008) Journal number, 689, 1-79)

Below are the amounts of nitrate found in common vegetables:

Vegetable	Nitrate concentration (mg/kg)	Nitrate concentration (mg/oz)
Asparagus	209	6
Broccoli	279	8
Leek	345	10
Radicchio	355	10
Escarole	523	15
Curly kale	537	15
Dandelion	605	17
Iceberg lettuce	875	25
Kohlrabi	987	28
Fennel	1024	29
Celery	1103	31
Romaine lettuce	1105	31
Lettuce	1324	37
Belgian endive	1465	41
Oak-leaf lettuce	1534	43
Curled lettuce	1601	45
Swiss chard	1690	47
Beet	1852	52
Butterhead lettuce	2026	57
Mixed lettuce	2062	58
Lamb’s lettuce	2104	59
Amaranth	2167	61
Rhubarb	2943	82
Arrugula	4677	131

Source: Nitrate in vegetables. The EFSA Journal (2008) 689, 1-79 doi: 10.2903/j.efsa.2008.689

As a friend of mine who has a PhD and has a background in chemistry, biochemistry, toxicology, and pharmacology, told me, “[T]he ranch water could be used to wash the vegetable nitrate and salivary nitrate out of one’s mouth after they eat a cucumber.” He says, “fruits and vegetables contain far more nitrite than meats, but both are swamped by endogenous production [meaning what our bodies produce] of nitrite which is a source of nitric oxide – a critical signaling biomolecule with multiple functions throughout the body.” Again, nitrite and nitrate interconvertible in the body.

Dose makes the poison

As an example: Which of these substances is the least toxic: arsenic, cyanide or vitamin D?

Answer: Of the three, arsenic is the least toxic. Vitamin D and cyanide have identical lethality of dose to body weight (LD50=10 mg/kg). Arsenic has an LD50 of 15 mg/kg. (source: Cornell. National Science Teachers Association. 2016. Assessing Toxic Risk: Student Edition.)

Dose-Response

Since dose determines risk, the Dose-Response of the body is of utmost importance. “Mere detection of a chemical in the environment cannot be equated with increased risk, but must be evaluated in terms of the hazard, dose-response, and human exposure, all steps in the characterization of health risk,” the American Council on Science and Health emphasized in a peer-reviewed paper on perchlorate (the principle will be the same with nitrates and nitrites).

As Frank Schnell, board-certified, PhD toxicologist (retired) explains Dose-Response, “Most biological effects, whether adverse or not, are the consequence of a cascade of biochemical reactions initiated when chemical agents (referred to by pharmacologists and toxicologists generically as “effectors,” “agonists” or “ligands”) bind to effect-specific macromolecular receptors usually distributed on cell surfaces. It is of supreme indifference to the receptor whether the chemical binding to it is of natural, synthetic, endogenous, or exogenous origin. As long as the ligand fits into the receptor’s active site, the former will produce the effect mediated by that receptor.

To reiterate, despite what we eat or drink, our bodies biosynthesize nitrates/nitrites in greater quantities than they get from ingesting foods and we get many of those from eating vegetables and, to a lesser extent, meat. This production of nitrite by our bodies provides a source of nitric oxide – a critical signaling biomolecule with multiple functions throughout the body.

But what about the law? The law, after all, is the law.

Under California’s progressive system, the responsible regulatory agency writes regulations to flesh out legislation. These regulations then become the law. The regulatory agency then acts as cop, judge, jury, and jailer for the laws they have written. Officers have discretion. Prosecutors have discretion. Juries have discretion. Jury trials were so important to this country’s founders it is listed in our Constitution three times.

Granted, the needlessly low MCL for nitrate is a federal requirement that is beyond the Board’s purview. Yet in its draft “Order Denying Petitions For Reconsideration” the water board uses their rules, regulations, and administrative jargon as a shield from seeing and treating Bloomingcamp Ranch as people and thus treating the ranch’s proposals as rational, and since it will provide safe drinking water to guests. Common sense should prevail. Your hands are not tied.

It is up to you to do the right thing.

Possible courses of action:

Bloomingcamp Ranch could do a “jingle key drop” and turn the running of the system to the State of California. Of course, the authorities would put a lien on the property, but there is little beyond that they should do.
Water Board passes an order to force Bloomingcamp Ranch spend a shit ton of money to fix “problem”
Water Board accepts Bloomingcamp Ranch proposal to use bottled water at the bakery and place “Non-Potable Water” signs at faucets.

My recommended action:

Water Board accept Bloomingcamp Ranch proposal to use bottled water at the bakery. No one will become ill from drinking bottled water (and, face it, without the bakery, the water system can be classed as private and it’s none of the Water Board’s business). Or, at long last, does no sense of decency remain in your souls?

To sign an online petition supporting Bloomingcamp Ranch follow this hyperlink: https://www.gopetition.com/petitions/affordable-water-solutions-for-bloomingcamp-water-system.html<

Bloomingcamp Ranch vs the State of California, Part 2

There is a whiff of bullshit and boot polish in the air.

Politics, as opposed to science, does not reward the correction of mistakes, given that correcting a mistake also entails admitting to having made one. Worse, the bigger the mistake, the greater the political urgency of defending it at all costs. – novelist Lionel Shriver
Source:“This is not a natural disaster, but a manmade one,” SPECTATOR magazine issue: 16 May 2020

As mentioned in the previous post, the state of California is hassling Bloomingcamp Ranch (See short video here: https://www.modbee.com/news/business/agriculture/article229379199.html) over its water system being higher than the regulated limit on nitrate in the water (They had 23.9 and the limit is 10). The Darrin Polhemus, deputy director of the state water board, claims the state is vigilant about nitrates because they can cause [note the weasel wording] harm to infants with limited exposure. According to the health authorities, nitrates [Na+NO3-] are a cause of “blue baby” syndrome (methemoglobinemia).

I am skeptical of the science that the bureaucrats of Stanislaus county and now the state of California are citing. As Lionel Shriver notes above, politicians are not eager to be proven wrong. As J. D. Tuccille writes here,

You want a society taxed and regulated toward you
r vision of perfection? It’s going to need enforcers. Those enforcers are going to interact on a daily basis with people who don’t share that vision of perfection, and who resent the constant enforcement attempts.
– J.D. Tuccille

He adds later, “Government, at its core, is force. The more it does to shape the world around it, the more it needs enforcers to make sure officials’ wills are done.”

Inquisitions were held for the best of intentions. If people disobeyed the rules, society was at risk. Those who disregarded or flaunted society’s rules required punishment.

Pedro Berruguete, *Saint Dominic Guzmán presiding over an Auto da fe* (c. 1495).^[36] Many artistic representations depict torture and burning at the stake during the *auto-da-fé* (Portuguese for “Act of Faith”).

So the enforcement of the nitrate rule does not need to make sense for the enforcers. Their job is to enforce the rule. What about the worry of nitrates causing “Blue baby syndrome” (methemoglobinemia)? Tht is not as clear cut as the enforcers wish you to believe.

I’ll end with a bit of the science. I’d like to write more but this seems to be about right.

Methemoglobinemia is believed to be caused by bacteria in the mouth and gut converting nitrate into nitrite. Nitrite then reacts with hemoglobin to produce methemoglobin, which can no longer carry oxygen. (Source: The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Volume 90, Issue 1, July 2009, Pages 11–12)

To be continued…