Is rain no longer potable?

[Gadagirl]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

I'm not familiar with those specific examples, but I will bet the farm that the contaminant levels, whatever they may be, are FAR, FAR greater than fractional parts per trillion.

Jim

Exactly correct. That's why they become "cancer clusters" because the pollution is concentrated around specific industries discharge. Many municipalities don't even test for it. If you're lucky to be living far away from concentration areas then I agree your not going to have to worry too much. But, if it gets worse, future generations won't have that privilege. That's my concern.

[thesaltytar]

Thank you for the above observations.

While the ppm may be minute to a level that seems insignificant to you or I, the fact that so much effort is going into tracking and researching this very topic tells me the toxicity involved must be fairly high in order for these concentrations to be statistically significant. After reading several of the articles in this very thread it leads me to believe this is a topic worth considering.

And, Gadagirl, you astutely point out that much of this bioaccumulates in the trophic scale. Little critters get contaminated and subsequently larger critters eat the smaller ones until they end up on my plate (next to the vegetables of their biosphere!).

My intent to learn more about this isn't to give in to fear or propose denial. It's just a numbers game. Whatever we can do to promote survivability is good and that is the direction we should move towards.

There's a lot of health and safety stuff that has become apparent over the past generation or two that has changed the working and day to day landscape completely. We may look at that and think, oh what silly stuff, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and we are living longer as a result.

The food? I don't know. I have no intention of living off of Soylent and still like a good grilled dinner (in spite of the carcinogenic carbon! Char just tastes better) so you have to pick your battles. [emoji2369]

That being said: I cook with stainless pans, minimize my contact with flame retardants, try to live healthy, and now will be filtering my shipboard water through charcoal filters.

Humans are fairly resourceful. I trust our science. Science fixed the hole in the ozone (and also made it to begin with) so I'm hoping we can fix this one too.

[MicHughV]

y'all should spend a little time in Africa....see what millions of people drink there..

[thesaltytar]

Originally Posted by MicHughV

y'all should spend a little time in Africa....see what millions of people drink there..

I don't doubt it.
But I find your point unclear?

[thesaltytar]

Originally Posted by MicHughV

y'all should spend a little time in Africa....see what millions of people drink there..

I don't doubt it, I find your point unclear?

[Uncle Bob]

Originally Posted by thesaltytar

I don't doubt it.
But I find your point unclear?

Originally Posted by thesaltytar

I don't doubt it, I find your point unclear?

Salty old son, you seen to be stuttering.

[thesaltytar]

Originally Posted by Uncle Bob

Salty old son, you seen to be stuttering. [emoji3][emoji3]

...I blame the interwebs!



...I blame the interwebs! [emoji6]

[RaymondR]

The observation and reporting of this stuff could be just a symptom of an excessive number of doctoral graduates seeking subjects for their doctoral thesis??

[thesaltytar]

Could be.

That is how this works - more graduates have to find more subjects in a continual expanding exploration. But that they're looking for more funding and research direction doesn't a) invalidate their findings or b) necessarily mean that what is being observed was there all along.

After all it IS an established fact that fertility is declining, not just in a decrease of elective offspring but in sperm motility of men. What's causing that? Seems like something we should research. And there are links between lowered reproduction and some of the findings in the water.

Now thankfully that doesn't affect me as I'm not going to have any wee little saltytar jr's running around.

And again I'm not going to abstain from drinking water, obviously. This all got brought up originally because what I considered to be a brainless way of collecting potable water might now have an additional element of caution to it.

As for the people in Africa, I don't know if this is the intent of the above post, but yes people drink from horrible contaminated sources of water all the time. Their lifespans are almost 15 years shorter on average and typhoid, cholera, dysentery (which I've had and don't recommend), diarrhea, e. Coli... might have something to do with those statistics. These are the people that should be very afraid of what's in the water.

That being said, because we DO have these graduates going around conducting research, and we DO have the financial and intellectual resources available to us, we can pop on a carbon filter and carry on, and maybe even have an educated discourse on how to use our combined available information and resources.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by thesaltytar

After all it IS an established fact that fertility is declining, not just in a decrease of elective offspring but in sperm motility of men. What's causing that? Seems like something we should research. And there are links between lowered reproduction and some of the findings in the water.

Great, looks like the "Population Bomb" is taking care of itself. Good old Gaia strikes again

[AKA-None]

This reminds me of a German ship I worked on
I ask if they had any water to drink as the shipyard hadn’t put any fountain on the boat yet, or bubbler if you prefer

They said no there is no drinking water on the ship

Huh?

So I said I was thirsty and asked if they had anything to drink

Yes they said. Beer

Huh?

I asked why, while drinking a beer

They said they sail everywhere and don’t trust the water so they bought pallets of beer and drank that as it was at least cleaner than any water they could get

So not quite this discussion but something I had experience with that was interesting

Ymmv

[goboatingnow]

Despite some of the usual denier nonsense PFOA pollution is an increasing and on going threat to many situations including rain water.

[Pelagic]

Originally Posted by Gadagirl

I know, I know! I'm as guilty as the next because I too enjoy "modern materials" But I think it's something that should be taken seriously.

Yes...Herein lies the rub!

We are all guilty of picking our indulgences that have adverse environmental/health issues.... then rationalize the hell out of it.


First world countries buy junk from other nations with cheap labor and poor pollution controls so as to feel better about their own numbers.
That's delusional... BS

Better approach is to just stop buying plastic junk and reuse/repair wherever you can.

I roll my eyes at the new environmentally friendly yachts being built, whose owners feel they are planet savers.
BS again.... just buy an existing boat and maintain it.

Stargazer is 40 years old and I like that her build footprint in steel is now history.

No room for junk but I still know that the manufacturing of Solar or Lithium is bad environmentally

But I indulge in having those conveniences without touting any solutions for the planet other than .....
.... to live remotely and don't have kids.

[thesaltytar]

Stu - it's almost as if we live in a self-regulating biome that is seeking balance...!

AKA-None - that's interesting, and I would have taken it for a tongue-in-cheek excuse to drink beer except for that they had no water... So either they've really committed to the rouse or there's something to it!

I remember going to a duty free store in... Boston I think... They were all sold out of coconut water which they sold by the pallet to the Filipino container ship crews, who swore that it cleaned out their system as they didn't trust the city water.. I was bowled over. THEY didn't trust OUR water!

But then....neither did I. So fair is fair and maybe the Germans were right. [emoji2369] Although I wonder how your coffee tasted.

Pelagic - I feel this is an unfortunate aspect of globalism. Planned obsolescence of vehicles, a proven thing, is just one example that supports a resource-dependant economy which, when applied at the expense of natural resources and coupled with the production of green washed gizmos is laughably unsustainable.

I was reading that the carbon footprint (...if you want to use that metric...) was larger for a new electric vehicle than just driving your existing vehicle, and older cars are really the greenest solution with manufacture taken into account. I never thought of it applied to boats.

I think about my own environmental impact. I live in Savannah and every couple months fly to Alaska and then go fishing to the border of Russia. It's wack-o to me that my job requires such an importation of labor and I wonder how many other engineers live in the cities I fly over who are perfectly capable (and closer) to where I work.

Of course globalism is good too! It enables me to talk to all of you and sustain dreams of going to other distant shores where I can grab a big mac with strangers in strange lands.

So has there been any studies of PFOAs in the food supply chain? It was mentioned earlier but I am curious if we have any numbers to back up what seems a very valid concern.

[AKA-None]

I’m more worried about all the hormones that end up in the waste water output and the knock on effects that has

Waste water treatment doesn’t remove those or drugs either