Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act

Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act

Clean water act and safe drinking water act (SDWA) are the main federal laws that ensure and protect the water quality in the U.S.  For the Clean Water Act, it requires industrial companies cannot discharge any pollutants from a point source into lakes, rivers, and coastal waters, unless they have received a permit from the government. In addiction, the act provided generous financial assistance to state and local governments to build or upgrade their wastewater treatment facilities.

The SDWA is the main federal law that ensures the quality of Americans' drinking water. Under this law, the EPA sets standards for drinking water quality and oversees the state water suppliers who implement those standards. This policy was set in 1974 to ensure Americans receive high-quality drinking water every day from a public water system. The reason mainly for the policy set was to ensure the safety of the Americans health. Both water acts have play an important role in protecting people’s health and minimizing many environmental health outbreaks in public. We know water is the basic of life. Since people cannot survive without clean water, clean water issue should always be prioritized and focused on.

Ideal Chemical Policy

Ideal chemical policy

Ideal chemical policy should contain the following components:

1.     Give the public the right to know the chemical information.

2.     Require a comprehensive safety data for all chemicals.

3.     Phase out highly toxic chemicals and require safer substitutes and solutions.

4.     Take immediate action to protect the communities and workers

Personally, I think the most important element of the ideal chemical policy should let the public know thoroughly about the chemical products. If people do not have a right to know about the chemical, how can people know to protect themselves and avoid the harmful effects from them? For example, many cosmetic products, due to the trade secret, the public does not have the right to know the chemical content of the products.  Many people may choose daily household products with harmful chemicals, such as lead and mercury. This issue is related to the social determinants of public health. Without the right to know, it is also a social injustice for the public. 

Sewage Treatment Facilities in San Francisco

Sewage Treatment Facilities in San Francisco

There are 3 sewage treatment facilities in San Francisco, which includes southeast treatment plant, Oceanside treatment plant and north point wet weather facility. Southeast treatment plant, Oceanside treatment plant operate 24 hours every, while the north point wet weather facility only work on rainstorm season. Southeast treatment plant is the largest wastewater facility, located at Bayview Hunter Point, and treats almost 80% of city’s flow. It treats about 57 million gallons of wastewater per day, and it could handle up to 250 million gallons of wastewater during rainstorm season. In addition, the water treatment plant takes care of sludge and transforms it into bio-solids. Every year, the sewage treatment facilities produce 80000 wet tons of bio-solids, which can apply as fertilizer to improve and maintain productive soils and stimulate plant growth.

MSDS

MSDS

I have obtained a Material Safety Data Sheet from Food and Nutrition Department at CPMC St. Luke’s Campus, and I will review one of their cleaning agents from the MSDS.

Product name: OASIS 255SF

Product/ingredient name: d-glucopyranose, oligomeric, decyl octyl glycosides

Recommended use: Class Cleaner
Chemical family: Mixture

Health Risks: This product is harmful to aquatic life and may cause serious eye damage and eye irritation. However, there is no known significant effect or critical hazards for skin contact, inhalation, and ingestion. In the product, there is no known carcinogen found. To protect the eyes, safety glasses and gloves are recommended. Also, good general ventilation should be sufficient to control work exposure to airborne contaminants. When people use this product in a workplace, people should follow the instructions on the label.

Toxnet: in this cleaning product, it also contains ammonium hydroxide. After I researched this chemical compound in the Toxnet, I found some discrepancies between what were reported in MSDS and Toxnet. Ammonium hydroxide is severe skin irritants, may cause permanent eye damage. Moreover, in Toxnet, it also reported ammonium hydroxide may also cause burns of the oral cavity and pharynx, oesophagal or gastric perforation, pulmonary oedema. For chronic effects, ammonium hydroxide can cause urticarial to people.

MSDS Tools: I think this is an adequate tool for helping kitchen workers understand proper techniques to reduce their risk of exposure to harmful cleaning chemicals. If MSDS can provide other language options for workers, it will help workers to understand more thoroughly to the content and minimize chemical exposure to the workers.

Environmental Health Services in San Francisco

In the San Francisco department of public health website, people can find out many health-related programs, which includes community health program, health education, communicable diseases, environmental health and etc. Under the environmental health section, there are 8 environmental health topic sub-sections providing information on safe and nutritious food, protection from excessive noise, prevention of exposure to chemicals, polluted soil, air and water, habitable housing and quality of neighborhoods. Also, there are some helpful links and resources that provide up-to-date information, reports and videos for the public to read and view.

For me, I am interested in food safety and health promotion, so I look more into the Children’s Environmental Health Promotion Program under the neighborhoods and housing section and the Food Safety Program under the food and agriculture section. For the Children’s Environmental Health Promotion Program, it provides health information on lead, asthma and healthy home for residential homes, childcare, schools, and workplaces. And, for the food safety program, it requires all retail restaurants, markets, and food facilities must obtain a permit to operate and comply all health codes from City and State Governments. Also under the helpful links in the Food Safety Program, there is a restaurant safety scores evaluation. By reviewing on the safety scores, people can realize how well the restaurants perform on food handling and restaurants’ environment.

In San Francisco Environment Department’s website, it also provides lots of environmental health-relative news, videoes and events in San Francisco.  People can also find out many environmental health topics, such as energy, zero waste and climate change and etc.

Scorecard and EPA Facts

I am living in Mission district, San Francisco, and I am wondering how well my community and county’s environmental evaluation are.

Top polluter in Mission District

The major 3 top polluters in Mission district are San Francisco Drydock INC,  Chevron Prods. Co  San Francisco Terminal and Pacific Gas & Electric Co. Hunters point power plant.

Percent of the homes in Mission District with lead-based paint

7% of houses in San Francisco have a high risk of lead hazards

Superfund sites in Mission District

According to the Wikipedia, superfund site is “a polluted location requiring a long-term response to clean up hazardous material contaminations. There is one superfund site called “ Treasure Island Naval Station-Hunter Point Annex near Mission district. In this superfund site, Groundwater, sediments, soil and surface water are contaminated with fuels, pesticides, heavy metals, PCBS and volatile organic compounds.

Air and water quality in Mission District

I am surprised that San Francisco is one of the top 10% of dirtiest countries in the U.S. Also, San Francisco is one of the top 10% of countries having an average individual’s added cancer risk from hazardous air pollutant, based on the EPA data.

The major air pollutants are carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, PM-2.5, PM-10 and volatile organic compounds. For water quality, I am also surprised that San Francisco is one of the dirtiest countries in the U.S.  In California, San Francisco is ranking 14 by percepts of surface water with impaired or threatened uses (29.65%).

Social justice/environmental justice

According to the Scorecard, low-income communities and communities of color may suffer greater impacts from environmental degradation than other groups. The major distribution of Environmental burdens in San Francisco is releases of toxic chemicals. People with color, low-income, and low education have twice risk of health impacts than white people with high income and high education.