Cancer From Our Water Tanks?

How do you fill your fresh water tanks? According to this, most of us are doomed.

http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012...-water-study-warns-drinking-from-garden-hose/

How long before Pelosi and the gang ban hoses?

Not a new news item

MarkA said:

How do you fill your fresh water tanks? According to this, most of us are doomed.

http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012...-water-study-warns-drinking-from-garden-hose/

How long before Pelosi and the gang ban hoses?

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Um, Like, this is info that's been out there for at least 20 years... That's why it's good to only have potable water certified hoses on the boat for tank filling.

Pelosi? Ohhh my....
Take a deep breath... Calm down!
Take a couple of FDA-approved asprin and get some rest on a mattress certified to be safe.
And, whatever you do, Never (!) remove the tag from that mattress, or black helo's will immediately begin circling your house.
:0

LB

Ah, I missed that 20-year-old info--probably due to lead poisoning. I grew up drinking from the garden hose, and continue to drink from leaded crystal. Now I'm craving paint chips and salsa.

MarkA said:

Ah, I missed that 20-year-old info--probably due to lead poisoning. I grew up drinking from the garden hose, and continue to drink from leaded crystal. Now I'm craving paint chips and salsa.

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On a more serious note, I can still recall the odd "rubbery" taste of water out of the family garden hose when I was a kid. I dimly recall drinking it sparingly, on hot days only.

Not sure about lead crystal, but the ancient Romans poisoned themselves quite well with their lead pipes. In more modern times we've had to watch out for pottery mugs and plates fired with lead in the surface glaze.

My unproven "gut" feeling is that the compounds in most hose linings are much less hazardous than the documented illness from lead exposure.
But, why take chances?

LB

Water Tanks

Not to mention the plastic water tanks we all probably have. The latest buzz word for plastic drinking water bottles is 'BPA Free'.

Guess all these poisons have made us stupid after all these years and that is why we continually flush boat bucks down the drain!

What's a guy to do?

Jay
Celtica
E38-200
SF Bay

Generally, your home water will fail a lead test if the water has set in the pipe for a few days, or worse, weeks. My wife sees this all the time. Residential water failing as the sample was taken at the sillcock, not the kitchen sink after running for a minute or two.

I fill my tanks with a garden hose, but it runs a good bit before I do so and I rarely, rarely drink from the tanks anyway.

IMHO, the new "lead scare" is just that. A scare tactic. Lets see, first it was radon gas, then asbestos, lets not forget tobacco, and then there is mold too...... I'm a residential contractor, mostly remodeling, and mostly in old New England homes. You can read that to mean lead, and lots of it. I'm not just exposed to it, I fricken bathe in the stuff every day. Been doing that for 10 years, so has my business partner. Both of us tested for lead every two years and its always "below normal" Explain that? Granted I don't go home and pick up the kiddo until I have changed and showered, but thats commonsense. RT

rwthomas1 said:

Generally, your home water will fail a lead test if the water has set in the pipe for a few days, or worse, weeks. My wife sees this all the time. Residential water failing as the sample was taken at the sillcock, not the kitchen sink after running for a minute or two.

I fill my tanks with a garden hose, but it runs a good bit before I do so and I rarely, rarely drink from the tanks anyway.

IMHO, the new "lead scare" is just that. A scare tactic. Lets see, first it was radon gas, then asbestos, lets not forget tobacco, and then there is mold too...... I'm a residential contractor, mostly remodeling, and mostly in old New England homes. You can read that to mean lead, and lots of it. I'm not just exposed to it, I fricken bathe in the stuff every day. Been doing that for 10 years, so has my business partner. Both of us tested for lead every two years and its always "below normal" Explain that? Granted I don't go home and pick up the kiddo until I have changed and showered, but thats commonsense. RT

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Rgr that.

I also fill my tank from a garden hose, but we don't drink or cook with that water. The reason we don't drink it is not due to lead hysteria, but because the tank is 34 years old we have no idea what it looks like inside. The water looks ok, but we only use it for cleaning and washing.

I was raised in lead paint and asbestos. When I was 17, I remember sweeping piles (several pounds) of asbestos off the engine room floor after removing and replacing an exhaust stack on a fishing boat. Before that, I was a mechanic and gas jock at a service station in the days before warning labels were on pumps. I washed my hands in gasoline, and often soaked my coveralls when gas tanks burped all over me. I used tons of toluene and other noxious chemicals to clean, insulate, seal and paint crab tanks and fish holds on boats in my teens (no respirators or filters). By all rights, I should be a drooling moron with lung cancer. Yet somehow, I went on to breeze through college in 3 years with multiple majors, top grades and honors, nearly perfect LSAT, and graduate from a top tier law school, while running 2-3 marathons per year in the 2:50-3:10 range into my 40's. While I don't doubt there have been some people who suffered devastating effects from some of this stuff, I do dispute that ordinary exposure--or even some of the extraordinary over-exposure experienced by people in the trades--is harmful enough to warrant the hysteria and outright bans on NECESSARY materials.

I'm so sick of the hysteria in our society--particularly here in California where we're no longer trusted with necessary solvents (MEK is banned here!) and adhesives and cold medications--or to sail near birds. But it could be worse, I suppose. We could be in NYC, where they won't allow adults to decide how much soda to drink.:roll eyes:

Edit: I know, I sound like those asses who say they smoked 4 packs of cigarettes everyday until they turned 97 and had a hole punched in their trachea. I'm just saying the line is being drawn unreasonably close to the unattainable goal of insuring perfect safety for all, while axing a ton of utility that we NEED to keep people working in the US.

Interesting

I don't know what to think of the attached as I am a skeptic at heart. That being said, this thread caused me to go 'do the Google' and see what I could find. We've all heard that BPA can leach into plastic products, here's a rebuttal or perhaps a contra opinion:

http://www.factsaboutbpa.org/what-are-the-bpa-myths

This is a good thread, let's see where it goes. We all put a lot into our boats, this is a worthy topic.

Jay
Celtica
E38-200
SF Bay

I always say, lets follow the money. Most anything can be "sold" to us in the guise of public safety. Unless there is enough money being made already to NOT ban something even if it is dangerous. Case in point, airbags in cars. I'm not denying that they make cars, much, much more safe, by a huge factor. But they also increase the costs of ownership and repair. I have a friend that owns a bodyshop, cars are routinely "totaled" simply because replacing the airbags is more than the value of the car. We all pay for that in our insurance rates. Yet we fail to have any comprehensive driving school programs anywhere in the country. Take a look at what the schooling requirements are in Germany and you will find that most every driver in the US would fail miserably. Driving schools that actually taught driving skills would PREVENT accidents in the first place. And lets not forget, lawyers always profit when there is damage to life and property.

How about cellphones? Here in RI there are NO laws preventing cellphone use while driving, no texting but a handheld is just fine. Study after study has shown this to be a huge cause of accidents yet people resist hanging up. I'm willing to guess the cell service providers are working hard behind the scenes as well to see that no law impedes their business. And lets not forget, lawyers always profit when there is damage to life and property.

Lead abatement companies profit heavily from any lead related legislation. Anyone want to guess if they push their agenda on politicians? Its a win-win for the politicos, they look like they are doing something and care, and the companies make bank. And lets not forget, lawyers always profit when there is damage to life and property.

You can say the same with most anything. Drugs illegal and otherwise are tightly controlled. There is money being made. It is expensive to build prisons, equip them and operate them. Its expensive to fund police forces and equip them too. The largest trade show in the country is the law enforcement and corrections show. They all dip into the State and Federal taxes for the billions needed to fight the "war on drugs" and its repercussions. You think anyone in this system wants a solution? You think they want to legalize anything? Yet tobacco and alcohol kill or help to kill untold thousands a year yet they are legal, and of course, heavily taxed. And lets not forget, lawyers always profit when there is damage to life and property.

The Gov't is about to retire the A10 Warthog which happens to be the most capable ground attack aircraft ever built. Its actually cheap to build and maintain by aircraft standards. The troops love these things as they provide unparalleled protection. So what is going to replace it? The Joint Strike Fighter. Yes, a very, very expensive jet that is much to fast and fragile to perform even 10% of what the A10 could do. Is that best for our troops? Or is that best for our Gov't, the businesses that are going to build the JSF, and the other countries that will BUY the JSF?

Yes, I'm incredibly cynical, but the world I live in increasingly makes less and less sense. I'd don't point the finger at either side of the political fence. They are both responsible for this, equally. I've taken to not reading the news or listening to the talking heads. "I'd rather be uninformed than misinformed" to quote Mr. Twain.

RT

Ahem.... Doctors and repair people also profit from damage to life and property. And "journalists." And, FYI, 100% of my legal work in the past 8 years has been pro bono--so I'm not profiting off anyone's misfortune.

Here, cellphone useage is banned--which is probably a good idea, but I hate it. The problem is that many people are incapable of driving while carrying on a live conversation in the car. Holding a box to your ear is not distracting--it's the inability to concentrate on different stimulii. Some people can easily accomplish this, and some people cannot. The latter group should be banned from driving with passengers, radios, climate controls, or even dashboard instruments. Or maps. Or food, drinks, cigarettes or makeup. The phone is not the problem (unless texting). Rampant idiocy and incompetence is the problem.

Edited to correct this site's inability to recognize iPhone carriage returns.

A group of lawyers from my town

mortgaged their houses in order to finance a lawsuit against big tobacco. One of them took to riding a bicycle back and forth to work. After years of litigation, with big tobacco appealing all the way to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court vacated their punitive damages judgment.

Whenever I hear knee jerk lawyer bashing I think about those guys.

PDX said:

mortgaged their houses in order to finance a lawsuit against big tobacco. One of them took to riding a bicycle back and forth to work. After years of litigation, with big tobacco appealing all the way to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court vacated their punitive damages judgment.

Whenever I hear knee jerk lawyer bashing I think about those guys.

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Thanks.

There are enough slimy ambulance chasers and attention hounds in the profession to taint the public's perception--I hate those asswipes, too. They are the most visible, and least competent, sector of the profession--and fortunately, only a small minority. Most people don't see or know what real lawyers do.

I had no idea you are a lawyer, but my opinions are unchanged. I had to take several law classes for one of my degrees, I know several lawyers, and I use one infrequently for business. That said, I place ALL the blame for the litigiousness of our society squarely at their feet. Every single BS safety related restriction of our lives is their baby. Won't change until there is tort reform, a loser pays law, etc. but that ain't ever gonna happen as 90% of the politicos are lawyers too. Any time you have a fee based on a percentage of the total take you have a conflict of interest. RT

rwthomas1 said:

I had no idea you are a lawyer, but my opinions are unchanged. I had to take several law classes for one of my degrees, I know several lawyers, and I use one infrequently for business. That said, I place ALL the blame for the litigiousness of our society squarely at their feet. Every single BS safety related restriction of our lives is their baby. Won't change until there is tort reform, a loser pays law, etc. but that ain't ever gonna happen as 90% of the politicos are lawyers too. Any time you have a fee based on a percentage of the total take you have a conflict of interest. RT

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I'm a strong proponent of Tort Reform, and took part in drafting a bill that Clinton shot down in the 90's. At the time, I was the in-house general counsel of a multinational product manufacturer. We were designing products that not only had to be useable, efficient and affordable, but they also had survive the conflicting product liability laws in all 50 states, and dozens of sovereign nations--a nearly impossible task until we achieve some uniformity.

Also, I've never charged a fee based on a percentage of anyone's take. I billed by the hour, for fewer than the actual hours I put in, as most real lawyers do.

I agree that the bottom feeders of the legal profession have driven this litigious society. But equally to blame is the unfounded sense of entitlement that is so rampant today. Much of that comes from whiny activists and socialist attitudes that cause people to think they have "rights" to stuff that are not rights at all. Look at the EU decision from a couple days ago that held workers are entitled to a second 4-6 week vacation if they happen to get sick during their originally scheduled one. With expectations like that, everyone feels aggrieved whenever they don't fare as well as their neighbor--so lawsuits abound. If you trip in a hole in a parking lot, and happen to be a racial minority, there are plenty of non-lawyer activists around to say that hole was created or allowed to exist because of racism. A civil rights lawsuit ensues, even though the person was not injured and can't bring a premises liability claim. Sure, it takes a lousy lawyer to file that case, but the demand is created by our "community organizers," etc.

A law degree is almost necessary for any politician; if they don't have one, they have a lawyer on staff. But it's not the law degree that corrupts the politician; it's the politician that corrupts the law. We're just specialists in finding, reading, and understanding that morass of conflicting nonsense spewed by the politicians, and we try to make sense of it for our clients.

As an industrial chemist I know a bit about these sort of issues, and I would not lose sleep over any of them. Yes lead ingested is a real hazard. And yes BPA can act as a hormone mimic, and should not be used for baby bottles. But people now associate BPA with ANY plastic, even though most plastic does not even contain or use BPA.

I used a drinking water approved hose to fill our tanks because the water tastes better, not because I was worried about phthalates. But if all you have is a regular hose just let the water run first till you can't taste anything.

As for "follow the money", Erin Brockovich is here is town helping some locals decide whether to sue 3M again over possible ground water contamination. Most people remember the big case out in California in which she got millions for clients from the power company for contaminating their water with chromium, claiming that the chemical gave the locals cancer. But according to statistics there was no cancer cluster in that town, and the rate of cancer was actually below the state average. And while chromium is nasty stuff, it's only carcinogenic when inhaled as fumes, as in welding - not when consumed orally. There is no cancer cluster here in Minnesota either, but I doubt that will stop her.

Bpa

Hey Steve,

So...from your background, do you believe our water tanks have BPA in them?

My boat is a 1989 vintage, was BPA even in use then?
I tend to agree with you. I let the water run through the water hose for a minute or two, mostly to void any
bad taste.

And I have a PUR filter at the tap to try and purify that way as well.

Overall I think the tanks are pretty free of chemical intrusion, your thoughts on the tanks?

Thanks

Jay
Celtica - E38-200
SF Bay

celtium said:

Hey Steve,

So...from your background, do you believe our water tanks have BPA in them?

My boat is a 1989 vintage, was BPA even in use then?
I tend to agree with you. I let the water run through the water hose for a minute or two, mostly to void any
bad taste.

And I have a PUR filter at the tap to try and purify that way as well.

Overall I think the tanks are pretty free of chemical intrusion, your thoughts on the tanks?

Thanks

Jay
Celtica - E38-200
SF Bay

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BPA is an ingredient in epoxy resin. It is NOT found in our typical production polyethylene or polypropylene water tanks. If your boat had integral built-in water tanks, finished with epoxy resin, then it could have BPA. But if the built-in tanks were finished with polyester resin you still wouldn't have any PBA present. In any case a good charcoal filter (like the PUR) should take out any residual organic chemicals.

rwthomas1 said:

Yes, I'm incredibly cynical, but the world I live in increasingly makes less and less sense.RT

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An economic system based on greed, and a social system based on naked self-interest - Makes sense?But that's why I have my beloved Ericson, and suddenly the world's a better place, for me ... =)

Akavishon said:

An economic system based on greed, and a social system based on naked self-interest - Makes sense?But that's why I have my beloved Ericson, and suddenly the world's a better place, for me ... =)

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I have no issue with greed or naked self interest. I'm a business owner. I like profit. What I don't like is Gov't interference through assistance, bailouts, subsidies, etc. If a business does well, generally it benefits the owners, (shareholders), employees, and customers, etc. When a business fails it should be allowed to fail. The failure should affect the owners, (shareholders), employees, and customers. There is no such thing as "too big to fail". Businesses will take ever larger risks if they believe that they will be bailed out should something go afoul. If the decision makers in the firm broke the law, then jail them. If people lost their investments, that is the way it goes. Investing has risks. Thats what due diligence is for. If the returns sound to good to be true, they are. Greed is self regulating. When people take a risk and get burned, or jailed, that teaches a lesson. Bailing them out does not, it simply takes money from the people who made smart decisions and gives it to the stupid. And this is getting way to political.

RT

rwthomas1 said:

I have no issue with greed or naked self interest. I'm a business owner. I like profit. What I don't like is Gov't interference through assistance, bailouts, subsidies, etc. If a business does well, generally it benefits the owners, (shareholders), employees, and customers, etc. When a business fails it should be allowed to fail. The failure should affect the owners, (shareholders), employees, and customers. There is no such thing as "too big to fail". Businesses will take ever larger risks if they believe that they will be bailed out should something go afoul. If the decision makers in the firm broke the law, then jail them. If people lost their investments, that is the way it goes. Investing has risks. Thats what due diligence is for. If the returns sound to good to be true, they are. Greed is self regulating. When people take a risk and get burned, or jailed, that teaches a lesson. Bailing them out does not, it simply takes money from the people who made smart decisions and gives it to the stupid. And this is getting way to political.RT

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Adam Smith rocked.