Danger In California's High Desert - Aquifer Pollution Greater Than Barstow Area?

At the state of the union address,  President Barack Obama said 


"It's why our food is safe to eat, our water is safe to drink, and our air is safe to breathe."  Has that been your experience?


The president needs to start smoking marijuana again and use the hemp plant to solve our problems rather than fluff the truth.  The environment exists without money.  We cannot exist without our environment working.  Many folks are getting sick from environmental pollution and now is the time to do something to re-institute wisdom into government policy...at least demand that government officials cease pretending not to know that now is the time for constructive change.

President Obama is a thinking man so I don't believe he really thinks that our food, water and air are safe.  It was just a speech, a convenient justification to take our attention off of the environmental crisis situations going on all around us.  If he does, it's time for him to change his mind about the reality of our environmental crisis.  

• What kind of mental matrix does one have to be in to believe that?  
• How many folks do you know dealing with environmentally induced cancers (squamous cell cancers are chemically initiated), kidney problems and other forms of fuckery like asbestos?
• Why is our environment having to take a back seat to money when ending hemp prohibition & stopping the war on drugs by Executive Order could kickstart the economy and help heal the environment and many in the population?  
• Why must we pretend not to know that there is a simple hemp solution to many of the crisis we are facing?  

Inquiring minds want to know.   

I recently moved to Hesperia, located in California's High Desert.  Not staying.  This is one of those beautiful areas with a plethera of environmental horrors resulting from military, industrial and energy abuses.  There seems to be more medical facilities in this area than any other type of store front.  This simple glance is a clue that the air, food and water may not be as safe as we were told.

In November, 2010 the government shut down neighboring Barstow's water supply because of pollution.  They said the situation was handled. 

  

No way the water pollution problem is just in Barstow, CA!

 Map Source:  U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY  http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-122-01/

Mohave River Ground-Water Basin
Decades of industrial & military pollution over the aquifer

 

• The drinking water in Barstow, CA was declared unsafe due to the pollution from an errant rocket, the government reported.  
• Historically, this area has been polluted for decades from industry and military bases.
• The same aquifer that is under Barstow runs under Hesperia, Victorville and Hinkley. 
• The government wants us to believe that only the water under Barstow is affected.  

“2.5 drops (to) pollute 1 gallon of water to the 10 ppm level”

• In Hesperia, CA a mother & son are both dealing with tumors. Their neighbor, seizures. 

• Large scale hemp planting should be encouraged in a HEMP FOR VICTORY program because hemp’s 6’ + root system cleans and aerates soil as done in Chernobyl.
• Medical marijuana should be available for people to deal with health issues too.

The Press Enterprise reported

Barstow water emergency continues

10:00 PM PST on Monday, November 22, 2010

By DAVID DANELSKI and LAURIE LUCAS

"The San Bernardino County Public Health Department issued an advisory Monday to let people know that perchlorate does not cause sudden illness and that it is unlikely the contamination in Barstow affected anyone's health.”

"..unlikely the contamination affected anyone's health," yet a state of emergency exists in California’s high desert.  Like the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, government officials are telling people that the water is safe.  I can't pretend not to know that there is a problem here in the California High Desert.  In the area it seems that medical facilities outnumber all other businesses in the area.  

This health crisis may be due to the area’s levels of pollution i.e. chromium 6 ("In a Sept 2010 draft human health assessment for chromium-6, EPA is proposing to classify chromium-6 as likely to be carcinogenic to humans via ingestion. The Agency expects to complete the health risk assessment and make a final determination about the carcinogenicity of chromium-6 in 2011") and perchlorate ("..perchlorate or perchlorate anion refer to a negatively charged group of atoms consisting of a central chlorine atom bonded to four oxygen atoms.  Perchlorate has the molecular formula ClO4 ").  

At least one of the sources of the pollution in the Mojave River Ground-Water Basin are the military bases and other pollution sources.  It only takes “2.5 drops (to) pollute 1 gallon of water to the 10 ppm level” according to the site answers.com.

To help solve the ground water situation demands a two part hemp solution strategy based on the successful use of the plant in Chernobyl and other international environmental problems. 

1. To clean and aerate the soil, wholesale hemp planting should be happening over the polluted aquifer that runs under the greater Barstow area (and other toxic sites).  For more on hemp and the environment read from the HEMP FOR VICTORY series,  HEMP FOR VICTORY: A GLOBAL WARMING SOLUTION by Richard M. Davis, founder and curator of the USA Hemp Museum.
2. Low to no cost locally grown hemp medicine should be made available to residents to help them deal with the documented illnesses that come from the toxic exposures.  A guide for how to use medical marijuana is found in the museum book HEMP FOR VICTORY: THE WONDER HERB
3. A hemp tax based on other comparable products (what Ed Rosenthal calls ‘the tomato model’) can be added to raise funds to deal with the health crisis people are dealing with. 
   As part of a national Hemp For Victory strategy, a self financing state bank of agriculture should be established and empowered to repair the damaged economies.  This type of structure is explained in the book HEMP FOR VICTORY: THE TRILLION DOLLAR CROP.

I have done environmental research over the decades on the Harlem sewer related health problems, World Trade Center Illness, Gulf oilspill, etc. and edited the three above linked books, my antenna remains in high gear.  

Here’s the rationale for those evolutionary proposals. 

I saw the news flash last year about a city in the greater Los Angeles area whose water supply was poisoned by a military base.  Read like the problem was in one city, Barstow.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  Let's just say, as the water flows.


Turns out there are at least three local military bases, Fort Irwin, MCLB Barstow and Edwards Air Force Base that have or had been operating over the aquifer.  The report was that the City of Barstow was experiencing a water emergency, like that was news.  The problem is Barstow is on top of a large aquifer so the toxins are under many more cities than Barstow like Victorville, Hesperia, etc.

Initially thinking the problem was in "Barstow", we arrived in Hesperia Dec. 2010, thinking it was not Barstow, and found it strange that 2 of the 4 folks in the house we moved into were dealing with tumors, former Day Care Center owner Debbie Knight and her 27 year old son Ty.  Both are long time family friends and residents of the area.  Debbie, who is insured has a head and throat cancer.  Some of her cells are squamous.  Ty has a peach pit size tumor at the base of his brain.  Both are engaged in heroic health struggles and are using strong hemp tea to help with the many side effects that come from dealing with these life threatening health conditions.  The coincidence of different genders and generations at the same time having the same type of health problems, head tumors, is too glaring to ignore. 

Could their environment have something to do with their cancers? What about the aquifer? How big is it?  Is there a connection between toxins in the environment and cancers? Strike that last question because there is more than enough evidence answering that.  

I met their neighbor to the north, Jan, who suffers from having seizures.  They all spoke of a woman in the neighborhood with a flesh eating type of illness but it’s not a flesh eating illness.  Things that make me go hmmmmm.

Initial research revealed that there are six EPA superfund sites in the greater Barstow area. 

“Superfund sites in Barstow, four in Apple Valley, Oro Grande has one, Victorville has two. Only Adelanto and Hesperia aren’t currently listed. That’s because they have never had military bases or cement plants operating within their boundaries.”

Hesperia is on the same aquifer but not on the CA Superfund list.  


All folks living on the aquifer should be concerned. Chemicals travel through water.  2.5 drops can pollute a gallon gallon so how many drops of chemicals, lead and Lord knows what else has been dumped in this area.    

The Los Angeles Times reported on November 21^st

“The high levels of perchlorate were revealed Thursday in test results from the nearby U.S. Marines Corps Logistics Base Nebo, from samples taken in August. Only one well of 20 feeding the Golden State Water Co. system showed high levels of the chemical, which can interfere with iodine uptake in the thyroid gland, which regulates hormones and growth. Levels were more than 15 times the acceptable benchmark for drinking water, according to water company officials.

How long the perchlorate may have been at unacceptable levels is unknown -- Golden State last tested its wells for perchlorate in December 2009 and was slated to repeat the test in December 2012, an interval that local officials said complied with state regulations.”

“How long…is unknown”? The EPA. reported in 1989 on the area…  

“Groundwater contains volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as trichloroethylene (TCE) and perchloroethylene (PCE). Soil is contaminated with VOCs, pesticides, polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), heavy metals, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). People who accidentally ingest or come in direct contact with contaminated groundwater or soil may suffer adverse health effects.”

The current story goes according to Sen. Barbara Boxer "My immediate priorities are to ensure that every family in the Barstow area has safe, clean drinking water again as soon as possible, and that the source of this dangerous perchlorate contamination is identified and addressed quickly."

There is an old “The Honeymooners” gag where Ed Norton is told to address the golf ball and he responds “Hello ball.”  The government’s responsibility and response have been equally comical were it not for the high illness rates in the area. 

We’re suppose to believe that the military spilled rocket fuel into the aquifer under Barstow, causing toxic chemicals to be thrown into a water system that covers a large area, and the toxins did not spread throughout the underground aquifer.  They stayed under Barstow.  Further, as our officials assure us, they have our best interests at heart.  WTF!!!  It is the government’s military, energy, environmental, educational and/or food policies at cause for the health crisis in the area. The bases have been polluting for decades and rain carries the toxins into the aquifer, land and air.  People are sick and dying while the government is lying.

The crisis has been declared over, but we’re talking toxic chemicals dumped into a large aquifer.  Even the lower portion of the aquifer in Hinkley is reporting elevated toxin levels.  Thank God that Erin Brockovich is funding the testing of the water in Hinkley, CA, another town over the poisoned aquifer.  Brockovich held a community meeting in Hinkley on January 12, 2011 to inform residents that ‘Hinkley, we have a problem.’ 

The best way to solve problems is at the level of cause.  Correct the cause and the effect dissipates. 

The initial cause is government policy that is resulting in massive pollution problems in all areas of our lives.  We’ve made toxic petro the fuel of choice and made raising hemp for energy illegal.  Stress is a trigger for disease and the medical marijuana that reduces stress is illegal to grow.  There is a lot of toxic material from guns fired to a fallen rocket that has bled into the aquifer that could be cleaned up with the hemp crop’s 6’ root system, but we can’t use it.  Talk about pretending not to know.

Legal levels of toxic chemicals as policy must be stopped.  That’s going to take awhile unless done by Executive Order to stop polluting the environment.  Change the policies and we can upgrade our realities.  A national HEMP FOR VICTORY program, to coordinate a hemp phyto-remediation program is needed here and in other areas of the world.  Even the CDC recommends remediation as a solution.

“B. Recommendations  ATSDR has one recommendation:

·             No present public health hazards are associated with the use of the firing range. However, in the future, if the range is used for other purposes or turned over to other public or private entities for use other than a firing range, MCLB should remediate the soils because of lead contamination.”

The residents of the area need help.  Many are dealing with environmentally or socially induced diseases that impact both the quality and length of their lives.  Air, water and land pollution beg the question ‘should the government pay for conditions that are the result of their policies?  Residents who chose to run for their lives will have a difficult time selling toxic land to home buyers.  Fair market value checks plus health care should be provided if we decide to do the right thing.  Of course, run the trillion dollar hemp crop right, and the rest of this paper could be about how to spend the excess money. 

This is research in progress so any additional information, research structure, writing style guidance, whatever that can move this work forward, which may include determining there is no problem at all, you have please post below.

Hemp is nature’s solution to environmental pollution.