Use Hemp phytoremediation to clean soil & water pollution: Barstow, CA

No way the water pollution problem is just in Barstow

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

Mohave River Ground-Water Basin
Decades of industrial and 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”

EMERGENCY ACTION PLAN

• 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.
• Hemp is a biomass champion at pulling excess CO2 from the air.
• Hemp's 50,000 products can create revenue to help with health & other issues.
• Medical marijuana should be available for people to deal with health issues too.

THE RESEARCH

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 hemp books, so as an old hippie from the 60's, my antenna remains in high gear.  When 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, I knew I had to check it out.  

When I arrived, my eyes opened wide. 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.  Barstow is on top of a large aquifer so the toxins are under many more cities than Barstow like Victorville, Hesperia, etc.

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.

Initially thinking the problem was in "Barstow", my family and I arrived in Hesperia Dec. 2010, 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."

THE HEMP SOLUTION

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.

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.  Instead of hitting the ball into the hole, they are focused on saying hello to the ball, the problem, rather than simply solving it.

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 about this issue, something that has to change to truth if we are to survive.  Survival is job one.

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, CA 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 San Bernadino paper The Sun reported on the results:

"Part of Hinkley's plume shows contraction; two other parts show expansion

Desert community's plight brought to light by Erin Brokovich study

By Jim Steinberg Staff Writer

Posted: 01/27/2011 09:12:34 PM PST

HINKLEY - A plume of toxic hexavalent chromium has receded on the town's western edge, according to recent samples.

But it's creeping out on its northeastern and southeastern edges, Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board officials told about 200 Hinkley residents during a public forum at Hinkley Elementary School Wednesday night.
The expansion is a violation of the water board's 2008 directive to contain the plume, board officials said.

That has been unsettling to many in Hinkley." 

"Unsettling" - that's a nice way to put it. I suspect what is described as expansion and contraction is the toxic material being both spread out and added to.  

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, military/industrial/economic,  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 ("An acre of hemp makes 20 barrels of oil" says the theme song of Time4Hemp).  

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.”

There is a product, the Akuna Brass Catcher, that catches pistol brass as shot and can be adapted to any gun.  All firing range activities that result in pollution should be modified to catch the brass before it hits the ground. We need to support independent inventors with solutions to our problems.


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.