Leashing Hydra f all public health concerns, the safety of drinking water is paramount. Infiltration of potable waters by toxic compounds or biota can render a host of woeful harms with onset from rapid to chronic and potentially lethal results. The ubiquity of water, its vitality to our well-being, and its solvent properties means that often retiring one problem has it spring up elsewhere, often mutated just enough to require new approaches. Added to that are emergent threats from new compounds and altered ecosystem feedback that can initiate pathogenic die-offs and blooms. So pernicious is this hydra that policymakers are considering paradigmatic shifts in regulation, proving a Herculean labor in many legislative jurisdictions. This issue of Environmental Science & Technology, like many others, contains features, articles, and commentary of the identification, quantification, comprehension, and mitigation/innovation concerning waterborne toxicology and epidemiology. Poisoning a water supply is a crudely effective means of gaining a tactical advantage in warfare. Formally, chemical (and biological) weapon bans would have this nefarious practice no longer used. However the threat of illicit use still spawns efforts to protect water supplies, both in detection and antidotal preparedness. Also past use of chemical weapons still haunts us, as reviewed by Sanderson et al in this issue’s cover Feature (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es903472a). Chemical munitions from WWII lie in watery graves such as the Bornholm Deep in the Baltic Sea. Arsenoids and sulfurous agents like mustard gas of unknown quantity could be a diffusive timebomb for both the ecosystem and the surrounding human populace. It is imperative to scale and confront the risk to best finally put past practices to rest. Anthropogenic pollution is moved about by nature’s processes, but there is also the potential for cleansing. Zahran et al (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es100572s) found that blood-lead (Pb) levels in children of New Orleans decreased after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. As elaborated on in the news article by Schmidt (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es1014339), the storms seem to have buried Pb-rich sediment via flooding, thus allowing the toxicant to exit drinking supplies (for nowshydra come back when your guard is down).
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10.1021/es101637q
2010 American Chemical Society
Published on Web 06/11/2010
Risk quantification is not a straightforward prospect of measurement in all cases. The second cover Feature by Meharg and Raab (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es9034304) remarks that arsenic (As) speciation can make a simple detection of presence misleading as indicative of harm. Thus a complete understanding of local biogeochemistry and the ability to qualify and quantify speciation and concentration is required. To better form (inter)national standards for limit of detection (LOD)-based regulation, research into the intricacy of aquatic chemistry is necessary: Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/ es100066s is an example for As; for more discussions of biogeochemistry and metal toxicants, see the January 1, 2010 and November 15, 2009 Managing Editor Comments Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/ es9036176 and Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/ es9030326. (Biogeo)chemical, toxicological, and epidemiological studies can then direct measures to improve health and innovate for prevention. Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es1000566 studied what pointof-use (POU) technologies work best for potable water in Kenya. Again for As, (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es1005237) investigated how a fern known to take up the pernicious metalloid conducts its biochemical responsesperhaps to be exploited for phytoremediative efforts. ES&T continues to welcome articles on waterborne toxicology/epidemiology. We also play host to ongoing debate as to best approaches. Our new Viewpoint op-ed style permits such commentary, as exemplified in this issue: Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/ es100437g on the EPA’s freeware SPARC “calculator“ and Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/es1001659 on toxico/pharmacokinetics of mixture models. Your contributions help to at least tether the hydra and its associated miasma, and we are all hopeful that a heroic end is not far behind.
Darcy J. Gentleman Managing Editor
[email protected].
June 15, 2010 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 9 4387
