#toxics :: Stop Dumping Heavy Metals into our Drinking Water The corporate food industry is a major culprit in causing water pollution in the United States, and this is becoming an ever-growing problem. According to the Environment America Research and Policy Center, four of the top ten worst polluters in the U.S. are food-manufacturing companies which routinely dump heavy metals and toxic nitrates into rivers and groundwater. Hundreds of millions of tons of toxic chemicals are discharged into the Great Lakes, Chesapeake Bay, Puget Sound and other precious watersheds across the country annually. Food companies alone dump ten percent of this waste. Chicken giant Tyson Foods is among the worst, releasing more than 18 million pounds of toxic waste into the nation’s waterways every year. Other major industry players include Cargill, Perdue Farms and Pilgrims Pride. These companies release dangerous heavy metals such as mercury and arsenic, as well as nitrates from meat processing, which can cause health problems in children and contribute to ‘dead zones’ in our waters. In the past, the Clean Water Act and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) protected against the unmitigated release of harmful waste into freshwater in the interest of public safety, but this has not been happening recently. The EPA needs to address this continuous and dangerous problem by restoring the Clean Water Act protections to all of America’s waterways and improving enforcement of the Clean Water Act. The current Clean Water Act does not sufficiently protect millions of miles of streams and wetlands across the country against serving as toxic dumping grounds for corporations due to marginal enforcement, loopholes and lax limits on pollutants. Urge the EPA to expand Clean Water Act protections against polluting industries. forcechange/128804/protect-water-resources-against-polluting-food-industry/ #eco #water #pollution #health #environment
Posted on: Tue, 08 Jul 2014 23:19:53 +0000
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