The show that had it’s mission statement lost due to not saving as we worked, but it can’t be that hard to remember. It’s in the name… I’m pretty sure. Any how we are Taylor and Chelsie your heads of the occult sect of this glancing look into the depths of man and today that depth is our waterways cause water has depth (or something, I don’t know this one kinda got away from me.) Either way, I DID save this script so why don’t you follow along, grab a drink to maintain hydration, and see some fringe ways we be fucking with our wet friend water, agua, shui, or I’m pretty sure what the french did was just mash a keyboard instead of coming up with a word for water.

Hello and welcome to Journey to the fringe, due to the fallibility of memory there is a not zero percent chance that this is the only audio that has ever existed, or that could ever exist. In which you are welcome to listen to our back catalogue.


The Clean Water Act
"The Clean Water Act requires states to submit periodic reports on the condition of their rivers, streams, lakes, and estuaries to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency," the report explains.
"Based on the latest of those reports, about half of the river and stream miles and lake acres that have been studied across the U.S. are so polluted they are classified as 'impaired.' That means they are too polluted to meet standards for swimming and recreation, aquatic life, fish consumption, or as drinking water sources."
It continues:
"Today, almost four decades after the Clean Water Act’s deadline for 'fishable and swimmable' waters across the U.S., 51 percent of assessed river and stream miles across the U.S. — more than 700,000 miles of waterways — remain impaired with pollution, as well as 55 percent of lake acres and 26 percent of estuary miles."
 
Salt in our water supply
People have long known that salting roads helps keep them free of ice, but what hasn’t been well understood is how the millions of tons of salt spread on U.S roads every year impact the environment. However, recent research indicates that salt is accumulating in the environment and poses an emerging threat both to ecosystems and human health.
In a study released early this year, researchers found that 37 percent of the drainage area of the contiguous United States has experienced an increase in salinity over the past 50 years, citing road salt as the dominant source in colder, humid regions of the northeastern United States. Groundwater sources can also be compromised: a multi-year study found that more than half the private drinking water wells sampled in East Fishkill, New York exceeded EPA health standards for sodium. The distance to the nearest road and amount of nearby pavement strongly influenced well water salinity.
“Salt is something of a ticking time bomb for freshwater,” says Riverkeeper President and Earth Institute adjunct professor Paul Gallay. “Studies suggest that the increasing concentrations we see in many places may be the result of road salt spread decades ago, which reached groundwater, and is only now slowly reaching surface waters.”
And once it’s been introduced into an ecosystem, salt can become a persistent problem. “Once salt gets into the soil, or into a waterway, there really are no biological processes that will remove it,” says aquatic ecologist Andrew Juhl. “Salt can leave the system through transport and it can be diluted by fresher water coming in so that the levels become less concerning. However, without transport out of the system, like in an isolated lake or aquifer, the salt will continue to persist over very long time scales.”
Just as concerning as sodium is the increasing amount of chloride found in U.S. waterways. A 2014 study by the US Geological Survey found that 84 percent of the urban streams studied had rising chloride levels, and 29 percent exceeded federal safety guidelines for at least part of the year. USGS pinpointed road salt as the source.
Chloride is toxic to aquatic life, and even low concentrations can produce harmful effects in freshwater ecosystems. High chloride levels in water can inhibit aquatic species’ growth and reproduction, impact food sources, and disrupt osmoregulation in amphibians. Some 40 percent of urban streams in the U.S. already have chloride levels that exceed the safe guidelines for aquatic life.
Runoff containing road salt can also cause oxygen depletion in bodies of water. “If runoff containing salt goes into a freshwater lake or stream, it will tend to sink towards the bottom, creating a dense layer that can inhibit gas exchange with the overlying water,” says Juhl. “This can lead to the development of low oxygen conditions that are detrimental to fish and other aquatic organisms.” In recent years Mirror Lake in NY’s Adirondack Park has struggled with dissolved oxygen issues due to high salt content.
Salt is also corrosive, as many car owners can attest. But salt eats away at more than just auto bodies – it corrodes roads, bridges and other infrastructure. It’s been estimated that damage from salt corrosion alone may cost the U.S. as much as $5 billion a year. In 2015, Flint, Michigan’s municipal water supply was found to be contaminated with high levels of lead, a neurotoxin. Researchers linked this contamination to high chloride levels in Flint’s water, which had corroded lead pipes throughout the city’s plumbing system. A primary suspect behind the elevated chloride levels in Flint’s water? Road salt
In some states, no salt is off the table when it comes to road maintenance. Some 13 states in the U.S. allow salty wastewater from oil and gas production wells to be spread on roadways. However, studies have found that these wastewater brines can contain toxic elements including radium, a carcinogen, and that these contaminants could accumulate in soil and groundwater or even become airborne.
There’s no silver bullet when it comes to keeping roads safe for winter travel while protecting the environment. But as the damaging effects of road salt on the environment become clear, new strategies, initiatives and innovations will be required to protect America’s water resources.
“The salt we continue to spread will have impacts far into the future,” says Gallay. “Scientists who study this issue closely are expressing shock and concern at the changes we’ve made to freshwater ecosystems. We should not only take notice, but take action when scientists speak so clearly.”4
Brake pads
 
Metallic brake pads are commonplace throughout the world. most brake pads fitted to our vehicles contain copper and other heavy metals like mercury, lead, cadmium and chromium.
Copper is used in our brake pads because it makes for a smooth braking experience and also has properties that help prevent brakes from squeaking and shuddering when used.
The effects of copper in our waterways
What many people don’t know is that copper leached from brake pads can have lethal impacts on urban water quality and aquatic life. When we use the brakes on our car, fine particles of copper and other metals in the pads flake off and are deposited on our roadways. When it rains, these particles are washed into gutters and through the stormwater system where they flow into our rivers and lakes.
This is the most common source of metal pollutants in our waterways. Other metals in our waterways include zinc from vehicle tyre wear and runoff from galvanised iron roofs.
Because metals do not break down, all metals released in stormwater discharges will end up somewhere in the environment and will be there forever.
Copper and zinc are essential trace elements for animals (including humans), plants and micro-organisms. However, at higher concentrations, both copper and zinc have toxic effects that can be lethal (resulting in death) or sub-lethal (slowing growth, reducing reproductive success or leading to abnormal development).
In 2010, both the states of Washington and California passed legislation requiring brake pads sold or installed to have reduced levels of copper and other heavy metals. Elsewhere, there is little awareness of the issue. Many motorists do not know the damage that is being caused by the brake pads they use, or that they have a choice when selecting brake pads for installation in their vehicle.
What you can do to help
Low copper and copper-free friction materials used in brake pads can now outperform other friction materials and they do not compromise vehicle safety or performance. The cost of installing copper-free or reduced copper brake pads is only about $10-15 more expensive than traditional pads and they are easily available.
So, next time you are changing the brake pads on your vehicle ask for a quote for a copper-free option. It could make a world of difference.
Rubber in the water supply
2-anilino-5-([4-methylpentan-2-yl]amino)cyclohexa-2,5-diene-1,4-dione, or 6PPD-quinone for short.
You can’t buy it anywhere. No one manufactures it. And it’s not put into car tires, plastic or any other products that might wind up polluting creeks.
The mysterious substance — purplish-pink when concentrated but invisible when dissolved — was absent from chemical databases that researchers consulted to try to identify the poison lurking in creeks near busy roadways.
a tire-rubber stabilizer called 6PPD degrades into the highly toxic coho killer as tires wear.
“You put this chemical, this transformation product, into a fish tank, and coho die, really fast,
Nearly all tires worldwide contain 6PPD and shed the toxic 6PPD-quinone.
“It’s used to prevent degradation and cracking of the rubber compounds, which is critical for tire safety,” said attorney Sarah Amick with the U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association.
The preservative protects tire rubber from the damaging effects of ozone in the air by reacting first with the ozone. But in doing so, it turns into a coho killer.
Runoff from pavement carries a stew of thousands of different, mostly unidentified, chemicals into nearby waters: from motor oil, antifreeze, brake linings, tire dust and more.
That runoff is the main source of toxic pollution in Puget Sound, where fish in urban bays often have tumors and lesions.
Ocean-roaming coho salmon find their way home to freshwater to spawn each fall as autumn rains cause coastal creeks to rise.
But up to 90% of the returning fish die, gasping for breath and swimming aimlessly in the creeks before they are able to spawn.
Nabbing the coho killer is the fruit of decades of work by dozens of researchers.
The new paper in the journal Science lists 27 chemists, biologists and engineers as coauthors.
Coho salmon were first observed behaving strangely and dying in creeks in Bellingham and Seattle in the 1980s.
By 2018, scientists at the University of Washington and Washington State University had zeroed in on car tires as the apparent source of the problem, but even the tread on a single car tire can be a hodgepodge of hundreds of different substances.
He said the toxic effects of chemicals vary widely from species to species. And the effect is unknown on many, including humans
Tire crumbs are widely used for artificial-turf playing fields.
Wear and tear on car tires on U.S. roads sends 1.5 million tons a year of microplastics into the environment, Dutch researchers estimated in 2017.
That works out to 10 pounds for every person in the United States, more than twice as much as any of the 12 other countries the researchers studied.
Pharmaceuticals and water supply
In a 2004 to 2009 U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) study, scientists found that pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities can be a significant source of pharmaceuticals to the environment. Effluents from two wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) that receive discharge from pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities (PMFs) had 10 to 1,000 times higher concentrations of pharmaceuticals than effluents from 24 WWTPs across the nation that do not receive PMF discharge. The release waters from these two WWTPs were discharged to streams where the measured pharmaceuticals were traced downstream, and as far as 30 kilometers from one plant's outfall.
The source of pharmaceuticals in water is not just from manufacturing plants. You probably know that antibiotics and drugs are used in the livestock industry, and for streams receiving runoff from animal-feeding operations, pharmaceuticals such as acetaminophen, caffeine, cotinine, diphenhydramine, and carbamazepine, have been found in USGS studies. Another source of pharmaceuticals in stream water is you and me.When people flush their old prescription (or off-prescription) drugs, the compounds invariably make their way into the waters nearby. The same is true even when people using these chemicals urinate them into the sewage system. Once there, these compounds—from prozac to cocaine—can end up in the bodies of aquatic creatures. And, research suggests, the chemicals can impact them: birth control, for instance, affects frog breeding after it enters the water.It might sound surprising that these drugs could be detected in streams miles downstream from wastewater-treatment plants, but many plants do not routinely remove pharmaceuticals from water
 USGS Research Ecologist Dr. Paul Bradley: at this point the primary concern, has got to be for aquatic wildlife like fish. Because many of these compounds are obviously produced for function in human beings, the presence of these compounds in rivers, in streams or even worse in drinking water supplies is obviously a matter of deep concern for a lot of people. But it's important to remember people don't actually live in rivers or streams and the concentrations for example, of pharmaceuticals that are being observed in drinking water supplies, are in fact much, much, much lower than their therapeutic dose. That is, the concentration that they were intended to work in human beings. On the other hand, fish and other aquatic wildlife do live in rivers and they're much more vulnerable to certain types of emerging contaminants. For example, endocrine disrupting compounds, can alter the hormone system of fish, resulting in changes in secondary sexual characteristics and potentially resulting in reproductive failure. There has been a recent study reported done for example that is getting a lot of attention which reports that some popular sport fish like largemouth and smallmouth bass, are exhibiting female characteristics even in the male fish, and this phenomenon appears to be widespread in rivers and stream across the U.S.. and this study included two rivers in South Carolina, the Pee Dee River and the Savannah river and this kind of sexual alteration was observed in both of these rivers.

 Collapse of a fish population after exposure to a synthetic estrogen, K. A. Kidd et al

The role of the natural environment in the emergence of antibiotic resistance in gram-negative bacteria, E. M. Wellington et al.

Dilute concentrations of a psychiatric drug alter behavior of fish from natural populations, T. Brodin, J. Fick, M. Jonsson, J. Klaminder,

, Methamphetamine pollution elicits addiction in wild fish.P. Horký et al.

Do they turn the frogs gay?

Atrazine, one of the world's most widely used pesticides, wreaks havoc with the sex lives of adult male frogs, emasculating three-quarters of them and turning one in 10 into females, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, biologists.
 
Fireworks
Despite the fact that the visual displays can be quite spectacular, there are growing concerns about the potential
for fireworks to pollute lakes and groundwater. Fireworks are comprised of a long list of chemicals used to
create colors, noise, and propulsion into the sky. Often these displays occur near or over water to enhance their
viewing pleasure. Once launched, the chemicals can potentially be deposited directly into a waterbody or
washed in from the shore after a rainstorm. In addition, the debris left behind after fireworks explosions can be
coated with these same harmful chemicals.
Potential for pollution
Any debris deposited into NH waterways could be considered a water quality violation under Env–Wq 1703.03.
While the amount of debris left after the ignition of fireworks displays may seem minor, multiple home displays around a lake (especially at the ends of docks) or repeated commercial displays can cumulatively contribute a significant amount of debris to a waterbody. That debris is not only unsightly; it serves as a potential source chemical contaminants to the waterbody.
Heavy metals, such as copper and other elements are used in fireworks to create many of the colors we observe. These chemicals, in concentrations above certain levels called water quality standards, can be harmful to humans and aquatic life. Another chemical compound, perchlorate (ClO4-), is used to assist in the skyward propulsion of fireworks. At this time, perchlorate is an unregulated compound in New Hampshire but studies have raised concerns regarding its ability to disrupt the body’s synthesis of thyroid hormones. Fish development
can also be affected by high concentrations of perchlorate. Massachusetts has set a standard for perchlorate concentration in drinking water of two µg/L. Fireworks can also contain nutrients (phosphorus and nitrogen compounds) that contribute to algal and plant growth in lakes.
Research on the environmental impact of fireworks
Four relatively recent studies provide insight on some of the effects that fireworks can have on water and air quality. In 2009, a study from Lake George, NY indicated that perchlorate had no effect on water quality with concentrations in water samples below two µg/L before and after a municipal firework displays1. A study of groundwater conducted in Dartmouth, MA from 2004 – 2006 indicated that perchlorate concentrations were elevated in groundwater test wells (maximum 62 µg/L) and soils (maximum 560 µg/kg) near fireworks launch areas 2. A study of a small Oklahoma lake from 2004 – 2006 reported that after commercial fireworks displays, perchlorate concentrations in water samples averaged 44 µg/L but dissipated to below 1 µg/L after 20 days3 . In addition, a study of air quality in Pearl City, Hawaii from 2004 – 2011 documented high levels of metals in air samples during commercial fireworks displays. In some cases, certain metals exceeded EPA air quality benchmarks (lead, chromium, manganese, and cadmium)4 . However, metal concentrations in the air dissipated within 24 hours of the fireworks display. The American Fireworks Standards Laboratory (AFSL) has published lists of approved and banned chemicals for use in commercial and home consumer fireworks. However, it is important to note many of the fireworks sold in the United States are imported from other countries, primarily China, and may not conform to these requirements, nor are those imported fireworks regularly tested. 
Source: Fireworks and New Hampshire Waterbodies 
 
Cemeteries and water supply

a whole lot more than a corpse gets buried: there’s also the coffin, which may have been treated with varnishes, sealers and preservatives [2]; embalming fluids, which previously contained arsenic and mercury and more recently formaldehyde (a known carcinogen); a variety of metals, including mercury from amalgam dental fillings and non-ferrous metals such as silver, platinum, palladium and cobalt from jewellery and orthopaedic implants [3]; fertilisers from the large amounts of landscaping undertaken at cemeteries [4]; chemical substances applied in chemotherapy; and pathogenic bacteria (such as E. coli) and viruses [5].
Cemeteries can then be considered landfills of sorts, as there is a higher than normal concentration of potentially contaminative materials located in one place. In general, the shorter the time over which burials occur and the higher the number of burials, the greater the risk of groundwater pollution [6]. The ground itself also plays a significant role – the geological and hydrogeological characteristics of the soil, including soil type, permeability and porosity, as well as the depth of the water table, all determine the ease and rate of release of contaminants to groundwater [7].
Groundwater is the most obvious receptor to potential contamination from cemeteries, since it is closest to the source. And as groundwater contributes a significant source of water supply, it’s a resource to be protected.
But the link between burial sites and groundwater isn’t exactly a new issue – historical accounts from the mid-1800s after cholera and influenza epidemics killed tens of thousands of people reported that the water within wells, which at the time were often sunk next to graveyard walls, “had become so offensive to both smell and taste that it could not be used” [10]. More than half of all the cemeteries in the UK were constructed between 1851 and 1914 [11] before the above legislation was in place 
There are few modern studies on the topic so it’s hard to assess the real-world impact of cemeteries on groundwater. One such study was undertaken at a cemetery in the West Midlands, located on the second-most important drinking water aquifer in England, with graves dug to two metres below ground level and the groundwater levels generally five metres below the surface. The results of the study showed that groundwater down hydraulic gradient from the cemetery had slightly elevated concentrations of chloride and sulphate, as well as “highly contaminated” levels of pathogenic bacteria [12].
Another problem is that cemetery plots are becoming increasingly crowded. Despite cremation having been the more popular option for the better half of a century, there are still a significant number of people choosing to be buried: in 2018, over 200,000 burials occurred in the UK [13].

 


The water we treat is worse than going in:
A new study has underscored the complexity of treating (PFAS), one of the country’s most prolific and widespread water contaminants, while highlighting the futility in attempting to address the problem at wastewater treatment facilities.
“PFAS compounds … are found in greater quantities in the treated water leaving Michigan wastewater treatment plants — the water returning to streams, rivers and lakes — than in the not-yet-treated water entering the plant, a new Western Michigan University study found,” according to the Detroit Free Press. “Detailed study of 10 wastewater treatment plants in Michigan with industrial pretreatment programs — efforts to remove PFAS compounds from their industrial sources before the water reaches the plant — found PFAS concentrations as much as 19 times higher in the plant’s effluent, or outflow, than its influent.”
“Michigan currently has some of the strictest drinking water and groundwater standards in the nation,” per Michigan Radio. “The state’s clean-up criteria are 8 parts per trillion for PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) and 16 parts per trillion for PFOS (perflurooctane sulfonic acid).”
For Michigan’s wastewater treatment plants, as with similar facilities around the country, the problem seems to lie in the complexity of the PFAS compounds themselves and the challenges ahead in learning how to combat them at the drinking water or wastewater treatment levels.
“It appears that PFAS chemicals that scientists cannot readily detect in the wastewater entering plants are being transformed into detectable PFAS compounds during the treatment process,” the Free Press reported. “PFOS also tends to adhere to sewer sludge, which wastewater treatment plants often convert to biosolids fertilizers and market for use on farm fields.”
As wastewater systems across the country continue to face PFAS in influent, and likely also face stricter regulations around their presence in the near future, they will be hoping for innovation in the tools used to detect and eliminate them as well.