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Radium In The Water
Mark
Y. Avelli
10/12/2003
The power and influence of the local print press to pollute even educated minds has degenerated to levels dangerous enough to justify a grand jury investigation. The superintendent of schools, though perhaps well intentioned, deemed it prudent to spend tight budget money to analyze the drinking water at the Cordova Park elementary school.
The school official elected to distrust ECUA and Escambia County Health Department science to place more credence on water quality pronouncements of a blundering press engaged in environmental obscurantism to increase newspaper sales. The superintendents poor
judgment was compounded by providing budget depleting bottled water to the students as an option.
A few years ago the The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) published the results of a four year study on 1000 samples of 103 different brands of bottled water. They found that an estimated 25 % of bottled water is just plain tap water in bottles. Eighteen of the 103 brands had more bacteria than permitted under microbiological purity guidelines. About 20 % of the bottled water contained low levels of organic chemicals.
Taste of bottled water has been rigorously promoted. In a blind test by ABC on its Good Morning Program, New York city tap water was preferred over bottled water by an overwhelming majority. Similar results were found in California and England.
It is this constant journalistic proselytizing, usually accepted uncritically by most readers, shapes the individual minds of a blundering bureaucracy asleep at the technical end. This is sufficient concern for grand jury attention.
Mary Y. Avelli
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