On Wed, 2005-01-26 at 07:18 -0700, Jeff Garland wrote:
> > But with good reason!  There seems to be a very high amount of scare 
> > mongering about this issue.  I can't say I'm surprised since the 
> > mass media has *never* been good about accessing any kind of 
> > relative risks... but still.
> 
> Totally agree -- in fact, the scarier it is, the better for the news.  In
> fact, I'm pretty certain that the news only presents the most 'extreme' risks,
> because they are the ones that get ratings. I read that more people died from
> 'bad-water' supplies in Asia last year then in the Tsunami, but that doesn't
> make the news because it happens a few at a time.  This isn't a risk, but it
> goes to the point of the distorted picture you can get from the media:  Did
> you know that in the presidential election the final vote count was closer in
> Pennsylvania than Ohio?  But, of course, it is Ohio that is always discussed
> as the swing state that was "so close"....
> 
> > Here's the issue in a nut-shell:
> > 
> > Due, probably, to the recent storms, the water in Phoenix had a 
> > higher percentage of sediment (dirt) than it should have.  Federal 
> > limit is roughly 1 part per billion, the water Tuesday afternoon was 
> > over 2 ppb.   Sediment can contain potentially dangerous microbes 
> > and if THAT was the case, then it might have been bad.  But it 
> > wasn't the case.  This was 'clean' dirt, if you will. 
> 
> Actually, I understood that the problem is that turbid water (full of
> sediment) cuts the effectiveness of chlorine used to kill bacteria in the
> water.  But in any case, you might find these pages interesting reading:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbidity
> http://ga2.er.usgs.gov/bacteria/helpturbidity.cfm
> 
> I really, really, really, really wish when something like this happens a
> chemist that actually understands all the measurements would be put on TV to
> explain exactly what they are measuring for and exactly what it means. 
> Instead we have the news people filming the grocery store and saying clever
> stuff like "many more people bought bottled water today than usual"....
---
thanks for the terrific post.

Local TV News - horrible place to get informed. They aren't interested
in the steak, only the sizzle. They are only worried about you
exercising remote control options which is why they spend more time on
'bumps' than delivering news (Bumps are apparently the term for the
teases they put in about upcoming stories - most stations run
approximately 20 in the 30 minute news broadcast, deducting for
commercials, weather, sports and bumps leaves very little time for
actual news). Now that they have trained us to have a 3 minute attention
span, they assume that we only have a 3 minute attention span and
details have to be gotten elsewhere. Local news is the place to go to
get the scariest side of local events without substance or redemption.
Putting a Ben Stein type on air explaining these details would cause
people to scramble for their clickers.

Clean dirt - 2 ppb, arsenic 7 ppb, many many other substances at varying
levels of inclusion and Siri pointed out the significance of turbidity.
I can tell you that the $600 check I got from Baker et al v. Motorola
hardly paid for the bottled water I used over the years and I suppose
the 'sic' bright side is an underground plume of TCE coming soon to a
water well near you. Of course TCE is one of those things that they try
to keep in a low number of ppb when things are working well.

Me afraid of the water? Only when I think about it. ;-)

Craig

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