[Water_news] 4. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: WATER QUALITY - 9/2/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

September 2, 2008

 

4. Water Quality –

 

Arsenic may be disease culprit

Possible link to diabetes may lend more urgency to reducing it in water.

Fresno Bee – 8/30/08

By Tim Sheehan, staff writer

 

VISALIA -- Valley communities coping with arsenic in their water may have one more thing to worry about -- diabetes.

 

Arsenic, a toxic element long known as a cancer-causing agent, is found in rocks and soil -- and underground water -- in parts of the country and around the world.

Now doctors at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, suggest a connection between low-level exposure to arsenic and Type 2 diabetes. In an article in the Aug. 20 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association, or JAMA, Dr. Ana Navas-Acien and her co-authors reported their analysis of nearly 800 American adults who had urine tests for arsenic in a 2003-04 government health survey.

 

Their study indicated patients whose urine contained higher levels of arsenic -- most likely from long-term exposure to the chemical in their drinking water -- had nearly four times greater odds of having Type 2 diabetes than those with the lowest arsenic levels.

 

The results "suggest that inorganic arsenic may have a role in diabetes development," the article states.

 

The JAMA article caught the eye of public health professionals in the Valley, where arsenic and diabetes are both prevalent.

 

"I think it has a lot of implications," said Dr. Michael MacLean, health director for Kings County and formerly the health director in Tulare County. "We have a lot of diabetes in the Valley, but there are also a lot of risk factors, too."

 

Arsenic has been a chronic problem in many Valley communities that pump their water from underground. The U.S. Geological Survey reported that in more than 31,000 well samples nationwide between 1973 and 2001, "widespread high concentrations [of arsenic] were found in the West, the Midwest and the Northeast."

A map of the survey shows the San Joaquin Valley as a swath of positive arsenic samples.

 

More people living in the Valley also have diabetes. A 2005 report by the California Diabetes Program estimates Tulare County has the highest diabetes rate -- about 10.4 of every 100 people -- among California's 58 counties, compared with the statewide rate of 6.22 of every 100.

 

Other Valley counties also have higher diabetes rates than the state: 8.19 in Kings County, 7.69 in Kern County, 7.20 in Fresno County, 7.18 in Merced County and 6.71 in Madera County.

 

Earlier research has linked high levels of arsenic in water to diabetes. But a connection between low-level arsenic exposure and diabetes is new.

"These findings reinforce the need to evaluate the role of inorganic arsenic in diabetes development" in detailed studies, the Johns Hopkins authors wrote.

In 2001, the federal government tightened drinking water standards to mandate that public water supplies contain no more than 10 parts of arsenic per billion -- or 10 drops of water in an average-size swimming pool. The old standard was 50 parts per billion.

 

"The good news is, this is preventable," Navas-Acien said. But, she added, new safe-water standards may be needed if the findings are duplicated in future studies. She said she and her colleagues have begun a new study of 4,000 people.

 

For some Valley cities and towns, just meeting the 2001 arsenic standard is an ordeal, said Keith Winkler, Kings County's environmental health director.

"Arsenic is known to have adverse effects; it's a potent carcinogen," he said. "This could be another adverse effect."

 

Corcoran opened a new $18 million treatment plant two years ago to remove arsenic from its water. Water coming into the plant has between 25 and 40 ppb of arsenic, said Steve Kroeker, Corcoran's public works director. It comes out below 5 ppb.

 

"It's pretty clean," Kroeker said, "but it's expensive."

 

The city of Hanford plans to sink wells into a deeper, cleaner water table, Winkler said.

 

In Alpaugh, a town of about 800 people in southwestern Tulare County, water used to test as high as 74 ppb. It took a new and deeper well, pump and pipes, at a cost of about $4.2 million, to attain the old rule.

 

Now the community is seeking grants for a treatment plant to meet the 10 ppb standard.

 

Susana De Anda, co-director of the Community Water Center in Visalia, said the JAMA article alarmed her.

 

"People [in Alpaugh] are afraid to drink the water," De Anda said. "They already know arsenic is a carcinogen and now we're finding out it may be linked to other diseases."

 

Eric Jenkins, who has lived in Alpaugh for 11 years, said the JAMA article "doesn't surprise me at all."

 

He said he knows of at least one neighbor who has diabetes, and plans on getting tested himself because of unexplained swelling in his legs.

"Maybe if more people were tested, a lot more may find out they have diabetes," Jenkins said. "This is a poor town; I'd be surprised if there's not more people with diabetes but can't afford to be tested."

 

MacLean, Kings County's health officer, said he will pay close attention to more studies of an arsenic/diabetes connection but cautioned against leaping to conclusions from the JAMA article.

 

"Our lifestyle, our culture is not a healthy culture," he said of high-fat diets, obesity, lack of exercise and other risk factors for diabetes. "We're seeing a dramatic increase in diabetes, we're seeing it in younger and younger people ... and we already know it's probably not from arsenic." #

http://www.fresnobee.com/263/story/833382.html