A coveted seat at the ACSH Dispatch table for Cas Holloway, commissioner of the New York City s Department of Environmental Protection. His agency spent $81,000 to study the city s water supply after a scaremongering pharmawater investigation by The Associated Press in 2008 found traces of pharmaceuticals in municipal drinking water around the nation.
The conclusion of the study? It turns out New York City s water supply isn t going to cure your headaches, change your hormones or lower your cholesterol after all. (Not that we at ACSH ever thought it would.)
The official press release says it all :
Environmental Protection Commissioner Cas Holloway today announced that DEP has concluded a study that indicates that the presence of pharmaceuticals and personal care products in New York City's source waters pose no public health risks. The one-year pilot program tested for the presence of pharmaceuticals and personal care products in New York City's three upstate watersheds, finding only extremely minute quantities of these compounds. The findings confirm that NYC Water remains safe and healthy for the 9 million New Yorkers who rely on it each day.
As Holloway told The Wall Street Journal , Just because you detect something doesn t mean that it s a problem. People say, Oh my gosh, there s aspirin in my water when, in fact, for all practical purposes, there isn t.
Now, that's worth repeating: "Just because you detect something doesn t mean that it s a problem." That's actually a line direct from the ACSH script book; we use it each time a biomonitoring study pops up showing trace elements of chemical x, y, or z.
'Fess up, Cas Holloway have you been reading Dispatch?
In fact, someone would have to drink 846,000 glasses of water in a single day to get the dose of water contained in a single ibuprofen, the DEP says .
This is so sensible, says Dr. Whelan. You have to point out that they re reporting something that is not a problem. That is not (usually considered) news.
But ACSH s Dr. Gilbert Ross says he s dissatisfied with how the story was buried. The Daily News ran the AP s original investigation in 2008, but nothing on current findings that the water is safe. The New York Post just ran a brief snippet buried on page 7, and The New York Times had nothing. The Journal was the only paper to run a real story, albeit in the middle of their NYC section.
That s the problem, if it bleeds it leads, exclaims Dr. Ross. If this was 'toxic chemicals under your sink', it would be turned into a big a story. This is a real story, and it is our job to make it widely known.