How the drought is hurting health
By Deborah Schoch, Center for Health Reporting
Four years of drought in California is wearing on the bodies and minds of the people who live in the San Joaquin Valley.
State health officials say they have not seen anything to link the drought to changes in residents’ health. But local doctors and health experts, and a drive south on Highway 99 from Sacramento to Tulare County, tell a different story.
Physicians say they’ve treated more children and adults struggling to breathe as dust from plowed-over farm fields and wildfires penetrates nostrils and lungs. Mental health counselors report that they’re hearing from more residents suffering anxiety and depression, fearing that the drought will cost them their homes, farms and livelihoods. Calls are up sharply at a local suicide prevention hotline.
I am a compulsive water saver because of the drought.
No showers, no dish washing, no flushing the toilet and now no friends.
We wouldn’t let the streams dry-up if the salmon need them to survive but people are apparently different. We all need water to live and whether it’s Detroit or the Central Valley, the question is “Is water a right or a commodity?
Also, is this really a Valley issue? Seems like the symptoms the article talks about are common everywhere now. They are also the same symptoms that are predicted from the continuous application of dispersents to the atmosphere.
I don’t want to miss a chance to report on Dow Chemical successfully lobbying CA to apply more chemical (C1-3, I believe) to farmland in the state. Not one scientist on the planet believes this is a good idea as it is a known carcinogen. In places, the levels around schools are hundreds of times the limits. (which is a joke ’cause it’s never safe at any limit) Time to Wake-UP!!! (if you’re not suicidal, anxious, depressed, laboring to breathe, needing a shower or thirsty)
LTN- How about a reprint of the article on Dow’s successful campaign.