Children in New Jersey face real dangers from water pollution, both from what they drink and what they play in. Lead, nitrates, and nasty microbes are the biggest problems. This look at the issue pinpoints where the risks come from, who’s most vulnerable, and what we still need to learn to keep kids safe.<\/p>\n
Kids aren’t just small adults when it comes to water risks. They drink two to three times more water for their size than grown-ups do. Their bodies aren’t as good at getting rid of toxins, and they absorb more bad stuff like lead and arsenic through their gut. These differences mean kids get a higher dose from the same water. What’s considered safe for adults might not protect a child.<\/p>\n
Drinking water dangers in New Jersey:<\/strong> Our state’s water pipes hide some well-known risks for kids. Lead service lines, which connect city mains to homes, were common before 1986. Many are still there in older cities like Newark, Trenton, and Camden. Lead can get into the water from these pipes, especially when water chemistry or pressure changes. Young children absorb up to 50% of ingested lead, compared to about 10% for adults. There’s no safe blood lead level for kids, and even low levels can affect their brains.<\/p>\n Nitrates from farms and septic systems pollute shallow wells in our agricultural areas. Babies under six months are especially at risk for “blue baby syndrome” if nitrate levels go above 10 mg\/L as N. If you have a private well, you’re on your own for testing and treating your water. That means some families get less protection than those on regulated city water.<\/p>\n Playing in water can be risky too:<\/strong> Kids swim more often and for longer than adults, and they’re more likely to swallow water. New Jersey’s beaches, lakes, and pools each have their own set of germ and chemical dangers. Harmful algal blooms (HABs) from cyanobacteria can make toxins that are acutely dangerous. Because kids are smaller, these toxins hit them harder. After storms, beaches often close because of high levels of pathogens from combined sewer overflows. This problem often affects kids in lower-income urban coastal areas more.<\/p>\n To really protect New Jersey’s kids from water related health risks, we need a multi-pronged approach. That means protecting water sources, treating water at the tap (especially for well users with reverse osmosis systems), and giving clear guidance for safe recreation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In this study, we looked at the worst-case health risks for children who swallow water from sources in two busy New Jersey counties, Hunterdon and Mercer. We estimated cancer and non-cancer health risks for 19 contaminants. These included organics, inorganics, and emerging contaminants, all with available environmental data. We examined three ways kids might be exposed: 1) drinking untreated groundwater from dirty private wells; 2) playing and accidentally swallowing water from the Delaware River; and 3) eating fish caught from the Delaware River. We compared the total health danger from each contaminant across all three scenarios to figure out which ones posed the biggest health risk. Our analysis showed that arsenic and trichloroethylene in private well water were the main drivers of health risk. We think these are the most important contaminants for kids in these areas. We estimated a really high total excess cancer risk of 2.13 \u00d7 10?3<\/sup> from arsenic exposure. This clearly shows we need to test and treat water sources and set up a plan for more detailed work in the future.<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2073-4441\/10\/3\/276<\/p>\n The post Exploratory Assessment of Risks from Drinking and Recreational Water Exposure to Children in the State of New Jersey appeared first on Facts About Water.<\/p>\n Source: Water Feed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In this study, we conducted a worst-case risk exploratory assessment for children\u2019s health from ingestion exposure to water sources in two densely populated counties<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":87997,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,29],"tags":[22],"class_list":["post-1074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-water-filter","category-water-treatment","tag-ro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1074"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88553,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1074\/revisions\/88553"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ampac1.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n