No more than a thimbleful of hydrofluoric acid killed 37-year-old Alcoa technician John L. Dorton in fewer than seven hours from the moment he inhaled the mist at the plant where he worked in Port Comfort, Texas.

It's that deadly.

Its transportation to factories and its use there imperils workers and nearby residents. Environmental, safety and advocacy groups for years have demanded that manufacturers substitute safer chemicals or processes whenever possible.

...

Modern humans live in a chemical soup. Auto fumes and food preservatives, prescription drugs and polyester dust ... we eat man-made chemicals, drink them, inhale them and absorb them through our skin.

The evidence turns up in human blood and urine, where the synthetic molecules of some 500 different chemicals have been found. Thus we don't merely live in a chemical soup: Each of us is one. 

A lawmaker, government agency and environmental group have teamed up to craft a bill to protect the state's drinking water.

State Sen. Chuck McIlhinney introduced the legislation Wednesday that requires special protection of the groundwater, rivers and aquifers that supply drinking water.

"Most of us take clean water for granted, but we cannot ignore the threat of pollution and contamination of our drinking water supplies," said McIlhinney, a Bucks County Republican. "We need to take action to protect our drinking water supplies to ensure the future health of our citizens."

By Rick Loomis, originally published in The Morning Call, January 28, 2009

The Lehigh County area has a problem. It's a gross problem. Simply put: we're running more water through our sewers than our sewers can handle. What happens when you run more water through a sewer than it can handle? It overflows. Where does it overflow? It overflows out of manholes into our rivers and streams. But rivers and streams can handle some sewage, right? Sure they can, but we also drink that water, fish in it and hang out on the stream banks.

We're talking about raw sewage here.