Arsenic study to begin
BROOKSVILLE –
Sue Melendez, of Spring Lake, stopped using the water in her home years ago when the health department determined she had unsafe levels of arsenic in her well.
She’s been managing just fine, she says, on bottled water, which she uses to drink and cook. She bathes at a neighbor’s home.
Her well is broken now, but she doesn’t intend to fix it.
“When your well has 10 times the legal limit (of arsenic levels) you don’t really want to mess with it,” says Melendez, who lives off Birt Street.
Melendez and more than 500 residents will be mailed letters starting next week from the Hernando County Health Department, asking them how their life is going in the four years since their wells were deemed to have a higher-than-normal level of arsenic.
“I feel fine because I’m not using it,” she joked.
The letters are going to households identified as being the most susceptible to high levels of arsenic present in their wells.
To get an accurate measure, half of the letters will go to households in the affected area where wells did not test high for arsenic. The other half will be mailed to about 263 targeted households where the level of arsenic was between 10-15 parts per billion.
Homeowners will be asked to voluntarily fill out a questionnaire and, if possible, arrange to have a health officials test their water, filter system and possibly take a urine sample to determine the amount of arsenic in their blood.
Most of the surveys will be mailed to people who live in the Spring Lake area, identified as having the highest traces of arsenic, defined as more than 10 parts per billion. Small clusters of homes in the Masaryktown area have also been found to have higher-than-normal amounts.
Health Department Environmental Manager Al Gray said of 900 wells tested throughout Hernando County, 400 have been identified as being higher risk.
Short-term exposure to arsenic is not considered harmful, Gray said. However, prolonged exposureover years can pose a health problem.
Arsenic in drinking water has no taste or odor and cannot be detected without lab testing. Long-term ingestion of elevated levels of arsenic can increase the risk of skin cancer and cancer of the lungs, bladder, kidney, liver and prostate.
Ann-Gayl Ellis, public information officer for the Hernando County Health Department, said she wanted to publicize the mailings to avoid panic.
Participation in the survey is voluntary, she said, and the sole intent is to find out how people are faring in the four years since the installation of filters to screen out traces of arsenic in their water.
Those “point-of-entry” filters — installed under the kitchen sink — were provided free of charge by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to monitor the arsenic levels of family members.
“We just want to look at the filters to see if they’re being used properly, how they’re being used and if they’re being used,” Gray said.
Melendez, who has lived in her Spring Lake home since 1984, said she never got a state-issued filter like many of her neighbors. However, she said she is being supplied bottled water by the state.
Officials want to measure the amount of arsenic in tap water, find out whether people supplied with filtered water are using them not only to drink but also in cooking and bathing.
The survey also measures individual, short-term arsenic exposure through a urine test, to be done on a voluntary basis on children and adults in the household. The results will be compared with samples of people who live in homes where the wells are not contaminated.
Survey recipients will be asked about their eating habits, because certain foods — such as brown rice, fish and juice — have been shown to have traces of arsenic.
Ellis stressed that no taxpayer money will be used for the survey. The money is being supplied from a $60,000 grant from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, she said.
Gray said he wants to get the letters out in the next several weeks because the grant requirements call for a study completion by July 1.
Ellis said this is the first study of its kind in Florida.
The Spring Lake area may be more prone to arsenic because of the large limestone and clay deposits under the surface. That area was once dotted with citrus groves and pesticide use was heavy, which may also account for higher levels, Gray said.
Health officials hope that once the study is completed the results will be used to examine the current thresholds for arsenic levels in wells and to guide safe water restoration efforts.
