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Energy choices affect public health

As the Gold King Mine disaster cuts a gold swathe through our Four Corners communities, we are left uncertain of the health impacts of the contamination of the Animas River. We do know that heavy-metal levels – iron, lead, mercury and others – reached hundreds of times over their safe thresholds. What is less clear is how long these contaminants may affect the river, how they may affect drinking and farming waters, and what, if any, the effects on the health of our communities may be.

As a physician, protecting patients from the effects of heavy metals is an important part of my job, be that testing children for unsafe blood lead levels or counseling expecting women on how best to avoid unsafe mercury levels in pregnancy.

For me, the Gold King Mine spill highlights one of the many dangers of coal mining and fracking to public health, and it reminds us that our actions today will have unintended health consequences many years down the line. In the United States’ coal-mining regions, ash ponds are used to store contaminants and contaminated water from coal-mine activity. These ponds have been known to leach heavy metals into groundwater and to spill into nearby waterways, resulting in higher rates of cancer, birth defects and other health hazards for those living nearby.

Here in the Four Corners, hydraulic fracturing is another serious threat to the health of our water. As fracturing fluids and huge amounts of water are injected deep underground, the potential exists for contaminating underground aquifers and surface waters alike.

In addition to the asthma, heart disease and other hazards caused by the air pollution associated with energy production from coal and natural gas, the Gold King Mine spill reminds us that our water sources are both fragile and critical to our health.

As we make important choices about the energy sources that power our lives, we must remain cognizant that these choices will directly affect the health of our communities now and generations into the future.

Val Wangler

Zuni, N.M.



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