Environmental concerns - Missouri

[kiwibird]

Data by county of severe cases would help determine if environmental factors contributed to the hospitalisation of flu patients. Information about patients living conditions - state of housing, water supply, diet, forms of home heating etc. would be very valuable. Some countries routinely gather this information for pneumonia cases in children - but I have not seen it published. Water supply info is, however, and is a starting point;

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119988458/abstract

The highest concentrations were found in samples from shallow wells in northwestern Missouri

http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/FS-027-96/
The Ozarks

Poultry, cattle, and swine production, in addition to septic tanks and sewage- treatment plants, have affected water quality by increasing concentrations of nutrients and bacteria in water. Surface- and ground-water quality has been significantly degraded by drainage from abandoned lead and zinc mines in the Tri-State District of Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma and the Old Lead Belt in southeastern Missouri. Recent lead mining in the New Lead Belt in southeastern Missouri has caused concerns about water quality in the area. Increased concentrations of radionuclides have been detected in water from many wells throughout the study area, and highly saline ground water along the western boundary has caused some wells to be abandoned.

The remaining three TNT production lines were on a 217-acre tract east of the Training Area that is currently (1997) owned by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and which is known as the Weldon Spring Chemical Plant (WSCP). The three TNT production lines at the WSCP were demolished in 1955 during construction of a U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Uranium Feed Materials Plant that was operated from 1957 to 1966. Operations at the WSOW and the WSCP have resulted in localized soil and ground-water contamination...

The Missouri River alluvial aquifer in the Kansas City metropolitan area supplies all or part of the drinking water for more than 900,000 people in 90 municipalities and public-water-supply districts. The Missouri River alluvial aquifer is the only aquifer in the area that can supply large quantities of ground water for public and industrial use

In 1992, the U.S. Air Force began deactivating the Minuteman II missile system at the Whiteman Air Force Base in west-central Missouri. The deactivation process at the launch facilities could contaminate ground water, and water-quality and ground-water data are necessary to determine the water quality in the area before deactivation and to determine the water quality after deactivation.

(150 sites!)

Nitrate concentrations were detected in ground water much more frequently and at much higher concentrations than were pesticide concentrations. Based on the results of the study, as many as 84,000 domestic wells (24 percent) in the State may have nitrate concentrations greater than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) drinking-water criterion or may have detectable concentrations of one or more pesticides. However, elevated nitrate and pesticide concentrations in ground water were significantly related to the source of the water, well depth, and water level below land surface.