New signs posted at Blue Hole Creek warn of high lead levels
To put that 370 parts per billion number into perspective, the Mountain Watershed Association says that Flint, Michigan's water had just 12 parts per billion at the height of their crisis; even 12 parts per billion, however, is still dangerous.
The federal government says no amount of lead in water is safe for humans or animals in any way.
Stuart Thompson, an avid hiker, former trail volunteer, and ridge runner with the Department of Natural Resources, says he knows the trails around that creek well and is worried about the environment.
"I am shocked, appalled, and sickened," Thompson said. "This place… It's as wild as you can get, pretty much in this part of the county. And for that to happen, that (water) is now fouled, probably permanently."
Both the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and DCNR say that this lead is not naturally occurring; there is an open investigation into how this water was contaminated.
Many in the surrounding Middlecreek and Saltlick townships wonder if the lead contamination could be coming from points on the top of the mountain, such as lead-lined gas tanks at an old airfield or even lead from shells at a local shooting range.
Thompson says whoever is causing this needs to be held accountable.
"This needs to be investigated thoroughly by science and by people who know their stuff," said Thompson. "Do soil samples. I would think soil samples up the mountain, to measure the density of how much lead is here and here and here, you could probably pretty well funnel where it is coming from."
If you find yourself near Blue Hole Creek, especially during Memorial Day weekend, observe the signs and heed the warnings. Be very cautious if you are swimming, and as the state says, under no circumstances should you be trying to drink this water.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Yahoo
US judge blocks Trump religious exemption to birth control coverage
By Daniel Wiessner (Reuters) -A U.S. judge on Wednesday struck down rules adopted during President Donald Trump's first term that exempt employers with religious or moral objections from having to provide workers with insurance coverage for birth control. U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone in Philadelphia said the 2018 rules were not justified, rejecting the Trump administration's claims that they were necessary to protect the rights of religious employers. The ruling came in a lawsuit by Pennsylvania and New Jersey that reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 2020 upheld the rules on technical grounds but did not address their merits. The U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Little Sisters of the Poor, a Roman Catholic order of nuns that intervened in the case to defend the rules, will appeal the ruling, according to the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a nonprofit that represents the order. The federal Affordable Care Act requires employers to provide insurance coverage for contraception but allows those with religious objections to seek exemptions. The 2018 rules created a blanket exemption for employers with religious or moral objections to contraception. The Trump administration said that even requiring employers to apply for an exemption could burden their religious practice, in violation of federal law. But Beetlestone on Wednesday said there was a mismatch between the vast scope of the exemption and the relatively small number of employers who may need it. That "casts doubt on whether ... there is a rational connection between the problem the Agencies identified and the solution they had chosen," wrote Beetlestone, an appointee of President Barack Obama, a Democrat. The administration of President Joe Biden, a Democrat, had proposed withdrawing the Trump administration rules in 2023 but that proposal was withdrawn weeks before Biden left office in January.
The Verge
12 hours ago
- The Verge
Microplastics are everywhere — including in the air around plastic treaty negotiations
Thousands of delegates have descended upon Geneva this week for what's supposed to be the culmination of years of negotiations that, if successful, are supposed to end in a groundbreaking global plastics treaty. They might be breathing in the very thing they're trying to clean up as they negotiate. Greenpeace tested the air around the city just before the talks began this month and found a small amount of microplastics. It wasn't so much a rigorous study as it was a way to prove a point. Microplastics are turning up all over the place, including in the air we breathe. That's why health and environmental advocates, as well as a coalition of governments, are pushing for an ambitious plastics treaty in Geneva. Recycling isn't enough — only limiting production can stem the tide of plastic pollution, they contend. Recycling isn't enough 'That you can find microplastics in urban air, that's not really shocking because it's been reported before in other cities. I think this is just a way of illustrating that nowhere is free from this pollution,' says David Santillo, a senior scientist with Greenpeace Research Laboratories. Greenpeace strapped an air-monitoring device to a person while they went about their day in Geneva, spending about eight hours in and out of shops, cafes, office spaces, and a railway station. The samples they collected on July 17th were meant to show what a typical visitor to the city might be exposed to; they weren't able to take any samples within the negotiation rooms that delegates would actually use. The device had a replaceable silver filter that Greenpeace researchers were then able to analyze to see what particles they caught, which amounted to at least 165 fibers and fragments. The filters picked up a range of different materials like bits of skin, plant-based fibers, and what was likely soot. Greenpeace was interested in synthetic materials, however, and was ultimately able to identify 12 pieces of microplastics, including polyester, nylon, polyethylene used to make bottles and bags, and other types of plastics. That might not sound like much, but the organization only had the equipment to be able to detect larger particles that were at least 10 microns in size. (For comparison, the average human hair is about 70 microns in diameter.) 'If they found the big ones, it's a pretty fair bet that the smaller ones were there, as well,' says Philip Landrigan, director of the Global Public Health and the Common Good Program at Boston College, who was not involved in the Greenpeace study. Generally, the smaller the particle, the more problems it can potentially pose by being able to penetrate deeper into organs and tissues in the human body. A human brain might contain as much as a spoon's worth of microplastics, research published in the journal Nature Medicine earlier this year suggests. 'Unfortunately, microplastics are pretty much everywhere in today's world,' Landrigan says. He's the lead author of an August report, published in the journal The Lancet, on the links between plastic pollution and health outcomes. 'Plastics cause disease and death from infancy to old age,' the report says, adding that plastics are responsible for $1.5 trillion in health-related economic losses each year. The report accounts for all the risks along the lifecycle of plastic, including chemicals that workers and communities near manufacturing facilities are exposed to, and waste that breaks down into nanoplastic particles that have been found in human bodies and breastmilk. 'Plastics cause disease and death from infancy to old age' Scientists are still working to understand the health impacts of inhaling microplastics in the air. Landrigan points out that we at least know that all plastics are made of two main components, a carbon-based backbone derived from fossil fuels and chemical additives. 'When the microplastic comes into the human body, whether you inhale it or drink it with your water or eat it with your food, when it it gets into you and the plastics move from your gastrointestinal tract into the bloodstream, the microplastic particles are carrying all those chemicals with them,' Landrigan says. The more than 16,000 different chemicals used in plastics production — including the carcinogen vinyl chloride, for example — are primarily responsible for the known health risks associated with plastics. But the toxicity of more than 75 percent of the chemicals in plastics have yet to be studied. Greenpeace doesn't claim to be assessing air quality in Geneva or the health impacts of what they found in their air samples. All they can show is the presence of microplastics in the air, adding to previous research that has done the same. What's notable now is that Greenpeace has documented this at a time when leaders from around the world have the opportunity to actually do something about it. Negotiations on a plastics treaty in Geneva are scheduled to end on August 14th. In 2022, United Nations member states agreed to develop a legally binding pact on plastic pollution. It's been an uphill battle to agree on terms ever since. Major fossil fuel producing nations blocked a deal in December, pushing negotiations past their initial 2024 deadline. So far this year, there's still a fight over whether focusing on recycling and reducing plastic waste is enough. The fossil fuel industry and countries including the US that produce a lot of plastics and its ingredients are fighting efforts to exclude limits to plastic production from the treaty. A 'high ambition coalition' launched by Rwanda and Norway, on the other hand, wants to address the full lifecycle of plastic, starting with production. It's also open to using the treaty to phase out or restrict the use of problematic chemicals in plastics. It doesn't make sense to simply mop up the mess plastic leaves behind without also turning off the faucet, says Angel Pago, Greenpeace global plastics campaign media lead. 'We're brimming with plastic because of overproduction. And we cannot solve this crisis with just, you know, cleanups,' Pago tells The Verge from Geneva. The Lancet article similarly says 'the principal driver of this [health] crisis is accelerating growth in plastic production.' Production has ballooned from 2 metric megatons in 1950 to 475 in 2022. Less than 10 percent of plastic waste has ever been recycled, in part because the many chemicals used to manufacture different types plastics make it difficult or uneconomical to rehash the material. 'If we're going to do something about plastics, we need to cap plastic production,' Landrigan says. 'I hope and I pray that the treaty negotiators are actually going to produce a treaty that protects human health.' Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All by Justine Calma Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Climate Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Environment Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Health Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Policy Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Report Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Science
Yahoo
21 hours ago
- Yahoo
Ocugen, Inc. Announces Positive Scientific Advice from the European Medicines Agency Related to the Approval Pathway for OCU410ST—Modifier Gene Therapy for Stargardt Disease
MALVERN, Pa., Aug. 13, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ocugen, Inc. (Ocugen or the Company) (NASDAQ: OCGN), a pioneering biotechnology leader in gene therapies for blindness diseases, today announced that the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) reviewed the study design, endpoints and planned statistical analysis of the ongoing pivotal confirmatory OCU410ST Phase 2/3 GARDian3 clinical trial for Stargardt disease and provided acceptability of a single U.S.-based trial for submission of a Marketing Authorization Application (MAA). EMA provided this opinion based on safety and tolerability that OCU410ST demonstrated in the Phase 1 GARDian trial, including 48% slower lesion growth and statistically significant (p=0.031) and clinically meaningful improvement of nearly 2-line/9-letter gain in best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) at 12-month follow-up in evaluable treated eyes compared to untreated eyes. The Phase 2/3 study will enroll 51 participants diagnosed with Stargardt disease. Of these, 34 will receive a one-time subretinal injection of OCU410ST (200 μL at a concentration of 1.5 × 10¹¹ vector genomes/mL) in the eye with poorer visual acuity, while 17 will be assigned to an untreated control group. The unique adaptive design of this trial includes a masked interim analysis of 24 subjects in the study (16 in treatment group and 8 in control group) at 8 months. The primary objective of the trial is to evaluate the reduction in atrophic lesion size. Key secondary endpoints include improvements in BCVA and low luminance visual acuity (LLVA), compared to controls. Data from the one-year follow-up will be used to support the Company's planned Biologics License Application (BLA) and MAA in the EU. 'This positive opinion endorses a single trial as the basis for both BLA and MAA submissions and brings us closer to providing a one-time, modifier gene therapy to approximately 100,000 Stargardt patients in the U.S. and Europe combined,' said Dr. Shankar Musunuri, Chairman, CEO, and Co-founder of Ocugen. 'We are very encouraged about the prospect of addressing the unmet medical need that exists for these patients who currently have no approved treatment options available to them.' The EMA opinion is an extremely favorable outcome, as it will potentially reduce the time and cost to gain marketing authorization in the EU. Alignment with the EMA follows recent important milestones for the OCU410ST program, including Rare Pediatric Disease Designation (RPDD) in May, IND clearance in June, and first patient dosing in July. With enrollment scheduled to be complete in the first quarter of 2026 the Company remains on track for a BLA filing in the first half of 2027, aligned with its goal of three BLAs in the next three OCU410STOCU410ST utilizes an AAV delivery platform for the retinal delivery of the RORA (RAR-Related Orphan Receptor A) gene. It represents Ocugen's modifier gene therapy approach, which is based on Nuclear Hormone Receptor (NHR) RORA that regulates pathophysiological pathways linked to Stargardt disease, such as lipofuscin formation, oxidative stress, complement formation, inflammation, and cell survival networks. About Stargardt DiseaseStargardt disease is a genetic eye disorder that causes retinal degeneration and vision loss. Stargardt disease is the most common form of inherited macular degeneration. The progressive vision loss associated with Stargardt disease is caused by the degeneration of photoreceptor cells in the central portion of the retina called the macula. Decreased central vision due to loss of photoreceptors in the macula is the hallmark of Stargardt disease. Some peripheral vision is usually preserved. Stargardt disease typically develops during childhood or adolescence, but the age of onset and rate of progression can vary. The retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), a layer of cells supporting photoreceptors, is also affected in people with Stargardt disease. About Ocugen, Inc. is a biotechnology company focused on discovering, developing, and commercializing novel gene therapies to address major blindness diseases and offer hope for patients across the globe. We are making an impact on patient's lives through courageous innovation—forging new scientific paths that harness our unique intellectual and human capital. Our breakthrough modifier gene therapy platform has the potential to address significant unmet medical need for large patient populations through our gene-agnostic approach. Discover more at and follow us on X and LinkedIn. Cautionary Note on Forward-Looking StatementsThis press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including, but not limited to, statements regarding qualitative assessments of available data, potential benefits, expectations for ongoing clinical trials, anticipated regulatory filings and anticipated development timelines, which are subject to risks and uncertainties. We may, in some cases, use terms such as 'predicts,' 'believes,' 'potential,' 'proposed,' 'continue,' 'estimates,' 'anticipates,' 'expects,' 'plans,' 'intends,' 'may,' 'could,' 'might,' 'will,' 'should,' or other words that convey uncertainty of future events or outcomes to identify these forward-looking statements. Such statements are subject to numerous important factors, risks, and uncertainties that may cause actual events or results to differ materially from our current expectations, including, but not limited to, the risks that preliminary, interim and top-line clinical trial results may not be indicative of, and may differ from, final clinical data; the ability of OCU410ST to perform in humans in a manner consistent with nonclinical, preclinical or previous clinical study data; that unfavorable new clinical trial data may emerge in ongoing clinical trials or through further analyses of existing clinical trial data; that earlier non-clinical and clinical data and testing of may not be predictive of the results or success of later clinical trials; and that that clinical trial data are subject to differing interpretations and assessments, including by regulatory authorities. These and other risks and uncertainties are more fully described in our periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including the risk factors described in the section entitled 'Risk Factors' in the quarterly and annual reports that we file with the SEC. Any forward-looking statements that we make in this press release speak only as of the date of this press release. Except as required by law, we assume no obligation to update forward-looking statements contained in this press release whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, after the date of this press release. Contact:Tiffany HamiltonAVP, Head of in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
