AP probe finds drugs in drinking water (not news) - officials won't talk about it due to "post-9/11 security concerns"

Another good catch by BoingBoing: This is a very long article from the AP on all the pharmaceuticals in American drinking water (mostly from other people's toilets, you see.) But it can be boiled down to this:

• There's lots of stuff in our water.
• The EPA doesn't really know what's there; they're concentrating on detection.
• In many cases, stuff has been detected, but local or state officials refuse to discuss it, "citing post-9/11 concerns".
• The EPA doesn't want to come out and say there's a problem.

There are two problems with this; one is that the EPA won't come out and say there's a problem, because it might cause financial problems for Big Pharma and for waste disposal companies.

But the far more chilling issue is this: when it is known that there is a known threat to public health (I'm talking specifically about Arlington, TX and Emporia, KS), and local officials refuse to disclose any details to residents because people flew a plane into a building seven years ago and two thousand miles away, something is wrong.

The fact that there may or may not be an existential threat to our civilization really has nothing to do with telling the public what pharmaceuticals have actually been found in their drinking water, and of course no sane person would think that it does.

Which begs the question: just who do we have running Arlington, Texas, and Emporia, Kansas? Can't we fire those people, and find somebody who can at least come up with better excuses to dodge responsibility?