A Boomer and GenXer Walk into a Bar
Wit and wisdom, some smart assery, and a Mother and Daughter questioning “Are we even related?”
A Boomer and GenXer Walk into a Bar
Corn Sweats And Chemical Regrets!! HELP! S:2E:40
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If your town posts a “boil advisory,” do you assume your water is safe again after a few minutes on the stove? We challenge that assumption and explain why boiling does not remove nitrates and can actually concentrate them, which is a scary fact in a state already dealing with severe nitrate contamination in drinking water. From Iowa cornfields to kitchen faucets, we trace how this problem spreads and why it keeps coming back.
We talk through what’s driving nitrate pollution in Iowa and many other states, including agricultural runoff, fertilizer, and the tile drainage systems that move water off fields and into streams, then into major rivers. We also compare the public attention given to crises like Flint with the quieter, ongoing water quality problems many communities face, from Safe Drinking Water Act violations to aging infrastructure and the false comfort of small, everyday “solutions” like basic pitcher filters.
Then we get into health concerns and the messy reality of multiple contaminants. We unpack the difference between naturally occurring nitrates in foods and the added or environmental nitrates that raise red flags, plus how PFAS “forever chemicals” fit into the bigger water contamination story. Finally, we talk about what actually helps, why treatment is expensive, and why lasting change means prevention at the source and louder demands for action. Subscribe, share this with a friend who trusts boil advisories, and leave a review. What does your local water report say right now?
email: boomerandgenxer@gmail.com
Welcome And A DIY Control Booth
SPEAKER_02Welcome everyone to today's show. Boomer and a gym next to walk into a bar, coming to you from the rabbit hole studio, where you, as our listeners, will experience some wit and wisdom, some smart ass remote and a daughter. Questioning, are we even related today? It's gonna be a hectic little show. My name is Jane. My co-host is my daughter Bobby. And for the next, I don't know, 2025, I don't know however many minutes, we are here to entertain. Good afternoon, Bobby. How many minutes? How many minutes? I do not know. I'm not sure. No, I'm not really uh what's going on over there, mom? What are you doing? So here's the deal. Okay, we need to let our listeners know because I am now running the controls because Dr. Domain is indisposed for a period of time. So I know, I know this is gonna be kind of a shit show with this witch shit right here. So this witch shit. This witch lipshit. I don't know. But anyway, um, so yeah, so uh he's kind of given me a 101 on how to utilize the equipment. So here we are, Bobby.
SPEAKER_00Uh I'm all you got today. How you doing, Bob? Oh, not
Corn Sweats And Iowa Reality
SPEAKER_00doing too bad, not doing too bad. Um, heat warnings coming, so you know the uh corn sweats are coming for all the islands.
SPEAKER_02Oh my gosh. So yeah, being in Iowa, if anybody doesn't understand this, uh, we raise corn, we raise beans, we raise alpha alpha, and we are a farming state. And so when the corn starts to sweat and starts to make babies or actually uh pollinate, it gets soup, we get high humidity here.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And people think we make it up, and it's like, no, go stand next to a cornfield, and you will feel it. You'll feel it because you can't breathe. Our pain, actually.
SPEAKER_02So,
The Nitrate Crisis In Tap Water
SPEAKER_02what's going on today? Uh, I know we have kind of a serious topic, really, because this is something that affects us here in Iowa, and I know every state, but here in Iowa, uh, it is really problematic. And we want to talk about it. And so, what's our topic today, Bobby?
SPEAKER_00So, today we're not talking corn sweats, but we are talking um an ongoing crisis that's pretty severe in Iowa, which is the nitrate contamination in our drinking water.
SPEAKER_02Okay. So, our nitrate contamination. That's not the only thing that is contaminating our water, but it is super high, correct?
SPEAKER_00Super high to the point where, you know, they've they've built a special facility uh down in Des Moines at the water treatment plant to deal with it. Um, and we'll talk about that too. But, you know, I mean, our nitrates, it's largely driven, of course, we know, by agricultural runoff and fertilizer, you know, things like that. Because everywhere you look, even if you're in some of these towns, that's all you see is you see farmland.
SPEAKER_02So there was a uh Flint, Michigan was really kind of the one big media uh, you know, we had a lot, they had a lot of attention, media attention, and that had nothing to do though with the runoff or anything like that. It wasn't like the rivers were contaminated, but they had issues with their piping. Is that correct?
SPEAKER_00Well, what it was was it was lead contamination, and what it what they had done is they had switched treatment plants. Okay, and when they did that, the it contaminated the entire town.
SPEAKER_02And somehow they can't get it uncontaminated to this day.
SPEAKER_00To this day, it's it's absolutely ridiculous that that it nothing has been done for it.
SPEAKER_02It's just crazy because it seems like we can run new pipeline uh to any other country, we can run it to you know different states, but we can't get Flint Michigan. And we're not here to talk about Flint, Michigan today, but it was the one that brought the most media attention. Now, just because it doesn't get media attention doesn't mean we don't have a problem. And let's face it, it's just like land. They're not gonna make any more of it. You know, whatever land we have, that's what you got on this earth. Okay, nobody's gonna make any more of it. And when it comes to water, there's gonna come a time when we are gonna be facing some very, very problematic things with our water supply, correct?
SPEAKER_00Correct, correct. And I mean, water is the basis of all life on planet Earth. So it's it's a big issue, right?
SPEAKER_02And what happens right now if somebody has, let's say that in and and I'm gonna use Pennsylvania because Pennsylvania is a number one um frequently recorded state that has the highest total number of Safe Drinking Act violations.
SPEAKER_00I wonder if it's the Hershey's plant.
SPEAKER_02Oh gosh, I don't know about that.
SPEAKER_00The chocolate plant.
SPEAKER_02I don't know. I don't know about that. But over apparently over half of the private wells fail to meet the drinking water standards, and the state manages the contamination as well as the high levels of PFAs.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02Okay, what are PFAs?
SPEAKER_00So those are the PFAs, I don't know exactly what it stands for, but if anybody has watched Erin Brockovich, that is what she was fighting for. The the PFAs in the water, the contamination.
SPEAKER_02And naturally occurring arsenic. Right. Right. Arsenic, for those of you who don't know, is naturally occurring. Right.
SPEAKER_00It's in cherry pits, it's in apples, it's in Yeah, there's a lot of things.
SPEAKER_02A lot of things and dang, no wonder would they tell us not to eat that stuff. I got a little sore throat. Oh, it's the arsenic in that apple, you know. So um, I'm gonna use Pennsylvania as our example. They have the highest total number of violations, and what happens when they have a violation? You're supposed to correct it, right? Supposed to. But what happens? They pay a fine, yep, and then they're kind of off the hook for a little while. Now, they may show some actions that they go ahead and take, but it isn't always what people think. It's like, oh, they got violations, oh, they've corrected it. Have they though?
SPEAKER_00Right. Like putting in a brittle water filter is not correcting it, like or you know, handing out bottled water to all of the households in that area that are dealing with it, that's not correcting it. That's that's worse than a band-aid over a gunshot wound at that point.
How Farm Runoff Reaches Rivers
SPEAKER_02So we have nitrates in our water here in Iowa, high levels. I mean high levels. And as Bobby mentioned, uh a lot of it is has to do with uh the runoff from the farming because Iowa, any farming state, and I'm not just gonna say Iowa, but any farming state has gone to these uh uh drain systems, and so they tile their fields. And the reason that these farmers tile their fields is so that we don't have standing water in the fields. Otherwise, what happens is you lose your crop. And so that water has to go somewhere, and where does it go? It goes into our streams, and those streams go into our rivers, and our river water is what we end up drinking, right? And so not only, and I'm not blaming farmers, listen, we love our farmers. We love, love, love our farmers, but you know, you've got companies like Pioneer, Alcoa, DeCalb, all of those that are making everything um pesticides and herbicides, that all of that comes off the seed. You've got fertilizers that go into the ground, you've got um, you know, nitrogen that's going into the ground, you've got all kinds of stuff that goes into the ground, and that gets run off into our drinking water facilities. The other thing that I don't think people understand is, and and I'm I again not going after our ranchers, I'm not going after our farmers, okay? But when you have runoff from a cattle lot or hog lot that goes into our drinking water, something's wrong. Something's terribly wrong. And I recognize it has to go somewhere. Some of the hog confinements now have underground facilities that get pumped out so that that doesn't run off into the rivers. That's very expensive. It's very expensive. I I don't know what the answer is, but there's a lot of issues, right, Bob?
Good Nitrates Vs Added Nitrates
SPEAKER_00Right. And and let's let's go back and talk a little bit about nitrates because you know, we hear this in the news a lot, and a lot of people who eat more healthy um than McDonald's and stuff do hear about nitrates in their food. Now, there's two different kinds of nitrates. So there's naturally occurring nitrates, you know, in vegetables and things like that. And then there is the the chemical nitrates. Now, the difference is the nitrates in the vegetables, they usually are in vegetables that have uh antioxidants like vitamin C. Now, with that and the high nitrates in that vegetable, they break to they prevent the breakdown into nitrosamines. Samines, I want to say I I'm horrible at pronouncing.
SPEAKER_02Anyway, she talks about me slaughtering, slaughtering words.
SPEAKER_00What what you what you want your body to do is to you want it to make nitric oxide instead of this other nitrosamines. Nitric os oxide is good for your body. Okay. Okay, that helps increase your blood flow, it reduces blood pressure, keeps your heart healthy, things like that. So the the naturally occurring nitrates in your food are a good thing. We're not talking about those. What we're talking about is the added nitrates. And you may hear about foods that have them, the bad nitrates such as bacon, baloney.
SPEAKER_02Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. And bologna. Did I hear the word bacon? You did. That's my favorite food right there.
SPEAKER_00You did because don't you know a hundred gram serving of bacon has 5.5 milligrams of nitrates in it? Okay.
SPEAKER_02Did we have to hear that today?
SPEAKER_00We did because I hate bacon. I know you do. Anyway, that's what made me confirm that you were a doctor. It is. And a lot of it is these processed foods because they add them to the processing of the food to make the meat pinker, to make them look better. And those are the bad nitrates. Now, those are the nitrates that we are we're talking about is the bad nitrates. Now, the federal safety limit is 10 milligrams per liter of nitrates. That's their safety limit. Once it hits 10, alarm bells should start going off. But actually, before they hit 10. Yeah, here's the problem because between two and five milligrams per liter has been shown to have such an adverse impact on humans. So we're hitting the 10, and we should really be panicking once it hits between two and five.
SPEAKER_02Well, and what about the fact that we as humans really require a substantial amount of water, right? I mean, our uh uh depending on what stats you look at, our bodies are made up of anywhere from 72 to 86 percent water. And if we're supposed to consume water, the more you take in, the more the higher the levels are gonna be in your body, right?
SPEAKER_00Right. And it's not just drinking. I mean, you think of food. Anytime that you need water to prepare your food, anytime you need water to even bathe or wash your clothes, things like that. You know, it's it's a contaminant that can get through your skin. It's a contaminant that you can be exposed to regardless. You can sit here all day and say, Well, I drink bottled water. Well, good for you. Do you also shower in bottled water? Do you, you know, wash your fruits and vegetables in bottled water? Do you add bottled water to your rice when you make it? Do there's a ton of different things.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you know, the other thing I just want to mention, because I don't know that, and I did not know this, I had to look it
Why Boiling Makes Nitrates Worse
SPEAKER_02up. You know, when you have a boil, like there's a water advisory, a boil advisory. So you have a water ban and a boil advisory, and that says that some level of something, typically nitrates or something like that, PFAs, will go over what the government says it can be, and they go, Oh, you need to boil your water. Yeah. Did you know that boiling your water does not remove nitrates?
SPEAKER_00I did know that actually, because like I know a lot of people talked about boiling water or having, you know, like like I said before, the Brita filters, things like that, but none of those actually get rid of nitrates. You need like specialized systems, like the reverse osmosis system to get rid of these nitrates. Um, you know, uh distillation will also get rid of it. But these little filters that you know you buy and you put in your fridge, you put in your homes, things like that, unless it's a reverse osmosis system, you those nitrates go right through.
SPEAKER_02So boiling the water, and and this is so common to hear on the news. Oh, we're on a boiling advisory, you know, and everybody's like, well, I'll just boil a little bit of water and I'll be fine. Boiling actually makes the nitrate concentrations worse.
SPEAKER_00That doesn't even surprise me.
SPEAKER_02Uh, because as the water evaporates, the nitrates stay behind. Right. And that increases that contamination level. Right. And I don't think people realize this. It's like, you know, this is a remedy. Oh, wait, but it's not the remedy for that. It could be the remedy for things like E. coli that could be in the water.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02Or, you know, some other critical, I don't know what the other levels are or the other things that they're looking for, but I do know that it does, you know, boiling the water does get rid of some of that stuff, any germs and and uh bacterial growth that make their way into it.
SPEAKER_00That from like a busted pipe or you know, an issue at the source of the water. Um, now let's talk about what these nitrates are doing and why this is actually making news in Iowa.
Cancer Risk Links And Iowa Rates
SPEAKER_00Iowa is it's at high risk for each of the most common cancers. We're talking breast cancer, prostate cancer, lung cancer, and lung and broke bronchus cancer, colorectal, and skin melanoma. Now, all of these are associated with nitrates, pesticides, pfAs, or radon in scientific literature.
SPEAKER_02But let's clarify this nitrates alone themselves do not directly cause cancer. They can convert into nitrates, you know, what happened is what happens is they into the bad nitrates, into the bad nitrates, which can react with what is it? Uh aminas, aminas or something like that in the stomach, and they form compounds, and those are considered to be carcinogenics and have been linked to an increase. Like I said earlier. Yeah. Yes. And so I just I just want, you know, I don't want any of our listeners to go, well, I nitrates don't cause cancer. When they link to other things, yes, they do.
SPEAKER_00It's not like just like the nitrates directed into your bloodstream, you know, fully are going to cause it. It's it's how it's broken down in the body and how the body absorbs it and the reabsorption of the nitrates in the city.
SPEAKER_02And how it, you know, because we're talking about what alters our cellular metabolic uh abilities and our and what damages our DNA. And we know that in Iowa, we have a high cancer rate.
SPEAKER_00Horribly high. Horribly high. It's what 10 10% higher than the national average for the six most common.
SPEAKER_02And that should concern people. And I don't care if you live in Iowa or not, there's a lot of stuff coming out of Iowa. Yeah, there's a lot of things produced. And this is this is not just for people over the age of 50. It's just Iowa, so let's not pick on just Iowa. But Iowa is a good thing. But this is concerning. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I mean, it's and it's not just people over the age of 50. It's not, you know, what I call the cancer generation. Once you reach a certain age, you you do have a higher risk of those cancers. People under the age of 50 is higher than the national average in Iowa. Yes.
SPEAKER_02And it's ridiculous. And so it does affect Iowans. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00Of all ages. Of all ages. And that's why this is making you know so much news. And Iowans are really worried about it because uh it's been going on, and the spike in it has just been insane lately.
PFAS Forever Chemicals Explained
SPEAKER_02So I want to go back to PFAs, and one way to identify those, and I don't care, I don't I don't know what the PFA stands for. Maybe you can look that up while I'm talking, Bobby. But it is considered a forever chemical. And the reason that it is considered a forever chemical is because there's synthetic chemicals that are contaminating the tap water at an estimate uh at an estimated level of 45% in the US. So just know that these PFAs, these forever chemicals, are tasteless and odorless. Um you have to test to detect them. Um again, exposure is linked to some very severe health risks. And you know, if you live in a town where you have water supplied for you, like we have some small towns. I don't know if your town has is it uh okay. So they're not not the town, but we have a town just north of us. I'm not gonna mention it, and they um they provide the town with water. Yeah, their issue isn't what's being provided to them, their issue has to do with antiquated pipes, has to do with lead pipes, right? And so like Michigan. Yeah, so these people are being told on a regular basis, oh, boil your water or do whatever. Right. Listen, if I'm paying for water to the city, what the hell am I doing your job for? Right.
SPEAKER_00I should be able to use it out of the tap.
SPEAKER_02Right, period. And I I think for the most part, especially in the you know, wealthiest country in the world, in the most prosperous country in the world, in what I would consider, you know, the the most forward thinking. Well, let's see. Wait, wait, wait, wait a minute, wait a minute. Let's pump the brakes. Let's pump the brakes on that. But you know, we're certainly capable of providing safe water for the people in the United States. And we're not.
SPEAKER_00So all right, you ready for me to slaughter this? Yes, go ahead. PFAs. Yes, they are per and polyfluoroacolyl substances.
SPEAKER_02Okay, also known as from forever chemicals. Yeah, because they they just don't go away.
SPEAKER_00It's called it's so they're a group of synthetic organofluoride chemical compounds. So that means that they have the multiple fluorine atoms attached to the alkalyl chains.
SPEAKER_02So you mentioned this earlier, you know, while the EPA and you know sets federal standards, right? Uh a lot of the states and local water supplies exceed those recommended health guidelines. And and it is due to aging infrastructure and you know, industrial runoff. And again, you know, I'm not I'm not trying to uh go after our farmers. I love our farmers, I love our ranchers, I love what we can do locally. I don't need big industry for any of that. Um but when you know seed uh for foods come from the big industries, which are pioneer, the cow stein, any of those, and that seed comes roundup ready. And the reason it's roundup ready is to keep the weeds down, to keep, you know, and and then of course pesticides are applied so that you can get a large crop to feed the people in the United States. We're going after the wrong people if we're going after the farmers, right? It has to be before the planting. It has to be before the planting. Absolutely. And so what's happening, and and I know this for a fact just because I know some farmers that have had have gotten skin cancer from the Roundup Ready, um, just handling their seeds and stuff. And you know, if it's that bad to even touch, and then you put it in the ground, and we end up eating that food or that water, you know, rain, it rains, that water gets run off into our water systems. What do y'all think is gonna happen?
SPEAKER_00Right. And it's not just us eating it. You have to understand that this can be passed on for generations. Even if we were like, let's say some whirlwind black hole opened and somebody came through and said, I can fix everything now. We have consumed so much that this will affect generations upon generations because we carry that in our DNA at this point. It's you know, we I don't know if anybody knows basic biology or anatomy. You know, when baby girls are born, they're born with the eggs, they're gonna have the rest of their lives. Well, when they're born, when they're in the mother's room. Whoom boom, if they're exposed to these nitrates and these PFAs, they're now in their body. Not only are they bot in they in their body, but now they're in the eggs that they will give birth to a generation later. So it's not just, you know, we can come in and magically wave a wand and fix it. This is a generational problem. And it's something that the faster that we do fix it, the less it's gonna have a lasting impact, you know. But um at the same time, what the hell
Generational Exposure And Des Moines Costs
SPEAKER_00are we doing? You know, Iowa has a nitrate facility in Des Moines, in Des Moines, right? Okay, because of the Des Moines and Raccoon Rivers. That's where we get our drinking water from.
SPEAKER_02And and I'm just gonna stop you right there because Bill Stowe, who passed away a few years ago, very good friend of mine. Oh, I love that man. Yeah, he I worked for him for uh a period of time, great attorney, and just a smart, smart cat, was one that tried to bring attention to this issue, kind of helped lead that entire um what do I want to say?
SPEAKER_00Infrastructure of the nitrate system.
SPEAKER_02I mean, he worked diligently to to just try to tell people listen, we have a problem here, right?
SPEAKER_00And he tried to raise the alarm generation to like two generations ago.
SPEAKER_02And Bill died, gosh, I think maybe five years ago of cancer.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And um, it's been maybe a little bit longer than that, but I think about five years ago. Great guy. And I'm not kidding you, he tried his best to just bring attention to this to get people to think about this. Now, listen, I'm not saying that it's every individual's uh, you know, it's not our fault individually, right? But I think that we can make a difference. Um, I think we need to educate ourselves based on, you know, what are the contaminants and where is that coming from? And what is it that we can do to help? I gotta be honest with you. A lot of these coalitions will get together and they'll go, well, if you'll just contribute money, if you'll just give money to the EPA, if you'll just give money to this foundation. Me giving more money is not gonna solve this issue. Um, what's gonna happen is we have to be heard in the Senate, we have to be heard in the legislature, we have to be heard, you know, in Washington that these things that are being allowed in the United States are killing us. Right. And we talk about this periodically. We've talked about the food and you know what goes into our food, and we've talked about makeup, and we've talked about skin care.
SPEAKER_00Well, and and it's not, it's not just I'm gonna crack a drink here. It is not it's gotten that bad, folks. It is not just you know what we're putting into our body. Here, here's the thing. You know, I watched a good documentary. I don't know if you've if you've heard of this one, it's called Rotten. And what it does is it dives into a lot of these topics that have come up lately. One of the things that they dove into was the water bottles. Oh, yeah. Water, what is it bottled water?
SPEAKER_02Is it PBAs? No, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00In the plastic oh, we're not talking about that. What we're talking about is the fact that these water companies, and I call them water companies because that's what they are. We're talking Nestle, you know, Aquafina, things like that. We spend so much money on bottled water in the United States that it could fix our water infrastructure problem if we just use that money to do that instead of buying freaking bottled water.
SPEAKER_01But then there goes your businesses, right? Your businesses are Nestle instead.
SPEAKER_00Guess what? They're gonna survive. Nestle is a multi-trillion dollar company that owns everything that I can honestly think of right now. Nestle has their hands. Freaking horrible, but you know, and we have the nitrate facility, like I was saying, but it can't even keep up. You know, in 2025, it it was turned on, and it averages a cost of sixteen thousand dollars per day to run this nitrate facility. It could not keep up.
SPEAKER_02So, Bobby, you know what I think we should do?
Finding Solutions Plus Listener Feedback
SPEAKER_02Um, you know Christine, and she is a major advocate in the state of Iowa. Actually, she's been an advocate uh throughout the United States and has driven some legislative uh changes in our water in the fines, things like that. Smart, smart cat when it comes to the water and what some of the problems are. And I'm wondering if we shouldn't reach out to her and see if she won't be on the show. I think we should. I think she brings up.
SPEAKER_00You're in an expert opinion, and I I would consider her a pretty good expert. Oh man, yeah.
SPEAKER_02I mean, I don't know if you've ever heard her speak, but she and she is constantly, constantly talking to the public about our water systems across, you know, across all 50 states, right, and what some of the standards are and how many states, you know, exceed those recommendations or you know, those recommended health guidelines. And she talks about, you know, what some of the problems are that are identified. Now, let's face it, the people who are talking about it, and I'm just gonna say this, don't have all the answers. Right. Right? You can't take farmers out of the system, right? You can't take our food out of the ground. You can't take, you know, I mean, there's certain things that we have to have to live. Whoops, sorry about that. There's certain things that we have to have to live, but I think that she would do a great job in uh, you know, helping us to understand and helping our listeners to better understand to see where we can make a difference.
SPEAKER_00So I think I think there is a solution. I don't think it's a a one size fits all solution, but I think that there are solutions, especially in places like Flint, Michigan and here in Iowa, uh, you know, dealing with with the problems that we're having. And I think that we should have, Ron, we should have definitely have an expert opinion.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I do too. And you know what? Um, Bobby, I think if any of our listeners have anything to say about it too, or if they have information, they should contact us, don't you?
SPEAKER_00I do. And uh that contact information would be a boomer and a gen Xer, or I'm sorry, a boomer and a gen Xer walk into a bar Facebook official page, or you can send us an email at boomerandgenxer at gmail.com. But listen, if you have hate mail about this water situation, well, send it to Nestle.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, how can anybody have hate mail about the water situation? There's gonna be somebody.
SPEAKER_00And you're stuck with us. Peace out later.