Trump's 'world-class' golf club has toxic chemicals in its drinking water

Donald Trump constantly brags about his hotel and golf properties, including to foreign leaders. However, those properties are often less than appealing when you scratch the surface. The latest problem, at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, is toxic tap water.

The Environmental Working Group, a nonpartisan environmental nonprofit, issued a press release Tuesday about the water quality at Trump National. Trump National is served by one of the hundreds of water systems in New Jersey contaminated with high levels of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and other perfluorinated chemicals (PFAS). Those toxic chemicals show up in tap water at Trump National at alarming rates.

It’s all the more alarming because Trump frequently holds official events there. He calls the Bedminster property the “Summer White House.” The club’s website boasts that it is a “world-class private club” and wedding venue. Trump has hosted dinners with high-powered business leaders at the club, and in advance of the 2017 U.N. Assembly, indicated he would host world leaders there. Earlier this year, Trump had a fundraising dinner there. In 2017, the club hosted the U.S Women’s Open golf tournament.

And everyone is drinking water with elevated levels of PFOA and PFAS.

PFOA and PFAS chemicals don’t break down in the environment — or the human body — meaning they stay there forever and continue to accumulate. The Environmental Protection Agency has acknowledged that those chemicals have been shown to cause “reproductive and developmental, liver and kidney, and immunological effects in laboratory animals” and have caused tumors in animals as well. There are also smaller studies that show that exposure to PFOA and PFAS can result in lower infant birth weights and cancer. However, although the agency issues “Drinking Water Health Advisories” about levels of PFOA and PFAS in water systems, it has thus far declined to set a limit on these chemicals.

There’s an easy fix for locations served by these contaminated water systems — basically what EWG calls a “big Brita filter.” Thus far, though, the club hasn’t adopted such a thing.

Dirty water isn’t the only problem the Trump properties face. Pools at his Florida properties are so filthy they have been shut down 10 times. When health care inspectors visited Mar-a-Lago, they cited the club for multiple kitchen safety violations, including finding sushi fish “ready for consumption without the obligatory treatment for parasites.” His Doral hotel — which he has twice floated as a site for the G-7 gathering of world leaders — has been plagued by bedbugs.

Clearly, the Trump Organization simply isn’t interested in spending the money to keep Trump properties free of dirty water, dirty pools, dirty kitchens, and dirty rooms.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.