DHMO in your tap water

Florida country radio morning-show hosts Val St. John and Scott Fish are currently serving indefinite suspensions and possibly worse over a successful April Fools' Day prank. They told their listeners that "dihydrogen monoxide" was coming out of the taps throughout the Fort Myers area. Dihydrogen monoxide is water.

The popular deejays are mainly in all this trouble (potentially of a felony level) because their listeners panicked so much — about the molecular makeup of their drinking water, however unwittingly — that Lee County utility officials had to issue a county-wide statement calming the fears of chemistry challenged Floridians.

Audio evidence of exactly how St. John and Fish executed this bad joke remains scarce, as they were pulled off the air around 8:30 a.m. — about three and half hours into their Val and Scott in the Morning show on WWGR/Gator Country 101.9 FM, which airs across a big region of Southwest Florida. That was enough time for listeners to begin calling the water company. Here's the official statement from Lee County utility issued Monday after fielding many calls about the "dihydrogen monoxide" scare:



"They were joking that 'dihydrogen monoxide' was coming out of Lee County residents' taps," reports Florida's WPTV, though it also remains unclear just how much the two hosts stoked the joke, and whether they actually told people to stop drinking the "dihydrogen monoxide" coming out of their taps. The WWGR station's manager did have to issue a retraction — or at least a constant on-air admission that the gag was, in fact, a joke — even though St. John and Fish were technically correct that dihydrogen monoxide was, indeed, coming out of their taps.

"Every break we have we're telling listeners it was a goof, a bad joke," Tony Renda, general manager at WWGR radio told WTSP-TV. And apparently, the station, the water works, and perhaps the authorities are still trying to figure out if the two hosts could face felony charges for, again, reporting that the scientific name of water was coming out of the pipes. "My understanding is it is a felony to call in a false water quality issue," Diane Holm, a public information officer for Lee County, told WTSP, while Renda stood firm about his deejays: "They will have to deal with the circumstances."

St. John and Fish are currently off the air, and maybe someone should tell their Senator, Marco Rubio — he of the unending water joke — or conservative lawmakers across the land: Our CPAC correspondent Elspeth Reeve tells us that the whole water-is-a-chemical-called-"dihydrogen oxide" bit was a really hit at the annual conference's panel entitled "How I Learned to Stop Worrying & Love Plastic Water Bottles, Fracking, Genetically Modified Food, & Big Gulp Sodas."

Update, 4:36 p.m. Eastern: We noticed that the station seems to be enjoying this controversy, despite the very real concerns expressed to the Lee County utility. There's a poll on the Gator Country website asking when the two DJs should return to air, with (at the time we viewed the results) 78 percent of those voting "never."

Update, Wednesday: St. John and Fish were back on the air Wednesday, and officials with the local health department tell The Atlantic Wire that felony charges are not expected.

Lol panic? Why didnt they look up the word. Retards are retards.

Public efforts involving DHMO


In 1989, Eric Lechner, Lars Norpchen and Matthew Kaufman circulated a Dihydrogen Monoxide contamination warning on the University of California, Santa Cruz Campus via photocopied fliers.[23] The concept originated one afternoon when Kaufman recalled a similar warning about "Hydrogen Hydroxide" that had been published in his mother's hometown paper, the Durand (Michigan) Express, and the three then worked to coin a term that "sounded more dangerous". Lechner typed up the original warning flier on Kaufman's computer, and a trip to the local photocopying center followed that night.
In 1994, Craig Jackson created a web page for the Coalition to Ban DHMO.[11]
The Friends of Hydrogen Hydroxide was created by Dan Curtis Johnson partly as a foil on the Coalition page, to provide evidence of 'misguided' supporters of dihydrogen monoxide. This form of collaborative connivance is a classic tool of internet spoofers.[24]
In 1997, Nathan Zohner, a 14-year-old junior high student at Eagle Rock Junior High School in Idaho Falls, Idaho, gathered 43 votes to ban the chemical, out of 50 people surveyed among his classmates. Zohner received the first prize at Greater Idaho Falls Science Fair for analysis of the results of his survey.[6] In recognition of his experiment, journalist James K. Glassman coined the term "Zohnerism" to refer to "the use of a true fact to lead a scientifically and mathematically ignorant public to a false conclusion."[25]
In 1998, drawing inspiration from Jackson's web page and Zohner's research, Tom Way created a website at DHMrg, including links to some legitimate sites such as the Environmental Protection Agency and National Institutes of Health.
On April 1, 1998 (April Fools' Day), a member of the Australian Parliament announced a campaign to ban dihydrogen monoxide internationally.[26]
In 2001 a staffer in New Zealand Green Party MP Sue Kedgley's office responded to a request for support for a campaign to ban dihydrogen monoxide by saying she was "absolutely supportive of the campaign to ban this toxic substance". This was criticised in press releases by the National Party[citation needed], one of whose MPs fell for the very same hoax six years later.[27]
In 2002, radio talkshow host Neal Boortz mentioned on the air that the Atlanta Water System had been checked and found to be contaminated with dihydrogen monoxide, and set about relating the hazards associated with that “dangerous” chemical. A local TV station even covered the 'scandal'. A spokesperson for the city’s water system told the reporter that there was no more dihydrogen monoxide in the system than what was allowed under the law. [28]
The idea was used for a segment of an episode of the Penn & Teller show Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, in which actress Kris McGaha and a camera crew gathered signatures from people considering themselves "concerned environmentalists" to sign a petition to ban DHMO.[29]
In March 2004, Aliso Viejo, California almost considered banning the use of foam containers at city-sponsored events because dihydrogen monoxide is part of their production. A paralegal had asked the city council to put it on the agenda; he later attributed it to poor research.[30] The law was pulled from the agenda before it could come to a vote, but not before the city received a raft of bad publicity.[6]


Danger sign in Louisville, Kentucky
In 2006, in Louisville, Kentucky, David Karem, executive director of the Waterfront Development Corporation, a public body that operates Waterfront Park, wished to deter bathers from using a large public fountain. "Counting on a lack of understanding about water's chemical makeup," he arranged for signs reading: "DANGER! – WATER CONTAINS HIGH LEVELS OF HYDROGEN – KEEP OUT" to be posted on the fountain at public expense.[31][32]
Several online petitions to the British Prime Minister on this subject have been correctly identified by the Prime Minister's office as hoaxes, and rejected.[33]
In 2007 Jacqui Dean, New Zealand National Party MP, fell for the hoax, writing a letter to Associate Minister of Health Jim Anderton asking "Does the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs have a view on the banning of this drug?"[27][34][35]
On April 1, 2010, Canadian Member of Parliament Andrew Scheer used the DHMO hoax as the basis for an April Fool's Day "media release" on his web site, in which he claimed to have tabled a bill to ban the substance from all federal government buildings.[36]
In February 2011, during the campaign of the Finnish parliamentary election, a voting advice application asked the candidates whether the availability of "hydric acid also known as dihydrogen monoxide" should be restricted. 49% of the candidates answered on behalf of the restriction.[37]
In April 2013, two presenters at Gator Country 101.9, a radio station in Lee County, Florida told listeners dihydrogen monoxide was coming out of their water taps as part of an April Fool's Day hoax and were suspended indefinitely by the station's general manager, Tony Renda. Renda later told NewsPress: "It is one thing when radio stations change their format or other crazy things they do. But you are messing with one of the big three, food, water or shelter. They just went too far; I just knew I didn’t like that."[38] The prank resulted in several calls by consumers to the local utility company, which sent out a release stating that the water was safe.[39]