Contaminated Drinking Water – in America?

On Dec 17^th, the New York Times published an article that was seriously alarming. It seems that American tap water can not be trusted to be free from cancer and disease causing chemicals – even though it complies with current regulations. The problem is that the 35-year-old federal law regulating tap water is so out of date that the vast majority of chemicals now found in our drinking water have either not been evaluated for human safety or are not currently regulated at all.

Only 91 contaminants are presently regulated, yet more than 60,000 chemicals are used within the United States, according to Environmental Protection Agency estimates. Scientists who have independently reviewed thousands of these chemicals consider many of them to present serious health risks. What’s even worse, is that current research about chemicals that are presntly regulated have been found to be far more hazardous to our health than was originally thought. Now we know that the levels that are legal for some of these contaminants are actually lethal – in terms of increasing people’s risk for life threatening diseases, birth defects and other serious conditions. In fact, many of the standards for those chemicals have not been updated since the 1980s, and some haven’t been updated since the Safe Drinking Water Act was passed in 1974.

Some of the most hazardous chemicals found in our drinking water include: Arsenic, Chromium, Perc and Uranium. Arsenic is a naturally occurring metal that is used extensively in industries such as electronics and processing wood. It has recently been found to be far more toxic than originally estimated, yet nothing has been done to limit it’s presence in our water. Chromium is used in the production of metal alloys and can degrade into hexavalent chromium. Remember the Erin Brockovitch story with Julia Roberts? This is the stuff that caused all those cancers in Hinkley. It is estimated that as much as 80% of the chromium in our water is hexavalent chromium, a known carcinogen.

Perc is a dry cleaning chemical and is used in cleaning machinery in factories. Uranium is a radioactive element that is naturally occurring in most rocks but leaches into our water supply through power generation and weapons manufacturing plants. These are just a minute sample of what’s in our water that shouldn’t be and it begs the question of what our regulatory agencies are doing, if not keeping us safe?

It should be said that the water supply system throughout the United States is not homogenous. You’ll find more of certain chemicals in certain geographic areas that are closer to various industries, including pesticide runoff in agricultural areas. The bottom line is, if you drink tap water, use a water filter and change it regularly. If you drink bottled water go online and see if they actually filter it. The USA is still very reliant on coal and coal is the single largest polluter of our air, water and land. It may be cheap, but now when the cost of health care for all the long term diseases related to its use are considered.

If you want more details, call the BCWA (Bristol County Water Authority) and ask for the Consumer Confidence Report for the last year recording all the detected toxic pollutants in our water supply. Their number is: 401 245 2022 x19  (www.bcwa-ri.com Note: This web address did not work with a Safari browser)

To read the NY Times article series in full:

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2009/12/17/us/17water_graphic.htm

The NPR host Terry Gross conducted an audio radio interview which I highly recommend. It runs about 30 minutes:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113927993