Tap water in 42 states is contaminated
with more than 140 unregulated chemicals that lack safety
standards, according
to the Environmental Working Group's (EWG's) two-and-a-half
year investigation of water suppliers' tests of the treated
tap water served to communities across the country.
In an analysis of more than 22 million
tap water quality tests, most of which were required
under the federal Safe
Drinking Water Act, EWG found that water suppliers across
the U.S. detected 260 contaminants in water served to the
public. One hundred forty-one (141) of these detected chemicals — more
than half — are unregulated; public health officials
have not set safety standards for these chemicals, even
though millions drink them every day.
EWG's
analysis also found over 90 percent compliance with enforceable
health standards on the part of the nation's water utilities,
showing a clear commitment to comply with safety standards
once they are developed. The problem, however, is EPA's failure
to establish enforceable health standards and monitoring
requirements for scores of widespread tap water contaminants.
Of the 260 contaminants detected in tap water from 42 states,
for only 114 has EPA set enforceable health limits (called
Maximum Contaminant Levels, or MCLs), and for 5 others the
Agency has set non-enforceable goals called secondary standards.
(EPA 2005a). The 141 remaining chemicals without health-based
limits contaminate water served to 195,257,000 people in
22,614 communities in 42 states.
EWG acquired tap water testing data from state water offices,
which collect it from drinking water utilities to fulfill
their role as primary enforcement agents. EPA does not maintain
a comprehensive, national tap water quality database. Instead,
the Agency sets safety standards for contaminants based on
partial information, from test data it gathers from select,
representative states and water suppliers. EWG will be making
its data available to the EPA, state authorities and water
utilities.
The statistics reported here represent an underestimate
of the scope of consumers' exposures to unregulated contaminants
in the nation's tap water. The state records we have compiled
contain no tests whatsoever on unregulated contaminants for
fully 23% of the 39,751 water systems represented, and EPA
has required testing, in limited surveillance programs, for
just a fraction of the hundreds of unregulated tap water
contaminants identified in peer-reviewed studies. Some unregulated
contaminants were found in the tap water of hundreds of communities,
while others were found in very few; some were detected at
levels of health concern, while others were not. These differences
in the scale and magnitude of exposures can guide priorities
when EPA assesses potential mandatory safety standards for
these chemicals:
Of the 141 unregulated contaminants found in tap water,
40 were detected in tap water served to at least one million
people. while 20 unregulated contaminants were detected in
just one system, only one time.
Nineteen unregulated contaminants were detected
above health-based limits (EPA 2004b) in tap water served
to at least 10,000
people. Forty-eight unregulated contaminants were not detected
above health-based limits anywhere, and seventy lack health-based
limits, which have yet to be developed by EPA.
The Agency
has fallen short in efforts both to require the testing
that would reveal what pollutants are in tap
water
supplies, and to set health-based standards for those
that are found. EPA has ignored three mandatory Safe Drinking
Water Act deadlines to set standards for unregulated
contaminants
(EPA 2001a). Nearly twenty percent of the contaminants
that EPA is currently considering for regulation have
been under
study at the Agency for 17 years now, beginning with
testing programs initiated in 1988 (EPA 2001b, 2005b).
The agency has also failed to act on its own information
showing that increased testing is justified. EPA has required
water suppliers to test tap water for approximately 200 unregulated
contaminants over the past 30 years (EPA 2001b, 2001c, 2005c,
FR 1996 - details). But the Agency's own scientists have
identified 600 chemicals in tap water formed as by-products
of disinfection (Richardson 1998, 1999a,b, 2003); tracked
some 220 million pounds of 650 industrial chemicals discharged
to rivers and streams each year (EPA 2003); and spearheaded
research on emerging contaminants after the U.S. Geological
Survey found 82 unregulated pharmaceuticals and personal
care product chemicals in rivers and streams across the country
that provide drinking water for millions of Americans (Kolpin
et al. 2004, EPA 2005d). All told, EPA has set safety standards
for fewer than 20 percent of the many hundreds of chemicals
that it has identified in tap water.
Read
the rest of the report here.
