NY Times: Millions of Americans drink unhealthy yet legal tap water

>62 million exposed since 2004

Vilas Bhuchar, Dec 17, 09.

The Safe Drinking Water Act, a 35-year old federal law regulating tap water, is so out of date that the water Americans drink can pose what scientists say are serious health risks and still be legal, according to The New York Times.

(In a related Houston Tomorrow story, Houston ranks #95 out of 100 on a Big City Water Ratings list).

The article elaborates on its findings:

Only 91 contaminants are regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act, yet more than 60,000 chemicals are used within the United States, according to Environmental Protection Agency estimates. Government and independent scientists have scrutinized thousands of those chemicals in recent decades, and identified hundreds associated with a risk of cancer and other diseases at small concentrations in drinking water, according to an analysis of government records by The New York Times.

But not one chemical has been added to the list of those regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act since 2000.

Other recent studies have found that even some chemicals regulated by that law pose risks at much smaller concentrations than previously known. However, many of the act’s standards for those chemicals have not been updated since the 1980s, and some remain essentially unchanged since the law was passed in 1974.

All told, more than 62 million Americans have been exposed since 2004 to drinking water that did not meet at least one commonly used government health guideline intended to help protect people from cancer or serious disease, according to an analysis by The Times of more than 19 million drinking-water test results from the District of Columbia and the 45 states that made data available.

In some cases, people have been exposed for years to water that did not meet those guidelines.

But because such guidelines were never incorporated into the Safe Drinking Water Act, the vast majority of that water never violated the law.

Finally, the story also notes that public officials trying to go above and beyond legal requirements can face resistance from the very residents they’re trying to protect. For instance, the story documents a Los Angeles case in which a water system official used plastic balls to block the sun from converting a reservoir’s chemicals into compounds associated with cancer. Nearby homeowners, however, tried to prevent him from doing it since the water didn’t violate the law.

Full story
Environmental Working Group - Big City Water Ratings
Drinking Water Quality Report - City of Houston Public Works

(Photo credit: adebⓞnd)