Government Not Protecting Public Water Supplies

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeBy Tom Ribe

Outdated Water Laws Put Public at Risk

In 1974, Congress passed a law to protect the public from contaminated drinking water. Congress recognized that drinking water could carry any number of chemicals or bacteria and that federal oversight was needed to keep people safe from chemicals that could cause cancer or other serious health problems. The Safe Drinking Water Act was born.

Every public water system in the United States feeds water to the public from wells or rivers. While some of that water is very pure, much of it picks up chemical contamination either from natural sources like rock, or from chemicals discharged by industry. Another law, the Clean Water Act, is meant to regulate what chemicals can be discharged into rivers and streams by industry and in what quantities.

Public water systems have filters on them to remove silt and some chemical and biological hazards before the water is put in the pipes. The federal Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) tells cities and towns what chemicals must be removed based on research done by scientists. Since it is impossible to remove chemicals entirely, the Act tells water utilities how much of a chemical must be removed. The safe levels are called "standards" and they are set by scientists who gather health information for the Environmental Protection Agency.

When the SDWA was passed, the law told the Environmental Protection Agency to study contaminants found in drinking water, determine what standards should be set for them according to research on human health, and the agency would establish regulations telling water utilities to remove dangerous chemicals from public water supplies.

Yet this system of study and regulation has not worked. According to the New York Times and a non profit organization called The Environmental Working Group there are 60,000 chemicals in American water systems yet only 91 of those are regulated by the SDWA. 335 chemicals found in American drinking water are known to cause cancer or other serious health problems yet they are unregulated.

When scientists find chemicals like arsenic or bromates in water systems, they work to figure out what levels of those chemicals are safe for the public to drink. Then they recommend that a chemical be removed from drinking water using huge filters at water utilities. But filtering out chemicals can be expensive and the industries that produce chemicals, even as waste, don't like to have them regulated and they don't like the public to know that they are dangerous since it puts companies in a bad light.

Thus in 2000 when scientists tried to have arsenic (for example), a know carcinogen, removed from water, there was heavy lobbying by industry to stop regulation. Water utilities complained that the filters to remove arsenic would be too expensive for cities to afford. The lobbying worked and arsenic is still in our drinking water at higher levels that scientists know is good for us.

The Environmental Protection Agency has recently worked to protect agency scientists from intimidation by industry or politicians so they can produce honest science on chemical hazards. The EPA continues to propose regulations to protect the public from chemicals and pathogens in water but they also continue to meet resistance that prevents government from putting regulations in force and removing contaminants from water.

To find out what's in your city's water supply click here.

Unfortunately, despite well meaning laws and good people in government, the Clean Drinking Water Act is not protecting the public water supply. Because of this, its critical that people protect themselves by installing the best water filtration system you can on your home water supply. Click the link below to learn about affordable home water filtration systems.

To find out about excellent and affordable home water purification systems go to: http://pure-safe-clean-water.com/

Tom Ribe writes on science, nutrition and the environment.

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