âEvery person in the U.S. has unregulated contaminants in their drinking water,â said Erik Olson, director of the Natural Resources Defense Councilâs health program. Already, there is talk on Capitol Hill of requiring additional studies of the chemicals, potentially through the annual defense authorization bill. But nearly all of those limits were set between 1986 and 1996, when Congress required the EPA to analyze and regulate chemicals at a steady clip. This includes drinking water on aircraft. In fact, access to safe water and improved hygiene and sanitation has the potential to prevent at least 9.1% of … Soon, researchers discovered that the toxic chemical had reached Lake Mead, the picturesque reservoir that supplies water to 25 million people in the American Southwest and irrigates the fields that grow the lionâs share of the nationâs winter produce. The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) was initiated in 1974. But that timeline proved overly ambitious. The state has gone from more than 3,000 systems in the 1970s to fewer than 800 systems in 2018. There is now a push to build economies of scale so small systems don’t have to go it alone. 104-182 2002 Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002 P.L. The US Food and Drug Administration sets quality standards for bottled water, but manufacturers are not required to report contaminant levels in their products to the public. (SDWA) was passed by Congress in 1974, with amendments added in 1986 and 1996, to protect our drinking water. 42 U.S.C. Nevertheless, for decades Americans have taken the safety of tap water for granted. Almost half a million people were told to avoid drinking, bathing or cooking with their tap water for a couple of days; 110 people got sick. Safe water is not necessarily pure, it has some impurities in it. While the basic science of perchlorateâs effect on the body is clear â it inhibits iodine uptake in the thyroid gland â what this actually means for human health is much more complicated. Consolidation Period: From July 21, 2020 to the e-Laws currency date. âThey have a ready playbook if they look at whatâs happened with perchlorate,â he said. Buying water at the market costs her about $30 a month on top of her roughly $130-a-month tap water bill – not to mention the time lost in making the weekly trips. 96-502 1986 Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments of 1986 P.L. If you use a well or other private source of water, you can hire someone to test it for you. The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) of 1974 was the first federal law mandating drinking-water standards for all public water systems, from big cities to roadside campgrounds. IN THE MEANTIME, new chemicals have captured the publicâs concern. They also argued that the studyâs short time frame could miss the chemicalâs long-term effects on people. The correct level is 2 parts per billion. And those chemicals were hardly the most widespread or worrisome ones. 1980 Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments P.L. But it took years for the agency to collect data about how widespread it was in drinking water supplies across the country. Congress enacted the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) in 1976, and in 1980 established the Superfund program, which focuses on cleaning up hazardous waste sites and so helps prevent drinking water supplies from becoming contaminated. THE SAFE DRINKING WATER ACT (SDWA) The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) is the key federal law for protecting public drinking water from harmful contaminants. The answer, according to her 2018 study, is clearly the former. That means that vulnerable populations would not know to take the few steps they can to reduce exposure, like not preparing infant formula with tap water containing perchlorate. Safe Drinking Water Act: EPA should improve implementation of requirements on whether to regulate additional contaminants. For drinking water managers, new regulations equal hefty new compliance costs â and political headaches, since they have to be paid for with rate hikes, which customers hate. The SDWA helps to identify the unregulated contaminants as the candidates for possible regulation. At the same time, bleach, which is widely used to clean food equipment and to disinfect produce, produces perchlorate when it degrades. And, in the early 20th century, the practice of filtering and disinfecting water began. As a result, the onus is generally on the government to prove that a chemical is dangerous before it can be regulated. Under the SDWA, EPA sets the standards for drinking water quality and monitors states, local authorities, and water suppliers who enforce those standards. And drinking water utilities are expressing concerns even about the health advisory that has been issued, arguing it is misunderstood by the public and did not get the level of expert input that it should have. Even people who take precautions like filtering their drinking water or buying bottled water are at risk, since perchlorate and many other chemicals arenât removed by common household filters. Minnesota grass-fed beef producer Duane Munsterteiger, right, adopted a number of water-protecting practices on his farm after his son, Tony, left, became ill with a type of respiratory infection that may be associated with nitrate contamination. But EPA staff experts, who were given just one week to review the panelâs study and weigh in with recommendations, raised major concerns that the panelâs recommendation didnât sufficiently protect infants, children and adults with health problems. At first, the county well water that flowed through her tap contained high levels of nitrate, a pervasive health hazard across the rural US, where nitrogen-rich fertilizer and livestock manure seep into groundwater. the growing crisis of water affordability, Troubled Water: What’s Wrong With What We Drink, database of certified drinking water testing laboratories, the Trump administration issued a new regulation, disproportionately affects small water systems. Further, … âEPA, since â96, has gone into the endless loop of first review, second review, third review, so that people in the drinking water office are really quite busy, but theyâre not breaking through this impasse of being able to set new regulations,â said Olga Naidenko, senior science adviser for the Environmental Working Group. In the meantime, there is no mandate that water utilities outside of California and Massachusetts test for the toxic chemical or let residents know when itâs in their tap water. Volunteers load cases of free water into waiting vehicles at a water distribution centre at Salem Lutheran Church in Flint, Michigan, in 2016. Meanwhile, during the years that the EPA spends studying contaminants to determine whether a regulation should be set, millions of people are continuing to be exposed. E coli in drinking water has caused deadly outbreaks. It was established to protect drinking water, in part, by setting legal limits – Maximum Contaminant Levels, or MCLs – for certain chemicals known or suspected to cause harm to human health. The river water was slightly more acidic – and therefore more corrosive – than Detroit’s water. The Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974 didn’t remain the same way for all the years to come. Legionella, the bacterium that causes Legionnaires’ disease, a type of pneumonia, offers a critical case in point. Most systems were ultimately adapted to supply water to commercial and residential properties. Safe Drinking Water Act, 2002. Last amendment: 2020, c. 18, Sched. In addition to drilling a new, deeper well to supply his home, Munsterteiger has also adopted a number of conservation practices in his farming such as using cover crops and rotating his cows to different parts of his land, which helps the soil, minimizing runoff, and reduces the nitrates that seep into the groundwater. Under the law, the EPA has set national limits for 89 dangerous chemicals, bacteria and viruses. But such consolidations don’t always go so smoothly. When buildings go unused for long periods of time stagnant water can become a breeding ground for the bacteria. The chemical prevents the thyroid from absorbing iodine, which the gland needs to produce hormones that are critical for brain development. The series is an editorial partnership between the Guardian, Consumer Reports and Ensia. The Safe Drinking Water Act. Further complicating the picture is the fact that perchlorate isnât just in water supplies: Itâs also in our food. And while the Trump administration has expressed a desire to pass a major infrastructure package, it has yet to put forth a proposal or describe how significant new investments would be paid for. An EPA official described these chemicals as âthe low-hanging fruit,â where a decision was easy because they are rarely found in water supplies, according to a 2011 report from a government watchdog. The way the governmentâs attempts to answer these questions played out show how science and politics can become inextricably intertwined. Theyâve been used in carpets, clothing, food packaging and cookware. EPA has established protective drinking water standards for more than 90 contaminants, including drinking water regulations issued since the 1996 amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act that strengthen public health protection. When farmer Duane Munsterteiger’s one-year-old son got sick with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in 1993, the idea that his family’s drinking water could be to blame didn’t cross his mind. The cost of removing contaminants or switching water supplies can easily run into the millions. Many people in the United States consume tap water without giving it a second thought. The safe drinking water must be delivered that is pure, wholesome, healthful and potable. Although the military and its contractors dispute the level at which harm occurs, the companies that used the perchlorate settled a cascade of lawsuits with California communities and residents as the extent of contamination came to light, paying tens of millions of dollars toward compensation and cleanup efforts. Many places, such as Newark, New Jersey, have since discovered dangerously high lead levels, too. NRDC has documented serious problems with our outdated and deteriorating water infrastructure, widespread violations and inadequate enforcement of the Safe Drinking Water Act … Just a few miles down the road from El Rancho is Tooleville. To issue a regulation, the EPA has to show that there is a “meaningful opportunity for health risk reductions” … Untreated water supplies had been sickening people with pathogens like typhoid and cholera. “A dab of chlorine might address microorganisms, but it does nothing about these synthetics,” he says. Safe Drinking Water Act Student’s Name Institution Affiliation Safe Drinking Water Act Strengths The Safe Drinking Water Act protects the quality of the United States drinking water, and this is to the great benefit of American public health. Public health advocates fear that EPAâs work to protect the public from PFOA and PFOS could be headed down the same path as perchlorate. NOTHING ILLUSTRATES THE uphill battle it takes to set a drinking water regulation more vividly than the 20-year saga over perchlorate â the only new chemical the federal government has even attempted to regulate in the past two decades. The group said an update planned for this summer found similar results. Due to the growing concern that the safety of our drinking water was being ignored, the federal government set the law in place, ensuring all drinking water be treated for contaminants and monitoring the pollution of drinking water. But subsequent tests of the water from his well found high levels of nitrates, which research suggests may raise the risk of respiratory infections such as RSV. It can cost a small water system a few thousand dollars annually to test for a chemical, only to find out the system doesnât have it, said Alan Roberson, executive director of the Association of Safe Drinking Water Administrators. Rather The sources of water aren’t properly utilized. Said Olson: "Itâs been, like, 20 years of banging my head against the wall.". Between 10% and 15% of Americans are on private wells or tiny water systems that serve fewer than 15 residences. The expectation of cheap, clean, plentiful drinking water at every tap has perhaps never been realistic â at least not at the prices customers want to pay. Meanwhile, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFASs – difficult-to-destroy chemicals widely used in nonstick pans, stain-resistant carpets and firefighting foam – have infiltrated major water supplies and grabbed headlines across the US as potential carcinogens and endocrine disruptors. That proposal would then have to go through a round of public comment before it could be finalized. While it never tasted bad, she recalls her water service provider instructing her not to drink it. This law focuses on all waters actually or potentially designed for drinking use, whether from above ground or underground sources. Joel Ducoste, a professor of civil, construction and environmental engineering at North Carolina State University, highlights one key challenge: Many of the emerging contaminants of concern for drinking water, such as PFAS, were previously unknown. It tested perchlorate on human subjects, tracking the chemicalâs effect on 37 healthy, non-pregnant adults over just a two-week period â an approach that raised not just ethical questions, but also concerns that it didnât actually capture the effects on pregnant women, children and people with certain medical conditions. Pallone and other Democrats blame the 1996 amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act, saying they took the EPAâs foot off the gas and posed new hurdles to setting regulations. “One of the miracles of the 20th century is that drinking water treatment decreased mortality, including from a host of afflictions people didn’t even realize were related to water,” says David Sedlak, an environmental engineer at the University of California, Berkeley. Pursuant to the act, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is required to set standards for drinking water quality and oversee all states, localities, and water suppliers that implement the standards.. And only chlorine-based disinfectants, including chloramine, provide large-scale residual protection from the drinking water treatment plant to the tap. The Defense Department and its contractors began pushing back immediately, promoting their own studies suggesting perchlorate wasnât nearly as dangerous as regulators thought. People who lived in rural, low-income areas seemed to be most at risk of exposure to contaminants linked to a range of health problems – from a bout of diarrhea to cognitive impairment or cancer. Flint had just switched its water source from the Detroit water and sewerage department to the Flint River. 2017. But two decades after the seriousness of the perchlorate problem began to come into focus, the federal government is still just studying the issue, and still years from setting a national standard for drinking water â if it ever sets one at all. This article provides a brief overview of this landmark legislation. Major amendments were made to the SDWA in 1986 and 1996. It also required a new and extensive review process for any new standards. And for virtually every contaminant in question there are powerful forces aligned against regulation. Here's why Washington isn't doing anything about it. Research has shown that the chemical is most harmful for women of childbearing age who are iodine-deficient â about a third of all women. It is primarily up to each state to implement and enforce those standards – or set and enforce their own more stringent standards. From coast to coast, people are starting to recognize the pervasiveness of potential problems and rally around efforts to make drinking water safe for all. “Urban infernos were a real concern,” says Greg Kail, director of communications for the American Water Works Association (AWWA), the largest trade group for water supply professionals. “We are ingesting, in micro quantities, a cocktail of chemicals all the time.”. But just five weeks after the National Academies recommendation was released, the EPA adopted it as its own. In the meantime, the EPA issued a draft risk assessment in 2002 that proposed 1 part per billion as the âhealth reference levelâ â the rule of thumb about a safe upper limit for the contaminant that the agency uses as it decides whether to regulate a chemical. “If you don’t have clean water, you have to go get some,” says Ramos, a farm worker and mother of four who lives in the neighboring Central Valley town of El Rancho. Tooleville, which is majority Latino, has been trying for years to connect its water system with that of the neighboring city of Exeter. Across the US, drinking water systems serving millions of people fail to meet state and federal safety standards. Under the Safe Drinking Water Act, the burden of proof is especially high. In recent years, it has been added to food packaging as a way of preventing static, after which studies showed that almost 75 percent of all food types were contaminated with the chemical. Plastics, pesticides and pathogens also fall on the long list of threats to safe drinking water. In Massachusetts, where a few communities had also discovered perchlorate pollution, the state set an even stricter standard of 2 parts per billion. Like perchlorate, people are exposed to that family of compounds from a number of sources, not just water. An algal bloom in a flood channel next to Silicon Beach in the Ballona Wetlands, Playa Vista, California. The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) protects the quality of US drinking water, to the great benefit of American public health. Congress passed the act in 1974, through which the EPA now sets minimum health-based … It was enacted as a result of a federal survey of large and small public drinking-water systems that revealed poor water quality was endangering public health. S.O. “We didn’t know it was there,” he says. In May 2010, EPA entered into an administrative order with the City requiring the City to meet a series of milestones to cover the Reservoir. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently issued a statement warning that exposure to high levels of PFAS might also suppress the immune system and raise the risk of infection with Covid-19. requires the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency— “Were there mini-Flints around the country, or was this a one-off event?” Allaire asks. Last year, after years of promises, the EPA issued a health advisory for the toxic chemicals. America’s water crisis is a one-year series of reports and investigations, which launched in June 2020, highlighting the inequality, poverty, pollution and commercial forces that are at the heart of the country’s water crisis. âEven if we were to regulate perchlorate with a standard in drinking water, are we really going to correct the public health issue?â asked Kevin Morley, manager of federal relations at the American Water Works Association. As a result, lead and other pollutants began to leach from the pipes that distribute water to the city’s residents. How much safety does the Safe Drinking Water Act really offer, he asked, if opponents can stave off regulation of something as alarming as jet fuel in drinking water for more than two decades? With our partners, we are investigating the growing crisis of water affordability, the growing concerns around contaminated water from a variety of contaminants, the problems with the rise of bottled water, and the politics around the push for change. The thrust of the fight: What level of perchlorate can be considered safe? “What we have is comparable to everyone on the interstate speeding and virtually no one being pulled over or getting tickets with any penalty.”. The scientific process has continued to be a fierce battleground for proponents and opponents of regulation, effectively stalling the regulatory process. “If you don’t have clean water, you have to go get some,” says Ramos, a farm worker and mother of four who lives in the neighboring Central Valley town of El Rancho. 2002, chapter 32. But Republicans who control both houses of Congress have shown little interest in revisiting the law, and have been advancing bills that would create a similarly complex process for all environmental regulations. “Every spring in the midwest, a pulse of atrazine comes off the fields. The effects of these substances on health are often indirect, and they can impact different populations in different ways. Chronic exposure to these byproducts has been linked in animal and epidemiological studies with liver, kidney and nervous system problems, as well as a potential increased risk of cancer. 100-572 1996 Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments of 1996 P.L. Nitrates may also indicate the possible presence of other more serious residential or agricultural contaminants such as bacteria or pesticides. John Mulholland. The Clean Water Act, in theory, regulates discharges into US waters and therefore protects sources of drinking water. The story of perchlorate is the story of how political pressure, scientific uncertainty and bureaucratic inertia can feed off one another to bring federal regulation to a halt. In 2015, the same year that the nation learned of Flint’s lead contamination, she found that about 21 million other people in the US were receiving water from utilities that violated the Safe Drinking Water Act. The EPA did not make its staff available for an interview for this story. Toxins produced by algae in Lake Erie fed by runoff from farms in the watershed shut down the Toledo, Ohio, drinking water system in the summer of 2014. “It was the most beautiful tasting water you’d ever want,” says Munsterteiger, of Ogilvie, Minnesota. The financial challenge became even greater last November, when she was laid off from her agricultural field work. It contains some traces of salts such as magnesium, calcium, carbonates, bicarbonates and others. Is perchlorate the only substance that causes these effects, or are other environmental factors at play, too? Contaminated drinking water disproportionately affects small water systems, which serve predominantly rural, low-income communities with relatively high percentages of people of color. In 2015, Flint, Michigan, made headlines when a change in its water supply exposed thousands of children to high levels of lead, a neurotoxic metal. And like perchlorate, powerful interests, including the military, could be on the hook for massive cleanups if the federal government institutes mandatory drinking water regulations. The CDC further referenced evidence from human and animal studies that PFAS could reduce response to vaccines – on top of posing a number of other health threats. How does the body respond to small levels versus larger amounts of perchlorate? It means kids won’t experience water-borne illnesses like typhoid. Excess fertilizer applications on farms also trigger major algal blooms that can contaminate drinking water. Instead, what existed was a patchwork of state- and local-level water regulations created to deal … This water source feeds our rivers and oceans and forms much of the world's supply of drinking water. But disinfection had a down side, too. Excess fertilizer applications on farms also trigger major algal blooms that can contaminate drinking water. Annie Snider writes about water policy for POLITICO Pro. It was 1997 when Californians began to worry in earnest about a chemical called perchlorate. In 2004, EPA randomly tested the drinking water on 327 U.S. and foreign flag aircraft from different airlines at 19 airports around the country. The nitrate and disinfection byproducts that worry Ramos represent a fraction of the many chemical and biological pollutants that find their way into drinking water systems through agricultural runoff, discharges from industry, ageing pipes and all the stuff that flushes down our toilets, sinks, showers and washing machines. The Natural Resources Defense Council filed a lawsuit last year in a bid to speed the process, and the EPA signed a consent decree agreeing to finalize the perchlorate regulation by the end of 2019. Cholera, typhoid and parasites, which kill tens of thousands of people around the world every year, have been virtually eliminated from the U.S., thanks to advances in water treatment. “Great progress was made,” says Sedlak. EPA staff experts were then told to come up with a rationale to support that decision, which was issued in 2008. Toxins are supposed to be managed under the Safe Drinking Water Act, the 1974 law that Congress passed after scientists discovered widespread contamination in American tap water. The 1996 update also added requirements for complex economic analyses to prove that the benefits of a new regulation justify the costs. The government watchdog report and internal documents obtained by the Natural Resources Defense Council under open records laws showed that the group held major sway over the entire process, ultimately brokering an agreement not to regulate the chemical â even before all of the relevant data had been collected. Kentucky has been a leader in water system consolidation. âThe question is, are we really allocating limited public resources to the actual public health effect?â. Advances in technology and science have shown that long-used chemicals can spread more than previously though, and can present dangers at even low levels. Are some people more susceptible than others to the harms? Ramos can’t be sure dirty water was to blame, but she is suspicious and continues to buy bottled water for drinking and cooking. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of new chemicals have come into use, with more than 85,000 now on the market. The degree of purity and safety is a relative term and debatable. There's perchlorate in this reservoir. Industries want to see clearly settled science about the risks and alternate options before the government issues a new regulation, and that has essentially become the bar under the Safe Drinking Water Act. âUnder new leadership, the EPA has made clear it is getting back to its core mission, which includes protecting Americaâs drinking water,â EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman said in the statement. Now, more than six years later, the agency is still many steps from finalizing a standard for perchlorate. Safe drinking water is critical to the development of a healthy child. A 2009 database of state monitoring results compiled by the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit that focuses on environmental health issues, found more than 300 contaminants in tap water across 45 states, nearly two-thirds of which were unregulated. Millions more Americans may be drinking unsafe water without anyone knowing because limits set by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are too high, the contaminants it contains are unregulated or their drinking water source is too small to fit under EPA regulations. In the 1970s, researchers discovered that a commonly used disinfectant, chlorine, could produce harmful byproducts under some circumstances. 300f et seq.) For example, atrazine has been associated with low birth weight in babies. Healthier kids? Neglected tropical diseases like schistosomiasis and Guinea worm disease can be reduced almost 80% with improved hygiene, sanitation, and safe water access 3. That risk assessment drew an outcry from federal agencies, including the Defense Department, NASA and the Department of Energy, which would all face massive cleanup requirements if 1 part per billion became the regulatory standard. “By and large, water quality in the US is some of the best in the world,” says Maura Allaire, a water economist at the University of California, Irvine. It's important to note that American drinking water is still much cleaner than water in many other parts of the world. As mentioned earlier, the Safe Drinking Water Act was amended in 1986 as well as 1996. Some states are stepping up to fill in the gaps. Congress enacted the SDWA in 1974 after nationwide studies of community water systems revealed widespread water quality problems and health risks from poor operating procedures, The key piece of legislation protecting drinking water, however, is the Safe Drinking Water Act. “H.R.1068 – Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments of 2017.” 115th U.S. Congress ↑ EPA. Pathogens remain a serious issue, too. In the past two decades, the agency has listed hundreds of chemicals as priority concerns, a first step under the law, but has made final decisions about whether to issue a regulation on only 24 of them â all but one being decisions not to regulate. “Nine out of 10 violations don’t face any formal enforcement action by the state or federal government,” says Erik Olson, senior strategic director for health and food at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The rest of the country relies on community water systems – upwards of an astounding 50,000 in total. Even in trace amounts, perchlorate can be dangerous, especially for pregnant women and young children. (An estimated 20% of private wells, which fall outside EPA regulation, have contaminants that exceed EPA standards.) The complex, far-reaching shortcomings include poor and unaccountable decisions by public officials as well as deficiencies in the Safe Drinking Water Act … However, about 20- 25 % of our people are still deprived of safe drinking water. Meanwhile, the decision about whether perchlorate warranted federal regulation was also taken out of the hands of EPA staff experts by the George W. Bush administration. “But I think the more we study water supplies and the more stress that’s put on existing water supplies, the more problems we discover.” The EPA lists about 86,000 chemicals in its TSCA Chemical Substance Inventory – a number of which could find their way into our water in some way or another.