Environmental Working Group (EWG) expressed their concerns about contaminants in drinking water that have not been regulated in Safe Water Drinking Act (1974) because the list of regulated chemicals hasn’t been updated since 1996; the concentration of the contaminants given by EPA should have been lower for some substances. Based on the study of EWG, over half of the unique contaminants were found in water facilities, and these contaminants are found hazardous for human health. The risk EWG is worrying about the most is exposure to chemical contaminants causing chronic diseases. These contaminants are carcinogens, mutagens, teratogens, endocrine disruptors, etc. However, the water in these facilities are still considered safe under SWDA. Compared
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The policies and regulations EPA carries out are very result-oriented. That being said, EPA is not going to add new regulations before certain substances are proven to be inimical to public health because drinking water system includes tens of thousands of facilities nationwide. The cost of meeting new standards could be staggering for many public water facilities: expense for hiring personnel to test the water and to treat the water, the expense for treatment process and monitoring the water quality regularly, the cost of maintaining the level of water quality, etc. Thus EPA has a Contaminant Candidate List (CCL) for further decision-making. CCL is solicited from and relies on the public participation of monitoring water quality (EPA 2017). I was wondering if this is also a factor that caused EPA has not updated the contaminant info and regulations. If the general public did not detect any abnormality of the water quality solely based on taste, color and odor like National Secondary Drinking Water Regulation stated (EPA 2017), EPA would have little way to know if the water quality is hazard-free, and usually, the contaminants could be tasteless, colorless or odorless but still harm human health. Some contaminants might lead to chronic diseases that are hard to be reported and kept track of (Heiderscheidt
The policies and regulations EPA carries out are very result-oriented. That being said, EPA is not going to add new regulations before certain substances are proven to be inimical to public health because drinking water system includes tens of thousands of facilities nationwide. The cost of meeting new standards could be staggering for many public water facilities: expense for hiring personnel to test the water and to treat the water, the expense for treatment process and monitoring the water quality regularly, the cost of maintaining the level of water quality, etc. Thus EPA has a Contaminant Candidate List (CCL) for further decision-making. CCL is solicited from and relies on the public participation of monitoring water quality (EPA 2017). I was wondering if this is also a factor that caused EPA has not updated the contaminant info and regulations. If the general public did not detect any abnormality of the water quality solely based on taste, color and odor like National Secondary Drinking Water Regulation stated (EPA 2017), EPA would have little way to know if the water quality is hazard-free, and usually, the contaminants could be tasteless, colorless or odorless but still harm human health. Some contaminants might lead to chronic diseases that are hard to be reported and kept track of (Heiderscheidt