In a new, peer reviewed study, researchers report that drinking water in California may contain cancer causing particles. But if you live in California, it’s important not to get overly worried. In other words, this is no call to stockpile bottled water and avoid your water supply. But there are a few things you can look for if you want to better understand the safety of your water supply.
“The drinking water supply in the US is probably the safest in the world,” says Dr. Rich Pepino, Deputy Director or Community Outreach and Engagement Core at the University of Pennsylvania Center of Excellence in Environmental Toxicology. “You never hear a person coming to the united states and hearing don't drink the water,” he says. Dr. Pepino also used to work for the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
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- Arsenic
The report about California drinking supplies also talked about arsenic found in the water. Arsenic is a known carcinogen. The current drinking water standard for arsenic, derived from the 1992 Clean Water Act, says that arsenic cannot surpass 0.010 mg/L.
- Endocrine Disruptors
The report about California drinking water also included something called “hexavalent chromium.” hexavalent chromium is an “endocrine disruptor,” or a chemical that can intervene with the endocrine system when ingested at some levels, according to Dr. Pepino. Hexavalent chromium usually comes from industrial sites, whose byproducts get into the ground water supply, and subsequently into lakes and streams where water is collected. The EU is far more robust in it’s practices for filtering out endocrine disruptors, but purification plants in the United states don’t purify for them as frequently. With endocrine disruptors, the risk is usually for hormone sensitive cancers in women, and prostate cancer in men.
According to Dr. Pepino, exposure to any of these products through the drinking water supply can, individually or cumulatively lead to risk of taking in a carcinogen. But, he says, the United States is still one of the best places for drinking water supplies.
One of the areas of water supply management that often gets overlooked is smaller wells and rural water supplies, which operate on loopholes in the Clean Water Act, and often as a result don’t reach the required standards.
The quality of our drinking water, he says, can ironically be part of the problem — because our drinking water is so good, manufacturers are hesitant to change the processes by which we clean water, under the theory, “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it.” In a lot of cases, this has been a really good practice, but it also means that we do sometimes meet resistance when there may be a need to modify purification practices.
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