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More than 140 contaminants with no enforceable safety limits found in the nation’s drinking water

Utilities need more money to monitor for contaminants

and protect source waters

Environmental Working Group

December 20, 2005

Executive Summary

Tap water in 42 states is contaminated with more than 140 unregulated chemicals that lack safety standards, according to the Environmental Working Group’s (EWG’s) two-and-a-half year investigation of water suppliers’ tests of the treated tap water served to communities across the country.

In an analysis of more than 22 million tap water quality tests, most of which were required under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, EWG found that water suppliers across the U.S. detected 260 contaminants in water served to the public. One hundred forty-one (141) of these detected chemicals — more than half — are unregulated; public health officials have not set safety standards for these chemicals, even though millions drink them every day.

In an analysis of more than 22 million tap water quality tests, most of which were required under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, EWG found that water suppliers across the U.S. detected 260 contaminants in water served to the public. One hundred forty-one (141) of these detected chemicals — more than half — are unregulated; public health officials have not set safety standards for these chemicals, even though millions drink them every day.

Source: EWG analysis of water utility test data for 1998-2003, compiled and provided to EWG by state drinking water offices.

Note: EPA has set enforceable safety standards (called Maximum Contaminant Levels, or MCLs) for 80 chemicals or chemical groups, which are present in tap water tests analyzed by EWG as 114 individual chemicals or chemical variants called isomers. EPA has also established 15 guidelines called National Secondary Drinking Water Regulations (NSDWRs), five of which are represented in tap water tests analyzed by EWG.

EWG’s analysis also found over 90 percent compliance with enforceable health standards on the part of the nation’s water utilities, showing a clear commitment to comply with safety standards once they are developed. The problem, however, is EPA’s failure to establish enforceable health standards and monitoring requirements for scores of widespread tap water contaminants. Of the 260 contaminants detected in tap water from 42 states, for only 114 has EPA set enforceable health limits (called Maximum Contaminant Levels, or MCLs), and for 5 others the Agency has set non-enforceable goals called secondary standards. (EPA 2005a). The 141 remaining chemicals without health-based limits contaminate water served to 195,257,000 people in 22,614 communities in 42 states.

EWG acquired tap water testing data from state water offices, which collect it from drinking water utilities to fulfill their role as primary enforcement agents. EPA does not maintain a comprehensive, national tap water quality database. Instead, the Agency sets safety standards for contaminants based on partial information, from test data it gathers from select, representative states and water suppliers. EWG will be making its data available to the EPA, state authorities and water utilities.

The statistics reported here represent an underestimate of the scope of consumers’ exposures to unregulated contaminants in the nation’s tap water. The state records we have compiled contain no tests whatsoever on unregulated contaminants for fully 23% of the 39,751 water systems represented, and EPA has required testing, in limited surveillance programs, for just a fraction of the hundreds of unregulated tap water contaminants identified in peer-reviewed studies. Some unregulated contaminants were found in the tap water of hundreds of communities, while others were found in very few; some were detected at levels of health concern, while others were not. These differences in the scale and magnitude of exposures can guide priorities when EPA assesses potential mandatory safety standards for these chemicals:

* Of the 141 unregulated contaminants found in tap water, 40 were detected in tap water served to at least one million people. while 20 unregulated contaminants were detected in just one system, only one time.

* Nineteen unregulated contaminants were detected above health-based limits (EPA 2004b) in tap water served to at least 10,000 people. Forty-eight unregulated contaminants were not detected above health-based limits anywhere, and seventy lack health-based limits, which have yet to be developed by EPA.

The Agency has fallen short in efforts both to require the testing that would reveal what pollutants are in tap water supplies, and to set health-based standards for those that are found. EPA has ignored three mandatory Safe Drinking Water Act deadlines to set standards for unregulated contaminants (EPA 2001a). Nearly twenty percent of the contaminants that EPA is currently considering for regulation have been under study at the Agency for 17 years now, beginning with testing programs initiated in 1988 (EPA 2001b, 2005b).

The agency has also failed to act on its own information showing that increased testing is justified. EPA has required water suppliers to test tap water for approximately 200 unregulated contaminants over the past 30 years (EPA 2001b, 2001c, 2005c, FR 1996 – details). But the Agency’s own scientists have identified 600 chemicals in tap water formed as by-products of disinfection (Richardson 1998, 1999a,b, 2003); tracked some 220 million pounds of 650 industrial chemicals discharged to rivers and streams each year (EPA 2003); and spearheaded research on emerging contaminants after the U.S. Geological Survey found 82 unregulated pharmaceuticals and personal care product chemicals in rivers and streams across the country that provide drinking water for millions of Americans (Kolpin et al. 2004, EPA 2005d). All told, EPA has set safety standards for fewer than 20 percent of the many hundreds of chemicals that it has identified in tap water.

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When you want to know what’s in your tap water, look at your local water utility’s website. You’ll find the source of the water and any chemical pollutants remaining after treatment.

It’s the law.

Many utilities also volunteer their treatment methods. Even if they’re too small to have a website, they mail out periodic water quality reports.

When you pay a premium price of up to 1900% for bottled water, you expect more.

But with rare exceptions, you get less.

All too often, you get nothing. Unless you count hyped advertising come-ons like “crisp,” pristine” or “essential.”

In our book, empty rhetoric means zero. Zip. Nada. Pure drinking water is all about the facts.

An 18-month Environmental Working Group investigation of bottled water labels and websites has found that:

* Only 2 bottled waters disclose water sources and treatment methods on their labels and offer a recent water quality test report on their websites. These best performers are:

o Ozarka Drinking Water

o Penta Ultra-Purified Water

* Just 18% of bottled waters disclose quality reports with contaminant testing results. Among them, all 8 Nestlé domestic brands surveyed:

o Poland Spring

o Nestlé Pure Life

o Arrowhead

o Calistoga

o Deer Park

o Ice Mountain

o Ozarka

o Zephyrhills

* None of the top 10 U.S. domestic bottled water brands label specific water sources and treatment methods for all their products.

EWG recommends

* Filtered tap water It saves money, it’s purer than tap water, and it helps solve the global glut of plastic bottles.

* Stronger federal standards for bottled water to enforce the consumer’s right to know all about bottled water — where it comes from, what’s been done to it, if anything, and what trace pollutants lurk inside.

Until the federal Food and Drug Administration cracks down on water bottlers, use EWG’s What’s in My Bottled Water guide to find brands with high scores for disclosing full water source, treatment and quality and that use advanced treatment methods to remove a broad range of pollutants.

Use the search box below to check out how your water rates from EWG, The Environmental Working Group.

Heavy Metal Toxicity is one of those health challenges that goes largely untested and untreated by main stream allopathic medicine. IT is becoming an increasingly important piece of information to be aware of in our increasingly toxic environment.

We live in a toxic world. Every day we are exposed to thousands of toxic metals and chemicals, such as mercury, lead, aluminum, food additives, pesticides, industrial waste, the list goes on.

Heavy metal poisoning and chemical toxicity leads to the accumulation of toxins in our tissues and organs causing nutritional deficiencies, hormonal imbalances, neurological disorders, and, can even lead to autoimmune disorders and other debilitating chronic conditions.

EBN™ (Evenbetternow) Bentonite Clay is a 100% pure pharmaceutical grade bentonite clay.

Testing by the Environmental Working Group found an avege of 48 chemicals while testing 5 different women living  in different locations across the country. It found, in the aggregate, traces of 48 chemicals in the women, notably flame retardants (used to treat some furniture and clothing), synthetic fragrances (from body care products and perfumes), the plastics ingredient Bisphenol A (found in bottles, canned food liners and other products) and the rocket fuel perchlorate (which has been found in some drinking water). The findings made concrete the suspicion that all Americans are being exposed to a daily brew of toxins that advocates now call our chemical “body burden”.

Heavy Metals as seen in live blood cell analysis appear as dark spots in the outer rings.

What is Bentonite? What is montmorillonite?

A VOLCANIC DETOXIFIER—Bentonite, a medicinal powdered clay which is also known as montmorillonite, derives from deposits of weathered volcanic ash.

EBN™ (Evenbetternow) Bentonite Clay is a 100% pure pharmaceutical grade bentonite clay.

It is one of the most effective natural intestinal detoxifying agents available and has been recognized as such for centuries by native peoples around the world. Whatever the name, liquid clay contains minerals that, once inside the gastrointestinal tract, are able to absorb toxins and deliver mineral nutrients to an impressive degree, says Knishinsky. Liquid clay is inert which means it passes through the body undigested.

Technically, the clay first adsorbs toxins (heavy metals, free radicals, pesticides), attracting them to its extensive surface area where they adhere like flies to sticky paper; then it absorbs the toxins, taking them in the way a sponge mops up a kitchen counter mess.

There is an electrical aspect to bentonite’s ability to bind and absorb toxins, the clay’s minerals are negatively charged while toxins tend to be positively charged; hence the clay’s attraction works like a magnet drawing metal shavings. But it’s even more involved than that.

How does it work?

Clay provides the body with an impressive assortment of minerals, including calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium, manganese, sodium and silica – all alkalizing to the blood and tissues. The minerals exist in natural proportion to one another, which encourages their absorption by the intestinal villi. The human body can tolerate a deficiency of vitamins for a longer period of time than it can tolerate a deficiency of minerals. In fact, a slight change in the blood concentration of minerals can rapidly endanger life.

When bentonite absorbs water and swells, it is stretched open like a highly porous sponge; the toxins are drawn into these spaces by electrical attraction and bound fast. In fact, according to the Canadian Journal of Microbiology (31 [1985], 50-53), bentonite can absorb pathogenic viruses, aflatoxin (a mold), and pesticides and herbicides including Paraquat and Roundup. The clay is eventually eliminated from the body with the toxins bound to its multiple surfaces.

Clay’s adsorptive and absorptive qualities may be the key to its multifaceted healing abilities. Knishinsky reports that drinking clay helped him eliminate painful ganglion cysts (tumors attached to joints and tendons, in his case, in his wrist) in two months, without surgery.

According to new American research, boys between the ages of five and 10 exposed to fluoride in tap water suffer an increased rate of osteosarcoma – bone cancer.

“The difference between the levels of fluoride causing toxic effects and the levels added to water to prevent tooth decay is vanishingly small and deeply troubling,” said Dr. J. William Hirzy, vice president of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Headquarters Union in Washington D.C.

“In my opinion, the evidence that fluoridation is more harmful than beneficial is now overwhelming and policymakers who avoid thoroughly reviewing recent data before introducing new fluoridation schemes do so at risk of future litigation,” said Dr. Hardy Limeback, NRC Panel member and Head of Preventive Dentistry at the University of Toronto. He further stated in a later interview “it is illogical to assume that tooth enamel is the only tissue affected by low daily doses of fluoride ingestion.”

According to the Environmental Working Group, in July 2005, “Over the past 10 years a large body of peer-reviewed science has raised concerns that fluoride may present unreasonable health risks, particularly among children, at levels routinely added to tap water in American cities.”

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The Fluoride Deception.(Bookshelf)(Book Review): An article from: OnEarth

Fluoride: Drinking Ourselves to Death