Here is another one:
dailynews.yahoo.com
Wednesday January 17 7:03 PM ET
EPA Orders Aresenic Reduction
By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Environmental Protection Agency ordered Wednesday that allowable levels of arsenic in drinking water be reduced by 80 percent.
The action updating an arsenic standard that has been in effect for nearly 60 years is expected to require about 3,000 communities - generally small water systems - to make changes in treatment of drinking water, the agency said.
``This new drinking water standard will provide additional public health protection for 13 million Americans,'' President Clinton (news - web sites) said in a statement.
Environmentalists have argued for years that the arsenic standard, established in 1942, of 50 parts per billion should be lowered. Last year, the EPA proposed going to 5 parts per billion as demanded by many environmentalists, but then settled at 10 parts per billion.
Efforts to tighten the federal requirement gained momentum after a National Academy of Sciences report in 1999 found arsenic in drinking water causes bladder, lung and skin cancer, and might cause kidney and liver cancer.
The EPA also had been sued by a leading environmental group, the Natural Resources Defense Council, which claimed the EPA had been negligent in not moving quickly to lower the standard.
``It's a significant accomplishment to have gotten this through with so much opposition over the last several decades,'' said Erik Olson, an NRDC water quality expert. ``It will save many people's lives who would have died from cancer.''
The mining and chemical industries had opposed the standard because it is expected to be used as the cleanup standard on some toxic waste sites. Water supply agencies also had complained about the cost of making improvements, estimated capital costs alone at about $5 billion.
The EPA estimated its new standard will increase the annual water bill $60 or less per household in communities where improved treatment and upgrades are needed. Some financial and technical assistant will be available for small systems needing to make improvements to meet the new standard, the EPA said.
All the 54,000 community water systems, serving about 254 million people, will be subject to the new standard. But the EPA said that only about 5 percent, or 3,000 systems serving 13 million people, will have to upgrade their systems to meet the new standard.
Most of the systems affected by the standard serve fewer than 10,000 people. The agency said that communities in parts of the Midwest and New England that depend on underground sources for drinking water will be affected most.
Water industry representatives had lobbied for a standard of 10 parts per billion as is the standard for the World Health Organization (news - web sites). They said the earlier proposed 5 parts per billion standard would have been extremely costly.
-
On the Net:
EPA: epa.gov
U.S. Geological Survey map of counties with high arsenic levels: co.water.usgs.gov |
