The agency has standards for 91 contaminants in drinking
water, and the Safe Drinking Water Act requires the EPA to identify up to 30
additional unregulated contaminants for monitoring every five years. Last week,
the EPA released a list of 28 chemicals and two viruses to be monitored by
about 6,000 public water systems as part of the unregulated contaminant
monitoring program.
“The monitoring that will take place will provide EPA with
invaluable information about what municipalities are seeing in their drinking
water all across the country,” said EPA acting assistant administrator for
Water Nancy Stoner. “The results of this multi-year monitoring effort will help
inform EPA’s work to ensure Americans receive safe drinking water.”
The EPA will spend more than $20 million to support the
project, which will provide a clearer picture of the frequency and levels at
which these contaminants are found in drinking water systems nationwide. It will also help regulators determine
whether additional protections are needed to ensure safe drinking water.
Using methods perfected as recently as 2009, the EPA has called on all
public water systems serving more than 10,000 people and 800 smaller systems to
monitor for C8 over a 12 month period from January 2013 through December 2015. The
reporting threshold for PFOA (also known as perfluorooctanoic acid or C8) is
.02 parts per billion – or 20 parts per trillion – far less than levels
detected in local water supplies.
The presence of the manufacturing substance in area water supplies lead
to a class action lawsuit brought by Mid-Ohio Valley residents
against DuPont who used the compound at nearby Washington Works in the
production of Teflon since the mid 1950s.
To resolve the suit, the court appointed the C8 Science
Panel – a group of three epidemiologists – to determine if it was “more likely
than not” that exposure could be linked to disease. In December, the science panel released their
initial set of probable link findings and announced a link between C8 exposure
and pregnancy induced hypertension. Last month, the panel linked C8 to kidney
and testicular cancer. Their final reports are expected before the end of July.
Consequently, a three-member medical panel has been appointed to determine what
type of medical monitoring should be made available to the members of the class
in response to the epidemiologists’ findings.
In the meantime, a federal lawsuit brought by the Little
Hocking Water Association against DuPont over the contamination of their
aquifer and wellfield is ongoing.
