Tap Water Database Lists Toxins by Zip Code

epoch times ^ | 11/14/2021 | Nathan Worcester

[bitt]

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has updated its database on tap water in the United States, revealing where testing has detected potentially deadly pollutants in the nation’s water systems.

First published in 2005, the database was most recently updated in 2018.

“We’re collecting testing data from almost 50,000 water utilities nationwide,” said Sydney Evans, a science analyst with EWG, in an interview with The Epoch Times.

In just one state—Illinois—EWG’s database shows that many water utilities exceeded the legal limits of arsenic, radium, and total trihalomethanes (TTHMS), among other chemicals.

In its entry for the City of Chicago’s water system, EWG’s database reveals the presence of chemicals ranging from chloroform and hexavalent chromium to nitrate and radium.

While these chemicals were below the legal limit or, in some cases, not subject to any legal limit, EWG’s health guidelines for individual chemicals are far more stringent than current U.S. legal standards.

Although the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) legal limit for nitrates is 10 parts per million (ppm), EWG’s health guideline limits nitrates to 0.14 parts per million.

Many of those tougher standards are based on California public health goals, while others are based on the EWG’s own research or the EPA’s calculation of the pollutant level associated with a one-in-a-million lifetime cancer risk.

[bitt]

https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/

[Eagles6]

Good info!👌

[Rebelbase]

How is the Environmental Working Group connected with selling water filters?

[Jim W N]

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) is supposedly a private company so I’ll listen to them before I’ll listen to the government.

Anyone have the list of best to worst locales? Their site makes it hard to figure that out.

[Veto!]

I know. Send EWG a few bucks every year and read their Clean Fifteen and Daily Dozen fruits-and-veggies list. Also their water report, know that water in my city is as bad as it gets. I have 3 one-gallon water jugs I refill at any one of four local grocery stores. Use it for everything.

My cat has NEVER had tap water.

[Repeal The 17th]

EWG:
“At the Environmental Working Group, we collaborate with leading experts to bring you breakthrough research.
In addition to our team and our roster of experts,
industry leaders like Gwyneth Paltrow, Michelle Pfeiffer,
and Kourtney Kardashian are champions of our cause
and close collaborators in making our mission a reality.”
https://www.ewg.org/who-we-are/our-team

[Veto!]

EWG.org.

See post #15

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

While these chemicals were below the legal limit or, in some cases, not subject to any legal limit, EWG’s health guidelines for individual chemicals are far more stringent than current U.S. legal standards.

And the "current U.S. legal standards" are absurdly stringent already.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

You may of course listen to anyone you wish, but consider that CNN is also a "private group". As are the ACLU, Anti-Fa and BLM.

Being a private group does not bestow a mantel of virtue on anyone.

Oh and "EWG has a long association with Tides Foundation founder and left-wing philanthropist Drummond Pike, who sits on EWG’s board of directors."

[P.O.E.]

I had to research every single one of the contaminants listed. Trying to figure out how they got there in the water.

For example, Bromodichloromethane could either be from flame retardants or as a byproduct of the chloridation process.

[Pining_4_TX]

If it has “environmental” in the name, it is likely that they cannot be trusted.

“Radioactive material and pesticides among new contaminants found in U.S. tap water”

The Guardian

The source of this report, a drinking water database by the Environmental Working Group (EWG). The article says that regulators have identified 56 new contaminants in drinking water, with many causing dangerous health problems such as cancer, reproductive disruption, and liver disease

I queried the database for my zip code in Raleigh, North Carolina, where I found that my drinking water supply exceeded the EWG health guidelines for 12 contaminants! However, further reading informed me that my drinking water complied with all federal-based drinking water standards.

How is this possible?

Because the EWG has written its own drinking water standards, according to the EWG, “Legal does not = Safe; EWG Health Guidelines fill the gap in outdated government standards.”

The EWG wrote their own in those cases where the EPA did not have a standard for a contaminant.
The EWG wrote their own standards for several contaminants already regulated by the EPA, with most about a 100-fold lower than EPA’s standard. For example, the EPA standard for a group of disinfection by-products (trihalomethanes) is 80 parts per billion (ppb); the EWG’s 0.15 ppb. Total trihalomethanes were detected at 28.3 ppb in my drinking water supply, so it complied with EPA’s regulations but exceeded the EWG’s. Anyone can make a standard look bad by writing a lower one.
There is no scientific rationale for the EWG’s lower health guidelines. EPA’s regulations are set at very low levels, using very conservative methods that include large safety factors to ensure they are protective of all population members.
The EWG ignored that some of EPA’s regulations are written for groups of chemicals instead of individual ones. For example, their assertion that the EPA does not have a standard for chromium (hexavalent) is false; the EPA regulates total chromium, including hexavalent and trivalent chromium. The EWG failed to recognize the group regulations for 9 out of the 12 contaminants in my drinking water supply.
The assertion that “regulators have identified 56 new contaminants in drinking water” is absurd. These are not new contaminants; the EPA identified them under regulations requiring water utilities to monitor them in drinking water. The EPA uses the water utilities’ information to determine whether there is sufficient occurrence nationally to begin the rulemaking process.

We are finding these chemicals in drinking water because we now can measure chemicals down to the parts-per-trillion (ppt) level instead of the parts-per-million (ppm) level just 20 years ago. It is not that these chemicals were not present 20 years ago; it is just that we couldn’t measure them. As analytical methods continue to improve, the number of chemicals detected will continue to increase.

[Romulus]

Let me help everyone out. Everybody flunks, because this private advocacy group sets its own impossible-to-meet standards.

[GOP Poet]

bookmark

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Or it can come from algae.

[AFPhys]

“Overall, we rate the Environmental Working Group Left Biased and a strong Pseudoscience website based on the promotion of ideas and claims that oppose science consensus.”

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/environmental-working-group-ewg/

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Enough said.

However, I find that their reports that our local water supply here are quite badly biased toward a negative report.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Do they record the zip codes of the people who sesrch their database?

[Coleus]

thanks, I’ve been drinking tap water all my life and I’m not going to change. Also, bottled water only meets tap-water standards and the bottles are made of plastics which also leach toxic chemicals and estrogens.

[BipolarBob]

My zip code showed up as radioactive arsenic, is that one bad?

[Freee-dame]

When George W. Bush took office, the first few months of his administration were spent with the media and Democrats attacking him for wanting to kill people because of arsenic in the water. Clinton says that he spent the last few days of his administration staying up night and day writing executive orders. Clinton changed the standards for the amount of arsenic allowed in water. The new standards would not take affect until Clinton was out of office. Some places, especially out west, were going to have a be whole town lose its water supply. It was just disgusting.