[ A new survey shows arsenic levels in public water are
disproportionately high in certain U.S. communities, despite national
regulatory standards designed to protect people from the harmful
chemical.] [[link removed]]

ARSENIC CONTAMINATION IN US PUBLIC WATER IS MORE LIKELY IN LATINX
COMMUNITIES  
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Hannah Seo
December 9, 2020
Environmental Health News
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_ A new survey shows arsenic levels in public water are
disproportionately high in certain U.S. communities, despite national
regulatory standards designed to protect people from the harmful
chemical. _

Tighter federal regulations on the toxic worked to decrease levels in
public water, but certain regions and groups remain more at risk. ,
Marilyn Nieves/E+/Getty Images

 

Researchers studied approximately 13 million records from 2006 to 2011
covering 139,000 public water systems in 46 states, Washington D.C.,
and Native American tribes. The records cover water service for 290
million people, representing 95 percent of all public water systems
and 92 percent of the total population served by public water systems.
Researchers found that, while average public water arsenic
concentrations decreased by an average of 10 percent nationwide over
the time studied, that decrease was not equal across all areas or
demographic groups. Arsenic levels remained higher in water systems
serving Hispanic communities and areas of the Southwestern U.S. Their
findings were published in December 2020 in _Environmental Health
Perspectives._ [[link removed]]

Arsenic is a highly toxic carcinogen, and is “the most significant
chemical contaminant in drinking water, globally,” according to the
World Health Organization
[[link removed](such%20as,are%20less%20harmful%20to%20health.].
Chronic exposure [[link removed]] to arsenic
has been shown to damage almost every system in the human body,
resulting in conditions like heart disease, diarrhea, cognitive
impairment, cirrhosis and lung disease, among others.

“We actually know very little about inequalities in public drinking
water quality across the U.S.,” Anne Nigra
[[link removed]], environmental health scientist at
Columbia University and the lead author of the paper, told _EHN_. She
added that these contamination levels across different communities are
really important data points to collect — with these measurements
you can see where inequalities lie, and further study how that
exposure is related to disease.

Primarily Hispanic communities, smaller populations of about 1,000,
and areas in the Southwest were more likely to have arsenic
concentrations in drinking water that exceeded the Environmental
Protection Agency’s (EPA) maximum contaminant level, raising
environmental justice concerns. The maximum contaminant level is the
highest concentration of a contaminant that is allowed in drinking
water. The EPA determines these levels by considering the public’s
health, but also the costs and feasibility of achieving and enforcing
that standard.

Nigra and her team studied records from 2006 to 2011 because that was
when the EPA began following up and enforcing their new, lowered
thresholds for arsenic in water. The EPA announced in 2001 that the
maximum contaminant level
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would go from 50 parts per billion to 10 parts per billion, to be
enforced by 2006.

Ten parts per billion may be significantly lower than 50 parts per
billion, but Nigra said that’s not enough. “The Netherlands has
established a regulatory limit of 1 part per billion in drinking
water. Denmark, New Hampshire, and the state of New Jersey, have all
established a regulatory standard of five parts per billion,” she
said.

Many counties exceed even that. The study results showed that there
are still close to 500 counties whose arsenic levels crossed that
threshold. It’s a great health concern, said Nigra, because “there
is no safe level of arsenic in drinking water.”

The EPA’s maximum contaminant level goal is zero parts per billion
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Arsenic may not accumulate in the body the way other elements, like
lead or mercury do, said Nigra, but if you are being exposed to
arsenic through drinking water, that exposure is chronic, and
“chronic exposure, even at low to moderate levels of exposure, is a
real problem, and it’s a real threat to health.”

_Reprinted with permission._

_Hannah Seo is a master’s student in New York University’s
Science, Health and Environmental Reporting program and a fall intern
for Environmental Health News._

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