5. THE TOP TOXINS

I want you to meet the top toxic chemicals found in our water and learn everything you can about how these chemicals got into our taps and our bodies, how we regulate them, and the potential health hazards they pose. This list is by no means all-inclusive, but these six pollutants are some of the worst offenders that are plaguing communities throughout the country.

Toxin #1: Hexavalent Chromium

Additional Names/Spellings: chromium-6, Cr6, chromium VI, Cr-VI

This substance is often referred to as the “Erin Brockovich chemical,” but I assure you it was here long before me. I may have helped expose its dangers, but the real story is how this chemical came to be in every town across the country and how it has polluted our drinking water. A 2016 analysis of federal data from drinking water tests throughout the country shows that hexavalent chromium contaminates water supplies for more than 200 million Americans in all fifty states. But federal regulations only monitor general chromium in water, which includes the two most common forms: chromium-3, a naturally occurring metallic element, and chromium-6, the toxic version used by industry to make everything from motor vehicle bumpers to textile dyes, wood preservation and anticorrosion products, and more. We don’t differentiate between the two at the federal level and that’s a big problem.

The word “chromium” is derived from the Greek word chroma, which means “color.” Even though chromium is an odorless metallic element found in nature, the man-made version—hexavalent chromium—creates a bright green or yellow color when you see too much of it in the water. In industry, chromium-6 was the gold standard for corrosion resistance, and it was added to paints, primers, plastics, stainless steel, and surface coatings to increase durability. Chromium was once valued for bringing bright shininess to car bumpers and aircraft engine components. It was also used in cooling towers for office buildings and manufacturing plants throughout the country, because hexavalent chromium is one of the most efficient and cheap corrosion inhibitors available. But it’s highly toxic. In 1980, the National Toxicology Program and the Department of Health and Human Services published The First Annual Report on Carcinogens, listing chromium-6 as a human carcinogen, and in 1986 the California Air Resources Board identified it as a toxic air contaminant (TAC) that causes both acute and chronic problems such as yellow teeth, shortness of breath, coughing, wheezing, bronchitis, pneumonia, skin ulcers, dermatitis, and lung, nasal, and sinus cancer. It’s not until more recently that research has also shown how dangerous it is when found in your drinking water.

National Regulations: MCL

The EPA has a national drinking water standard of 100 parts per billion (ppb) for total chromium, including chromium-6. This means that water systems are only required to test for chromium, which is a bit confusing since one type of chromium is a known carcinogen and one isn’t. This MCL (maximum contaminant level) for total chromium was set in 1991 and based on the science available then. As I’ve mentioned, it’s a slow process for the science to catch up to safety standards. In 2008, the National Toxicology Program published a two-year drinking water study of animals and found that hexavalent chromium is carcinogenic after oral exposure.

According to their website, the EPA regularly re-evaluates drinking water standards, and based on the science on chromium-6, it began a rigorous and comprehensive review of its health effects in 2008. Yet in 2018, it was still classified as an “emerging contaminant.” Of the more than eighty emerging contaminants monitored, only perchlorate, an ingredient found in rocket fuel and explosives, has been recommended for regulation. When tap water from a public water system exceeds the federal standard for chromium, consumers are supposed to be notified. But even after all the hype around hexavalent chromium, I would guess that most people wouldn’t know what to do if they received such a notice.

State Regulations: MCL + PHG

As I mentioned in chapter 2, the only state that had a regulation for hexavalent chromium was California and the MCL was set at 10 parts per billion, which is much lower than the federal standard and higher than the public health goal (PHG) of 0.02 parts per billion. The PHG was established by California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) and was a first for both California and the country, but in 2017 that MCL was dismissed due to a court case and the state water board is working to create a new MCL.

The process to establish a PHG is quite detailed and thorough. Scientists compile all relevant information, including studies of the chemical’s effect on animals and humans who have been exposed to it. With this data, scientists perform a health risk assessment to identify the level of chemical in the drinking water that would pose no significant health effects in people who drink the water every day for seventy years, and OEHHA assumes that adults drink two liters of water each day. They also take into consideration vulnerable populations, such as pregnant women, children, seniors, and those with pre-existing health conditions, before setting the final goal. PHGs, while not enforceable, do matter for public water systems that must provide information about contaminants in their annual Consumer Confidence Reports and tell customers about the health risks when they exceed the public health goal. P.S.: Reports must be sent to you by your water supplier each year by July 1. Let’s make that fact more known!

How can the PHG be so much lower than the drinking water standard? MCLs account for the chemical’s health risks along with other factors, such as their detectability, treatability, and the cost of treatment. A chemical’s MCL is required to be as close to its PHG as is “technologically and economically feasible, placing primary emphasis on the protection of public health.” The California Department of Public Health estimated that the cost to meet the state’s MCL was almost $20 million a year.

New Jersey and North Carolina have endorsed nonlegal limits for chromium-6 in tap water. Both states have been plagued with issues related to mismanagement of coal ash, a toxic byproduct of coal-burning power plants, making its way into water supplies. Coal ash contains a mix of hazardous heavy metals, including chromium-6, lead, arsenic, and mercury. In 2010, the Drinking Water Quality Institute, a New Jersey agency made up of scientists, utility officials, and citizens, recommended a health-based maximum contaminant level (similar to a public health goal) of 0.07 ppb. But environmental proponents say that state regulators have dragged their feet about putting any laws on the books. In North Carolina, residents living near Duke coal ash ponds received “do not drink” letters from state regulators in 2015, noting that their well water tested positive for unsafe levels of hexavalent chromium. But that standard was later overturned by political appointees at the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) who worked for then governor Pat McCrory, an employee of Duke Energy for twenty-eight years.

Health Concerns

Hexavalent chromium is a carcinogen and a reproductive toxicant for both males and females. It can also lead to eye and respiratory irritation, asthma, anemia, acute gastroenteritis, vertigo, gastrointestinal hemorrhage, convulsions, ulcers, and damage or failure of the liver and kidneys.

Toxin #2: Chloramines

Additional Names/Spellings: Secondary disinfection, monochloramine, chloramide, chloroazane

Chloramines are what I like to call the godfather of where we’ve gone wrong with our water. Municipal water districts are adding ammonia to chlorinated water—a process called chloramination—to help meet standards set by the EPA to lower levels of disinfection byproducts, which many in the industry call “unintended consequences.” Several different types of chloramines exist, including monochloramine, dichloramine, trichloramine, and organic chloramines. Typically, monochloramine is used most commonly to treat drinking water, so for the purposes of this book I will use the term chloramines to refer this mixture.

To truly understand the problem with chloramines, you need a brief history of water treatment. Drinking water comes from many natural water sources, such as lakes, rivers, and streams, and it generally contains organic matter—leaves, dirt, fish excrement, and so on. Adding chlorine to water, called chlorination, is one of the primary water treatment methods we’ve used for more than a hundred years, because it’s highly effective at killing most potentially harmful organisms such as bacteria, viruses, and parasites. It’s done a good job of preventing disease. In fact, before chlorination, typhoid, cholera, dysentery, and diarrhea outbreaks were common in cities across the world. Treating the water helped reduce these health problems, but with the advances came potential side effects.

In 1974, scientists discovered that chlorine (the disinfectant) itself could react with naturally occurring materials in the water to create what are called disinfection byproducts (DBPs). These are substances that form when the disinfectant reacts with natural compounds in the water. Many of these DBPs have been shown to cause cancer, including trihalomethanes (THMs), which are a group of chemical compounds. Today, we have more than a thousand cities with unsafe levels of total THMs (TTHMs) in their water. TTHMs is when four distinct chemicals, chloroform, bromodichloromethane, dibromochloromethane, and bromoform, are present. Any imbalance of THMs means the system is out of balance. These compounds occur when organic matter in the water reacts with chlorine, so essentially the system is not being chlorinated properly, meaning you have too much or not enough. But many cities don’t get to the root of the problem by finding the source of the organic matter. When you know what’s in the water, you can treat it more effectively instead of creating a chemical cocktail mix. In the last forty years, we have discovered more than six hundred other DBPs in chlorinated tap water, including haloacetic acids (HAAs). As you can imagine, the water has only become more polluted (with both organics and inorganics), creating more treatment headaches and violations.

The EPA has worked to regulate DBPs with the adoption of the EPA Stage 1 and Stage 2 Disinfectants and Disinfection Byproducts Rules (DBPRs). These rules help to tighten drinking water regulations, requiring water treatment systems to monitor and reduce DBPs so they can provide cleaner drinking water. They apply to both community water systems (public water systems that supply water to the same population year-round) and non-transient non-community systems (public water systems that supply water to at least twenty-five of the same people at least six months per year, such as schools, office buildings, and hospitals). They require these systems to add a disinfectant to the drinking water during any part of the treatment process. These laws strengthen protection against microbial contaminants and aim to reduce dangerous DBPs like TTHMs and HAAs. Under the Stage 2 DBPR, systems need to conduct an evaluation of their distribution systems to identify the areas with high disinfection byproduct concentrations. These locations are then used as the sampling sites for Stage 2 DBPR compliance monitoring. But from the get-go, utility companies have been concerned that the regulations were too expensive.

Then along came chloramines. This alternative disinfectant method is a mixture of chlorine and ammonia. Water treatment facilities have been switching at alarming rates from chlorine to chloramines, largely to help public water systems meet federal disinfection byproduct requirements. I would say it’s a convenient fix, but not necessarily a safe or effective one.

Chloramine treatment is the cheapest way of meeting EPA regulations, but it’s one of the most dangerous ways as well. For starters, chlorine evaporates into the air relatively quickly, but chloramine is more stable and will last longer in the water system. The goal is to provide increased protection from bacterial and viral contamination, and certainly chloramine does that. But it is also a known carcinogen and causes more rapid deterioration of the municipal infrastructure and degradation of water system valves and fittings. In systems that still use lead pipes or lead components (which means millions of homes and buildings), the chloramine causes lead and other metals to leach out of faucets and showerheads and into our drinking water. Studies indicate the formation of toxic byproducts in drinking water may be higher when utilities use chloramines. These studies also show that chloramine causes more dangerous byproducts than other treatment alternatives, such as ozone or chlorine dioxide.

One of the most famous cases of chloramines gone wrong was when Washington, D.C., switched to using chloramines in 2000, which led to major corrosion issues in the city’s aging lead pipes. By 2001, lead levels were detected to be at least eighty times higher than the accepted safe limits. A congressional investigation and lawsuit followed.

In addition, many systems include chlorine burnouts in combination with chloramines to meet their standards. A burnout happens when the water treatment process changes from chloramines to free chlorine, which is a stronger, faster-acting disinfectant. They do this to clean the water pipes and essentially flush the entire system, so that they can test the water before a burnout and then test again after. They never test the water during a burnout, and they don’t have to, as most plants are only required to report quarterly. Some burnouts can last up to ninety days. The regular use of chloramines doesn’t remove all the harmful organics and dirt from the water supply, so the system gets “flushed” with chlorine, forming thousands of chemical combinations that could cause cancer and other health issues.

Let me give you an example from one of the towns I’ve worked with. In 2015, I wrote an open letter to the Tyler, Texas, city council. In it, I highlight the difference between what it means to be compliant with EPA regulations and what it means to have safe drinking water.

An Open Letter to the Tyler, Texas, City Council:

There appears to be some confusion in the press as to what exactly I mean when I talk about the “safety” of the drinking water. Obviously, I am not primarily concerned about an MCL violation for HAAs back in May and reported in late October. What I am most concerned about are the repeated calls to our offices about high levels of chlorine taste and odor in the drinking water in Tyler for months leading up to the TCEQ [Texas Commission on Environmental Quality] Violation reporting requirement of late October.
There has been a significant misinformation campaign about the water quality problem in Tyler; and quite frankly, I am further concerned it has been misdirected toward the “triggering event,” the TCEQ Violation notice.
As elected officials in Tyler, you know the water quality complaints I am talking about far precede our stepping in and opening up our own investigation. We know there are areas where the problems are considered worse than others; we have spoken directly to scores of your consumers.
The problem in Tyler, Texas, is you are misusing chloramine (chlorine + ammonia) in your treatment process to control the formation of regulated disinfection byproducts. This misuse has led to the ultimate destruction of your distribution system. In 2014, you performed a one-month distribution system chlorine burnout. This year you were faced with a two-month system-wide burnout (August and September).
Your water distribution system is suffering from serious nitrification and biofilm re-growth. Because of the loss of residual disinfectant in tanks, reservoirs, and at endpoint pipelines, you are overdosing the system. Overdosing chloramine increases nitrification and thus biofouling. You are caught in a vicious circle of self-destruction.
At the same time, during chlorine burnouts, you are exposing your consumers to dangerously high levels of HAAs and TTHMs. Ask your water treatment professionals what the disinfection byproduct levels were during the sixty days of the burnout; we have. This is the gaping loophole in the regulation. You don’t have to test for the presence of the toxins during a burnout. You get to plan ahead, game the system, and only report what you want, when you want. Just because you do not test doesn’t mean the regulated chemicals are not there.
So, that is our problem when you burnout the consumers…Let’s talk for a minute about the other ten months of the year. Now that your ammonia is turned back on, does this make the water “safe”? No, it makes the water “compliant.” These are two very different concepts. We prefer SAFE.
Chloramine at the dose you are feeding to fight the nitrification, biofilm, and depleting residual is causing immediate and short-term health effects. Chloramine at any dose is causing chronic long-term health effects. Toxicologists have figured out the disinfection byproducts formed by chloramine “not-yet-regulated” are far more toxic than free chlorine byproducts that are “regulated.”
Chloramine is causing your water to be more corrosive thus exposing consumers to dangerous levels of lead and copper (brass water meters and plumbing fixtures are made with lead). Chloramine is causing property damage to your consumers’ plumbing, water heaters, fixtures, and appliances. Chloramine is causing structural damage when the pipes develop those pinhole leaks you have all seen. Chloramine is destroying the city’s distribution system. Chloramine is causing environmental damage. Where does all the flushed-out water with extremely high levels of chlorine and/or chloramine go?

1. May we please have the water quality data for all tests performed at the treatment plants and the distribution system from June 1, 2015, through the present?
2. May we please have copies of the water treatment plant operations logs from June 1, 2015, through the present?
3. May we please have the Scope of Work, name, and contact of the third-party investigator recently retained by the City of Tyler?

Thank you all very much for your time and assistance in obtaining the requested information in a timely manner.

As you can see from this letter, more problems were created when Tyler switched to using chloramines. Besides impacting the taste, odor, or color of the water, chloramines can react with the distribution system itself. As we saw in Tyler, it was a self-destructive process. Many municipalities that use chloramines report failure of rubber-made valves, gaskets, and fittings, which are key components in any water treatment system. Yes, it might be a cheap fix, but you get what you pay for.

The other interesting observation about chloramines is that people contact me saying their water smells like chlorine. Many times, it’s happening because of these chlorine burnouts where the water utility is trying to meet its standards. It’s a dirty practice that cheats the system. The levels of chlorine used in a burnout produce chloroform, which if inhaled in a hot shower or through medical devices (humidifiers, CPAPs, or nebulizers) can cause chemically induced asthma and pneumonia. It’s important to know that chlorine in clean drinking water doesn’t smell. When you smell what you think is chlorine in water, it’s due to exceedingly high levels of toxic chemical compounds reacting with the chlorine. The utility has other options to clean the dirt out of your drinking water, but they won’t use them without pressure from you, the consumers.

In another case in Harris County, Texas, one of the most populated metropolitan areas in the country, which includes Houston and its surrounding areas with a population of more than 4 million people, residents started writing to me in 2014 because their tap water had a strong chlorine smell, along with sediment and sludge showing up in it.

The water utility responded with the following statement:

We are aware of the residents’ concerns. The water has always been safe for human consumption and continues to meet the TCEQ requirements. We have been performing routine maintenance on the system which is required periodically when delivering surface water in large systems. The residents were notified of the routine maintenance through a message on their water bill and by signs posted throughout the district. As part of the process, we have switched disinfectants and have increased our flushing.

The “flushing” they are referring to is a chlorine burnout. The levels of chlorine used in a burnout produce chloroform, which is primarily what you smell. As noted in the open letter to the Tyler City Council, when this substance is inhaled in a hot shower or through medical devices (humidifiers, CPAPs, or nebulizers), it can cause chemically induced asthma and pneumonia. A better solution is to clean the dirt out of the drinking water and stop adding ammonia (chloramines) to mask the reactions that lead to the biofouling requiring the burnouts.

To put it simply, chloramine has absolutely no place in our drinking water.

Here are a few more reasons why:

1. Chloramine is an ineffective disinfectant. According to Hach, a global company in water quality testing, chloramine is twenty-five times less effective than chlorine in disinfection. When dosing and mixing are not precise, utilities effectively expose everyone in the system to raw water. In fact, chloramine is so ineffective that utilities that use it are required to annually revert back to chlorine only to clean out the bacteria that has become accustomed to ammonia.
2. Ammonia is a food source for bacteria, so when the chloramine breaks down, the ammonia feeds the bacteria it is supposed to stop. Further, a byproduct of this compound is nitrification. Nitrogen is released into the water, which causes more growth of bacteria. Nitrates can reduce hemoglobin in a newborn baby’s blood, resulting in blue baby syndrome, a fatal condition.
3. Genetic damage occurs as a result of exposure to chloramines, according to a study conducted by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Further, chloramine is five times more damaging to patients with respiratory illnesses in hospitals where chloramine was routinely used to disinfect.
4. Chloramine is very corrosive, particularly with lead and copper. In Washington, D.C., chloramines were the cause of lead leaching into the water and causing learning disabilities in children under five years old. A related lawsuit was settled for $250 million.
5. The purpose of chloramine is to trick the system (and save some money) so the utility can meet current regulatory standards. It reduces the amount of DBPs by preventing the chlorine from reacting with organics. It also generates NDMA, or nitrosamines, a disinfection byproduct 10,000 times more carcinogenic than anything it purports to displace.

As I say to a lot of communities concerned about chloramines, you have choices. Get the facts and get into conversation with your water officials. We need to stop cutting corners when our health and safety are at stake.

National Regulations

The EPA does not by law tell water treatment professionals how to comply with Stage 1 and Stage 2 Disinfectants and Disinfection Byproducts Rules (DBPRs). It has never suggested, directed, or required the use of chloramines as either a primary or secondary disinfectant, and they do not tell water treatment professionals what method they should use. The maximum residual disinfectant level (MRDL) for chloramines is set at 4 parts per million, which means that this is the highest level of a disinfectant allowed in drinking water without causing the possibility of adverse health problems. This enforceable regulation means that if tap water exceeds these limits, the water utility must notify citizens of violations.

Health Concerns

Chloramines are known to be toxic to kidney dialysis patients and harmful to fish. While I don’t have scientific research to show other health issues associated with chloramines, I have thousands of people who have reported health problems to me when their water system switched to using it. These symptoms include severe skin rashes, dry and scaling skin, skin outbreaks “like hives,” swollen ears, extreme fatigue, hacking coughs, nasal congestion, itchy, burning, and swollen eyes, stomachaches, and yeast infections. We also have research on trihalomethanes, which are very dangerous to pregnant women. Studies have demonstrated that women exposed to drinking water with high levels of TTHMs have a greater risk for miscarriages in the first trimester and if exposed in their second trimester, are more likely to have babies with a low birth weight.

Toxin #3: Lead

Additional Names/Spellings: Pb, atomic number 82

Lead is a heavy metal that’s been used for centuries, most notably to construct ancient Rome’s aqueducts that brought water from faraway sources to fountains, public baths, homes, farms, and gardens. The system supplied water for more than a million people at that time. Many historians believe those lead pipes could have contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire, but we developed amnesia at the turn of the twentieth century and started using lead again for water lines, pipes, and plumbing as well as in ammunition, ceramic glazes, and paints. While lead is now banned in gasoline and paint, more than 6 million lead service lines are still providing drinking water across the country. The U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry reported in 2007 that environmental levels of lead had increased more than a thousandfold during the past three centuries thanks to human activity, and particularly between 1950 and 2000 when the use of leaded gasoline was highest throughout the world.

Today, lead is known as a cumulative poison and one of the best-researched neurotoxins at the center of one of the greatest environmental crimes of our century. I’m not just talking about Flint, Michigan, but schools across the country. In 2017, more than 80 percent of New York City public school buildings in all five boroughs had elevated lead levels, and those numbers were exposed only because Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered stringent testing.

Parents in Portland, Oregon, called for the resignation of their superintendent when news broke that the state’s largest public school system waited more than two months to notify them about elevated lead levels found at taps and drinking water fountains. New Jersey governor Chris Christie ordered the state to test its three thousand public schools after thirty schools in Newark found lead levels up to thirty-five times above the federal limit.

Lead is most toxic to the developing brain, so it’s children ages six and under who bear the brunt of this toxic exposure. In Flint, Michigan, about ten thousand kids were exposed to drinking water with unsafe levels of lead. But the story of schools across the country is still unfolding. Schools and childcare facilities are not required under federal law to test their drinking water unless they have and/or operate their own public water system. Despite knowing how dangerous lead is for children, testing is voluntary for the estimated 98,000 public schools and 500,000 childcare facilities not regulated under federal law.

From a health perspective, it’s important to know that there are no safe levels of lead consumption. Corrosion of lead plumbing is the major source of lead in our drinking water, which is only made worse when treatment methods like chloramines react with lead in the pipes, causing it to seep into the water. We need swift action to replace all lead pipes throughout the country, along with updates to the legislation that is meant to protect us.

National Regulations: Lead and Copper Rule

Lead in our drinking water supply is monitored under the Lead and Copper Rule (LCR) as part of the Safe Drinking Water Act. It’s a treatment technique rule, which has seen many revisions since it was first enacted in 1991. Originally, LCR set a health-based maximum contaminant level goal of zero, requiring water systems to work with their customers to collect samples from the tap. The rule then established an action level for lead of 15 ppb. When more than 10 percent of customer samples exceed this action level, the system must work to control corrosion and notify the public when levels are too high. But how the rule gets enforced depends on the size of the system.

All water systems that serve more than fifty thousand people are required to install corrosion control treatment (CCT). CCT usually involves the addition of chemicals or adjusting the pH of the drinking water. Systems serving fewer than fifty thousand people are not required to install CCT if the system meets lead and copper action levels during two consecutive six-month monitoring periods. When smaller systems exceed the action level, they are required to work with their state to monitor water quality and work to install and maintain CCT. The LCR is the only national drinking water regulation that requires sampling drinking water at customers’ taps in their homes, and often by the consumers themselves.

If it sounds complicated to you, imagine how complicated it is for those who must implement and enforce it. The EPA published a white paper in 2016, detailing revisions needed for the rule. The executive summary plainly states that “the regulation and its implementation are in urgent need of an overhaul….There is a compelling need to modernize and strengthen implementation of the rule—to strengthen its public health protections and to clarify its implementation requirements to make it more effective and more readily enforceable.” Key challenges outlined in the white paper include the rule’s complexity and its limited focus on key areas of concern such as schools.

The complexity of LCR also allows room for corruption. A January 2016 investigation published in The Guardian revealed what many of us on the inside already know, which is how water authorities use questionable practices to downplay the amount of lead found in samples. The law is fuzzy, so I’m not saying anyone is violating EPA protocol, but many cities advise citizens to run their taps for several minutes to flush lead from the pipes before testing. This practice influences results and is not a true sampling of what’s in the water.

A 2016 Reuters report found that almost three thousand areas had reported lead poisoning rates at least double the levels found in Flint. These areas, from Warren, Pennsylvania, to South Bend, Indiana, to Goat Island, Texas, are dealing with crumbling infrastructure and receiving little attention or funding to help. Another recent report from the American Water Works Association found that if water was tested directly from lead pipes (rather than at the tap), up to 96 million Americans could be drinking water with unsafe levels of lead.

While LCR has helped reduce our exposure to lead and copper, we clearly still have a long way to go. In 2017, Congressman Frank Pallone Jr. introduced the Safe Drinking Water Act Amendment (H.R. 1068), the first major update to SDWA in more than twenty years, to help develop stricter standards for lead, perfluorinated compounds, and algal toxins. It would also provide grants to help schools and communities replace lead service lines. The EPA announced the first major overhaul of the LCR in October 2019, working to protect children and at-risk communities. The proposed revisions keep the current action level of lead at 15 ppb but introduce a new trigger level of 10 ppb, which means that when a city’s water hits this level it would be required to reevaluate its water treatment plan and possibly add corrosion control chemicals to the water. The proposal also calls for all water systems to develop and update lead service line (LSL) inventories and for water systems to notify customers within twenty-four hours if a sample collected in their home is above 15 ppb. Water systems must conduct regular outreach to the homeowners with LSLs. The proposal includes a new requirement for systems to annually test drinking water in 20 percent of schools and childcare centers in their service areas. Cities would be required to replace lead service lines when a homeowner replaces their portion of the line. However, cities would only be required to replace 3 percent of lead service lines each year, which is lower than the current requirement of 7 percent.

“The new LCR is an opportunity to build on decades of progress in reducing lead exposure. Despite setbacks like the Flint, Mich., experience, nationwide efforts to reduce exposure to lead from all sources—paint, gasoline, toys, soil and dust, drinking water—have resulted in a dramatic reduction in lead exposure in the United States over the past forty-five years,” David LaFrance, CEO of the American Water Works Association (AWWA), said in a statement. “Still, important work remains. AWWA looks forward to working with EPA, states, and utilities to find safe and affordable approaches that achieve further risk reduction and improved confidence in drinking water.”

State Regulations: New York & California

To fill gaps in federal legislation some states have started to implement stricter rules for lead, particularly in schools. In 2016, New York became the first state in the country to pass legislation that required all of its school districts to test their water systems for lead and develop remediation plans when necessary. New York schools are now required to report their lead test results to the state Department of Health through an electronic reporting system. But environmental groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council say that the landmark law needs to add further protections for children and that much of the state’s data is still incomplete.

California state assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher (D-San Diego) introduced Assembly Bill 746 to require all public schools from pre-kindergarten to community colleges and state universities to test the water for lead contamination. In October 2017, California governor Jerry Brown signed the bill, which will strengthen lead regulations in schools throughout the state. When elevated lead levels are detected, water sources are required to be shut off immediately and all staff and parents of students must be notified of their potential exposure to lead.

Health Concerns

Lead exposure can impact cognitive function and learning, decreasing IQ and academic performance. It is also associated with decreased attention, and increased impulsivity and hyperactivity in children. In adults, long-term lead exposure can cause increases in blood pressure and hypertension, leading to coronary heart disease and death from cardiovascular causes. It’s also associated with a decrease in cognitive function, symptoms of depression and anxiety, and lowered immune function in adults.

Toxin #4: PFCs (perfluorinated chemicals)

Additional Names/Spellings: General: Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS)

Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), C8, ammonium perfluorooctanoate

Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), perfluorooctane sulfonate, perfluorooctylsulfonic acid

GenX, perfluoro-2-propoxypropanoic acid, or PFPrOPrA

PFCs (perfluorinated chemicals) are the contaminants of concern right now. Both PFOA and PFOS are byproducts of industry that have been used regularly since the 1940s and ’50s. These man-made chemicals, found in everything from firefighting foams and stain-resistant sprays to nonstick cookware and water-resistant fabrics, have no business in our water supply. Not surprisingly, the highest levels of PFCs are found near facilities that made or used these substances, but they have made their way far beyond the factories.

Scientists have found PFOA and PFOS in the blood of nearly all the people they tested in the U.S. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health also found that newborn babies are exposed to both PFOA and PFOS in the womb. They are very stable compounds not easily broken down in the environment or in the human body, which is why they have been nicknamed “forever” chemicals. PFCs accumulate in the body and stay in it for years, which is a huge health concern. These chemicals represent another example of corporate cover-up and industry knowing that their products were harmful but distributing them into the world anyway. In 2017, the Environmental Working Group and researchers at Northeastern University found PFC pollution in tap water supplies for 15 million Americans in twenty-seven states from more than four dozen industrial and military sources from Maine to California.

Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) has helped sustain the success of one of the world’s largest corporations—DuPont (and its spin-off the Chemours Company). “We earn our place as the world’s most innovative science company by turning scientific breakthroughs into commercial breakouts,” says the company’s corporate website. PFOA is an essential component of Teflon, used to make their signature nonstick cookware. Chemours, spun out of DuPont in 2015, now owns and produces Teflon itself. Safety concerns about Teflon and other perfluorinated chemicals started to gain public attention more than a decade ago. In 2005, DuPont paid a $16.5 million settlement to the EPA, which accused the company of violating the Toxic Substances Control Act by concealing knowledge of PFOA’s toxicity and its presence in the environment. It was the largest civil administrative penalty the EPA had obtained in its history at that time, yet the fine represented less than 2 percent of DuPont’s profits from PFOA that year.

The EPA learned of the violations from a letter written by Rob Bilott, a corporate defense attorney turned environmental crusader, who represented a cattle farmer from Parkersburg, West Virginia, in a suit against the chemical company. The story was portrayed in the 2019 American legal thriller Dark Waters. Wilbur Tennant originally contacted Bilott because the cows on his farm were dying at alarming rates, and Tennant believed that the DuPont factory located in his town was responsible. As it turns out, sixty-six acres of Tennant’s property had been sold in the 1980s to DuPont, which turned them into a landfill for waste from its factory, a common practice big companies employ in small towns. Tennant’s brother had health issues and sold the land because he needed the money. DuPont named the plot of land the Dry Run Landfill, after the creek that ran through it—the same creek that flowed to a pasture where Tennant’s cows grazed.

Before this case, Bilott represented big corporations; in fact, his specialty was defending chemical companies, which made him an expert in the EPA’s regulatory guidelines. He knew how big companies worked and how to defend claims against them. He took on this case as a family favor and originally filed suit against DuPont in the summer of 1999. The company responded by commissioning a study of the property by three veterinarians chosen by DuPont and three chosen by the EPA. The report found that the animals’ health was due to “poor nutrition, inadequate veterinary care, and lack of fly control.”

As the trial came closer, Bilott made an important discovery that would change the course of the case. He found a letter DuPont had written to the EPA mentioning a substance at the landfill called PFOA. He then asked DuPont for all documentation related to the substance and the company refused to provide it. He then requested and was granted a court order, and he soon received more than 110,000 pages that included private internal correspondence, medical and health reports, and confidential studies from DuPont scientists. Bingo! These documents revealed that the company had known for a long time about the harmful effects of PFOA, and they had dumped hundreds of thousands of pounds of this dangerous substance from the Parkersburg factory into the Ohio River. The company had also disposed of 7,100 tons of PFOA sludge into the Dry Ridge Landfill, where it seeped into the ground. They had tested the water there too, and it had exorbitantly high concentrations of PFOA. Yet, the company never told the Tennants or disclosed any of this information when the suit was filed. The company also knew that PFOA was in the local water table, which supplied drinking water to more than 100,000 people living in the area.

Bilott uncovered in those documents that DuPont had been running secret medical tests and studies on PFOA for more than four decades, finding that it caused adverse health effects in animals including damage to organs. By the 1990s, DuPont knew that PFOA caused tumors in lab animals. Tennant’s case was eventually settled, but Bilott kept going. He spent months writing a 972-page public brief against the company, which in 2001 he sent to then EPA administrator Christie Whitman and U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft. This same brief led to the EPA civil administrative penalty.

In 2006, eight major companies voluntarily agreed to phase out their global production of PFOA and PFOA-related chemicals. By 2009, the EPA established a provisional health advisory for PFOA of 400 parts per trillion to help address short-term exposure to the chemical, but remember, a health advisory does not require local water authorities to tell customers if PFOA is in their water. In 2013, DuPont stopped production and use of PFOA. The five other companies that produce it are also working to phase it out of production. As of 2017, DuPont and Chemours Co. have settled more than 3,500 lawsuits related to the disposal of PFOA from its Parkersburg, West Virginia, plant and have agreed to pay $671 million in settlements.

Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) has a similar story. It was the key ingredient of Scotchgard, a fabric protector made by 3M, a global conglomerate headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota, that reported $30 billion in sales in 2016. Scotchgard, introduced to the market in the 1950s, became the benchmark for protecting carpets from stains. But the PFOS contained in it has never been good for people’s health. “PFOS is persistent, bio-accumulative, and toxic to mammalian species,” according to a 2002 study by the environmental directorate of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Persistent, accumulative, and toxic are not a good combination.

PFOS and PFOA were also used to make firefighting foams used at military bases throughout the country from the 1970s on. Again, when water supplies near these bases have been tested, widespread contamination has been found. The U.S. Department of Defense knew for decades that these foams had possible adverse environmental and health effects before the public was made aware of concerns. Communities near bases from Washington State to New York are pursuing lawsuits against 3M for PFOS contamination in their water supplies.

PFOS was voluntarily phased out of production in the U.S. by 3M between 2000 and 2002, and the EPA issued regulations to limit future manufacturing. Yet the damage to the environment and our health has persisted. In 2016, Harvard researchers found more than 6 million Americans have been drinking water with unsafe levels of these industrial chemicals and the highest levels have been found in watersheds near industrial sites, military bases, and wastewater treatment plants. The actual number of people exposed may be even higher, because government data for levels of these compounds in drinking water is lacking for almost a third of the U.S. population—or about 100 million people.

Interesting side note: 3M makes water filters that reduce “chlorine taste and odor, trihalomethane (THM), lead, sediment, cysts, arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium (hex), chromium (tri), copper, fluoride, radium, selenium, turbidity, total dissolved solids (TDS), mercury, asbestos, chloramine, MTBE and volatile organic compounds (VOCs).” No PFCs are mentioned.

National Regulations: Lifetime Health Advisories for PFOA & PFOS

Currently, we have no enforceable national drinking water limits for PFCs. While communities continue to raise awareness about and call attention to the dangers of these chemicals, the EPA has been dragging its feet about regulating these chemicals beyond setting health advisories. Part of that hesitation could stem from the fact that hundreds of sites owned by the Department of Defense are contaminated with these chemicals and a national regulation could cost the federal government billions of dollars in legal fees.

In 2009, the EPA published provisional health advisories for PFOA and PFOS based on the scientific evidence available at that time, which was considered “inconclusive.” The MCL was 400 parts per trillion for PFOA and 200 parts per trillion for PFOS.

In May 2016, the EPA significantly lowered the “safe levels” for these pollutants in our water supply, based on standards that assume lifetime exposure rather than drinking these chemicals for only a few weeks or months. The new health advisory for PFOA and PFOS is 70 parts per trillion. These new standards created instant water contamination crises for many cities and towns—fourteen systems exceeded the federal threshold for PFOA, and forty systems were above the limit for PFOS. My website almost crashed with all the people contacting me from Alabama, Arizona, North Carolina, Ohio, and many other places.

Only the systems that have tested for PFOS and PFOA can report their figures. Tens of thousands of drinking water systems across the country have never even tested for these contaminants. The current advisories come years after the EPA was first alerted to PFC contamination. In 2013, a Harvard School of Public Health study found that exposure limits set by the EPA then were up to one thousand times too high. People were exposed for years to these higher levels before a new advisory was issued, and that advisory is still not enforceable.

State Regulations

So far, the state with the strictest standard for these chemicals is New Jersey with a current guidance level of 40 ppt, which is stronger than the national health advisory of 70 ppt. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection wants to set an even lower maximum contaminant level (MCL) of 14 ppt for PFOA, which has been found in thirty-seven New Jersey public water systems. Fourteen other states, including Arkansas, Connecticut, Colorado, Delaware, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, and Vermont, have standards or guidelines for PFAS in groundwater, drinking water, and/or wastewater.

Health Concerns

DuPont scientists have concluded that PFOA is linked to six illnesses, including kidney and testicular cancer, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, pregnancy-induced hypertension, and high cholesterol.

“Studies indicate that exposure to PFOA and PFOS over certain levels may result in adverse health effects, including developmental effects to fetuses during pregnancy or to breastfed infants (e.g., low birth weight, accelerated puberty, skeletal variations), cancer (e.g., testicular, kidney), liver effects (e.g., tissue damage), immune effects (e.g., antibody production and immunity), thyroid effects and other effects (e.g., cholesterol changes),” according to the EPA’s own fact sheet for PFOA and PFOS. Their health advisories are based on peer-reviewed studies of the effects of these PFCs on lab animals but are also informed by epidemiological studies of human populations exposed to PFOA and PFOS. Research has linked PFOS exposure to immune suppression, thyroid disease, high cholesterol, reduced fertility, and possible cancers in the bladder, colon, and prostate.

GenX

As I was writing this book, my inbox was flooded with concerns from people living in Wilmington, North Carolina. Scientists found elevated levels of GenX, a new generation of chemical designed to be a safer alternative to PFOA, in the Cape Fear River, which supplies drinking water to about 80 percent of New Hanover County’s more than 112,000 residents. The Fayetteville Works Plant, originally built by DuPont, and now owned by Chemours, has been dumping GenX into the Cape Fear River since 1980 from their plant located almost a hundred miles north in Fayetteville. While there are many unknowns about this emerging contaminant, North Carolina governor Roy Cooper did step into action (thanks to a vocal community) to block the company from continuing to dispose of this chemical in the water supply. Whether the company will comply with these regulations remains to be seen. Byproduct chemicals are rarely regulated, and many times they are not monitored or reported.

The EPA also issued a statement: “While EPA has not established a drinking water regulation, health advisory or health-based benchmark for GenX in drinking water, the agency is working closely with the states and public water systems to determine the appropriate next steps to ensure public health protection.”

Health Concerns

We don’t know the long-term health effects of GenX because we don’t have the studies, but DuPont has short-term research that shows it causes tumors and reproductive problems in lab animals. Like its predecessors, GenX does not belong in our public drinking water systems. Pollution should not be a public experiment.

Toxin #5: Fracking Chemicals

Additional Names/Spellings: hydraulic fracturing, fracturing, hydrofracking

Economic growth and energy consumption are intrinsically linked. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a relatively new and advanced extraction method for getting previously hard-to-reach fossil fuels out of the ground. It’s arguably one of the most important energy innovations of our time. Beginning in the early 2000s, small independent oil companies slowly began to refine the practice that forces hydrocarbons from shale and sand deposits scattered throughout our country. Now, we are in the midst of what many call a “shale revolution,” with companies like Halliburton, ExxonMobil, and BP injecting millions of gallons of water mixed with chemicals miles underground to release natural gas and/or oil. Fracking has helped increase U.S. production of oil and natural gas, leading to lower energy prices. But are those savings worth it?

The EPA estimates that twenty-five thousand to thirty thousand new wells were drilled and hydraulically fractured in the U.S. between 2011 and 2014, and U.S. oil production continues to boom with more than 2 million wells spread out from California to Pennsylvania. Many of these wells are located near or within drinking water sources. By 2013, almost four thousand public water systems serving more than 8.6 million people had at least one fracking well within one mile of their source.

I’m not against the practice itself. The right regulations exist to extract safely, but they are not being enforced. Fracking is exempt or excluded from many major federal environmental laws put in place to protect us and the environment. These laws include the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, National Environmental Policy Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, or Superfund. Fracking creates billions of gallons of toxic waste each year and is exempt from all hazardous waste laws. Can you see a problem?

We’ve been told fracking helps create jobs and keeps America energy independent, but this dangerous practice is also one of the culprits of our escalating drinking water problems. When you pump a brew of substances containing man-made chemicals into the environment (through underground water aquifers), you can absolutely taint the water. The EPA reports that up to seven hundred different chemicals are used for this process in sites throughout the country. They include chemicals such as arsenic, benzene, cadmium, lead, formaldehyde, chlorine, and mercury, which are associated with developmental or reproductive toxicity. We have more than a thousand documented cases of water contamination from fracking operations—whether it’s from toxic wastewater, well blowouts, or chemical spills. Wastewater from fracking may be more toxic than the fluids that go into it, so more research is needed to study the byproducts generated throughout the process.

Fracking is happening in residential areas, near homes, schools, and playgrounds. More than 17 million Americans live within a mile of an active oil or gas well. The EPA has studied the impact of fracking on drinking water and released a report in 2016 stating that “activities in the hydraulic fracturing water cycle can impact drinking water resources under some circumstances.”

The following activities and factors can result in more frequent or more severe impacts:

• Water withdrawals for hydraulic fracturing in times or areas of low water availability, particularly in areas with limited or declining groundwater resources.
• Spills during the management of hydraulic fracturing fluids and chemicals or produced water that result in large volumes or high concentrations of chemicals reaching groundwater resources.
• Injection of hydraulic fracturing fluids into wells with inadequate mechanical integrity, allowing gases or liquids to move to groundwater resources.
• Injection of hydraulic fracturing fluids directly into groundwater resources.
• Discharge of inadequately treated hydraulic fracturing wastewater to surface water resources.
• Disposal or storage of hydraulic fracturing wastewater in unlined pits, resulting in contamination of groundwater resources.

National and State Regulations

Most fracking decisions are made at the state or federal level, even though local communities see the biggest impact from this practice. The Ohio Supreme Court overruled local drilling regulations. The Colorado Supreme Court also overturned voter-approved fracking bans in several Colorado cities. And those are just a few examples. Despite the dangers, the oil and gas industries have used their deep pockets and close government allies to aggressively push back against local communities that don’t want fracking in their neighborhoods. Former North Carolina governor Pat McCrory legalized fracking in the state, rolling back state laws that have been in place since 1945. When the state’s Mining and Energy Commission began holding hearings to determine whether or not to approve the practice in August 2014, a local paper reported that homeless men unfamiliar with fracking were bused from Winston-Salem to a state hearing to give the appearance of a pro-fracking turnout.

In March 2017, Maryland became the second state with gas reserves to ban fracking. New York banned drilling wells in 2012 and Vermont preventively banned fracking in 2012, even though it has no known frackable reserves. We need to urge state and federal leaders to reject attempts to limit local control of fracking.

I’m not an energy policy expert, but we all need to consider the energy we use and how we can use it more efficiently, and to continue to look at sources of energy that are clean and renewable, and have less impact on our environment. While natural gas is considered one bridge to get us to cleaner energy options, the unregulated extraction process comes with costs to both the environment and public health.

Health Concerns

People who live near fracking wells report numerous health issues such as nausea, headaches, sinus issues, and sleep disruptions. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University studied fracking communities in Pennsylvania and found that people living near wells were twice as likely to deal with migraines, fatigue, and sinusitis conditions. University of Colorado School of Public Health researchers found that people living within a half mile of gas-drilling operations had higher health risks, including cancer. Further research has found that the chemicals used in and produced by fracking can disrupt the functioning of the endocrine system and are known to cause cancer, birth defects, and other developmental disorders.

Toxin #6: TCE

Additional Names/Spellings: Trichloroethylene, 1,2,3-Trichloroethylene, trichlor, trike, and tri

TCE is a colorless, nonflammable liquid solvent used in both industrial and household items to make hydrofluorocarbon chemicals. While this chemical’s name does not roll off the tongue, its widespread use in multiple industries means that most of us have been exposed to it. In 2011, total estimated commercial production of TCE in the U.S. was 270 million pounds. But as more information about this man-made chemical has come to light, we have seen production go down.

Starting in the early 1900s, it was used to remove grease and dirt from metal parts and was a favorite in the aircraft industry from the 1950s to 1980s. TCE was used as an industrial solvent in the rubber industry—in paints, varnishes, adhesives, and paint strippers—and to produce agricultural chemicals such as fungicides and insecticides. It was also used in the dry-cleaning industry and in spray fixatives for arts and crafts.

“From getting stains out of favorite shirts to baking cookies and everything in between, Whirlpool® appliances are there to help you keep the day moving” reads the company’s website, another corporation as American as apple pie with more than $20 billion in annual sales. For forty-five years, the Whirlpool refrigeration production facility was based in Fort Smith, Arkansas. In 1967, they started using TCE as a degreaser and discontinued its use in 1981. Yet, in 2001 the company became aware that a plume of TCE had been found in the groundwater beyond its property and underneath homes in a nearby neighborhood. TCE is known to have a latency period of twenty years or more. When I worked with this community, people reported brain tumors, throat cancers, and nasopharyngeal cancer, and these rare cancers always raise a red flag for me. The Fort Smith plant closed in June 2012 and the company has been working to clean up the contamination.

Most people get exposed to TCE by consuming contaminated drinking water. The water is contaminated from some combination of industry discharge/spills and existing hazardous-waste sites. TCE breaks down slowly and can move through soil to find its way into drinking water sources. It was added to the list of substances known to cause cancer in the “14th Report on Carcinogens” released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in November 2016.

TCE and its health effects made the cover of Newsweek in 2014 because it was one of the top pollutants at Camp Lejeune, a North Carolina military base that is considered one of the worst toxic sites in the U.S. TCE was found in the drinking water of the 240-square-mile base as part of what was described as “a toxic cocktail of industrial solvents, dry-cleaning chemicals and gas.” In the next section, I will talk more about Camp Lejeune and the efforts to fight for clean water there.

National Regulations

The maximum contaminant level goal for TCE is 0. The EPA set the MCL (an enforceable regulation) at 5 ppb. In December 2016 and January 2017, the EPA published two proposed rules under section 6(a) of the TSCA. One bans commercial use of TCE in vapor degreasing, and the other bans the use of TCE in commercial and consumer aerosol degreasing and as a spot cleaner in dry cleaning. These proposals aim to prohibit importing, manufacturing, processing, and distributing TCE for commercial purposes.

Health Concerns

Health problems associated with drinking water containing unsafe levels of TCE include liver issues and increased risk of cancer. In a toxicological review of TCE, the EPA found that it is “carcinogenic to humans by all routes of exposure” based on evidence of a causal association between TCE exposure and kidney cancer. Both human and animal data show this chemical can affect the kidney, liver, immune system, male reproductive system, and a developing fetus, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), and it’s also associated with increased rates of childhood leukemia.

IN SUMMARY

When it comes to these chemicals and trying to figure out if your water is safe, remember the precautionary principle—in the absence of scientific information or consensus, the best possible action is to avoid exposure until more data can be collected. Of course, I have outlined the science as best we know it, and yet our own government is slow to respond to the research. Don’t let your body be the guinea pig.