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<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/2013/unregulated-water-contaminants">http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/2013/unregulated-water-contaminants</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Please note that this is unpublished research - Laurie<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Traces of 18 unregulated chemicals were found in drinking water from more than one-third of U.S. water utilities
in a nationwide sampling, according to new, unpublished research by federal scientists.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Included are 11 perfluorinated compounds, an herbicide, two solvents, caffeine, an antibacterial compound, a
metal and an antidepressant.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey and the Environmental Protection Agency analyzed single samples
of untreated and treated water from 25 U.S. utilities that voluntarily participated in the project.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Twenty-one contaminants were detected – mostly in low concentrations of parts per trillion – in treated drinking
water from at least nine of the utilities. Eighteen of the chemicals are not regulated under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act so utilities do not have to meet any limit or even monitor for them.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“The good news is the concentrations are generally pretty low,” said Dana Kolpin, a research hydrologist with
the USGS who participated in the study.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“But,” he added, “there’s still the unknown. Are there long-term consequences of low-level exposure to these
chemicals?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">For many of the contaminants, little is known about any potential human health effects of low doses. But one
of the perfluorinated compounds, known as PFOA, has been <a href="http://www.c8sciencepanel.org/">
<span style="color:blue">linked</span></a> to a variety of health problems, including cancer, among people in communities where water is contaminated by a chemical plant in West Virginia.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Of 251 chemicals, bacteria, viruses and microbes the scientists measured, 117 were not detected in any of the
treated drinking water. Twenty-one were found in water from more than one-third of the 25 utilities (nine or more) and 113 were found in less than one-third (eight or fewer).<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><img border="0" width="298" height="325" id="Picture_x0020_2" src="cid:image001.jpg@01CEF19B.5B229120" alt="http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/images/2013/ehn/dec/unregulatedcontam/chart.jpg"></span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">EPA research chemist Susan Glassmeyer, who led the project, said the utilities, which remain anonymous, represented
a mix of large and small, and used different water treatment technologies.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><a href="http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/2013/pdf-links/SETAC-Nashville-abstract-book-1.pdf"><span style="color:blue">Preliminary
findings of the study</span></a>, which is expected to be published next year, were presented by the scientists at a toxicology conference in Nashville last month.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">While studies increasingly report newly emerging contaminants in wastewater, there has been little data on which
ones are in drinking water.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Four of the chemicals found in the samples – the metal strontium, the herbicide metolachlor, PFOS and PFOA –
are on the EPA’s <a href="http://water.epa.gov/scitech/drinkingwater/dws/ccl/ccl3.cfm">
<span style="color:blue">list of chemicals under consideration</span></a> for drinking water standards. The EPA plans to make decisions regarding at least five of the contaminants on its list next year.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“We’re hoping through this work the EPA will do a much more intensive contaminant candidate list and develop
new methods and requirements for drinking water plants,” said Edward Furlong, a scientist with the USGS who participated in the study.<br>
<br>
Perfluorinated chemicals, which were found most frequently, are widely used in a variety of industrial processes, including manufacture of some nonstick and stain-resistant food packaging, fabrics and cookware.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The two most common perfluorinated compounds, PFOS and PFOA, in the utilities’ water have been detected in the
blood of nearly all people in the United States.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">A
<a href="http://www.c8sciencepanel.org/"><span style="color:blue">panel of scientists has concluded</span></a> that there is a “probable link” between PFOA in drinking water and high cholesterol, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, testicular cancer, kidney
cancer and pregnancy-induced hypertension. The findings were based on people in Mid-Ohio Valley communities whose water was polluted with PFOA from a DuPont plant.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">PFOS, used in Scotchgard until 3M phased it out in 2002, has been linked to
<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20551004?dopt=Abstract"><span style="color:blue">attention disorders in children</span></a> and
<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20089479?dopt=Abstract"><span style="color:blue">thyroid disease in men.</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The EPA has classified metolachlor as a possible human carcinogen based on
<a href="http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/2013/pdf-links/chemseval.pdf">
<span style="color:blue">studies of highly exposed rats</span></a>. Strontium can affect bone growth, according to some animal studies that used doses much higher than those found in drinking water.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The perfluorinated compounds were at similar concentrations in the untreated and treated drinking water, suggesting
that treatment techniques are largely unsuccessful. Only one plant was successful at removing them, and it used activated carbon treatment.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Activated carbon, ozone and UV treatments are generally better at removal than traditional chlorine treatment,
but such techniques are often prohibitively expensive, Glassmeyer said.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“People resent having to pay anything for water,” she said. “There’s the thought that there’s a God-given right
to have as much as we want but, if you want the cleanest water, these techniques take money.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Treatment also can sometimes transform compounds into new ones, said Laurel Schaider, a research associate at
the Harvard School of Public Health.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">“Chlorination and other treatments technologies will remove some contaminants, but will react with others,”
Schaider said. “Some compounds may appear to be removed but may be transformed to a chemical we know even less about.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Laurie Tenace<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Environmental Specialist<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Waste Reduction Section<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Florida Department of Environmental Protection<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">2600 Blair Stone Road, MS 4555<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Tallahassee, FL 32399-2400<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">850.245.8759<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Laurie.Tenace@dep.state.fl.us<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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