Understanding The EPA Water Quality Standards
When discussing the quality of the municipal tap water, we at Trionics understand that the water is considered “safe to drink” as long as it meets the standards set forth by the EPA. This bears the question -Is “safe” good enough for your family and home?
Consider The following –
- The EPA is responsible for setting the standards for drinking water and requires water providers to test for and regulate only 88 contaminates.
- 3 Disinfectants
- 4 Disinfection byproducts
- 8 Micro Organisms
- 16 Inorganic Chemicals
- 53 Organic Chemicals
- 4 Radionucides
- There are 75,000 different chemical compounds used in our everyday enviorment.
- EPA Saftey levels for the 88 contaminates are based upon the potential health effects for a 175lb adult drinking only ONE chemical and does not take into account combined toxicity of two or more chemicals.
- Children consume 3 times the amount of fluid per pound of body weight
- Water Providers are allowed to average contaminate testing results over the period of a year.This means spikes can reach unhealthy levels and still remain in compliance with the EPA.
- In 2001, 1 out of 4 community water systems did not conduct testing or report the results for all of the monitoring required to verify the safety of thier drinking water. (Factoids: Drinking Water and Ground Water Statistics for 2001, EPA 816-K-02-004.)
“The Way we guarantee safe drinking water is broken and needs to be fixed.” —Carol Browner— Former Chief Administrator for the U.S. EPA