Media Advisory
U.S. Department of the Interior
U.S. Geological Survey
For release: December 3, 2008
Contact: Greg Delzer, 605-394-3230, gcdelzer@usgs.gov
Jennifer LaVista, 703-648-4432, jlavista@usgs.gov
Man-Made Chemicals Found in Drinking Water at Low Levels
Editor's note: The studies were conducted in Indiana, Texas, Maryland, North Carolina, Georgia, Massachusetts, Oregon, Nevada and Colorado.
Low levels of certain man-made chemicals remain in public water supplies after being treated in selected community water facilities.
Water from nine selected rivers, used as a source for public water systems, was analyzed in a study by
the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
Most of the man-made chemicals assessed in this study are not required to be monitored, regulated or removed from water treatment facilities.
Scientists tested water samples for commonly used chemicals, including pesticides, solvents, gasoline hydrocarbons, personal care products, disinfection by-products, and manufacturing additives.
What: A public briefing hosted by the Environmental and Energy Study Institute and the Water Environment Federation to announce the new USGS findings and implications for treated and untreated water at different settings and areas of the country.
Who: Tim Miller, Chief of the USGS Office of Water Quality, moderator
Gregory Delzer, USGS Scientist and national coordinator of study
Thomas Jacobus, General Manager of the Washington Aqueduct
Where:
Cannon House Office Building, Room 345
Washington, DC
When:
Friday, December 5, 2008
9:30 am – 11:30 am
Obviously, we are not all trucking to DC to attend. However, the press release did not even mention trace pharmaceuticals, from livestock or human use, going into wastewater, and ultimately reentering public home water supplies.
When water percolates through the ground the wetlands and intervening layers can remove some levels of contaminants. Deep domestic well water is safer than river water that goes through a filtering process. And chlorination can end up chlorinating the organic trace chemicals, altering them and perhaps making them even more of a threat. It was chlorinated hydrocarbons that caused evacuation of the "Love Canal" residential areas in Western New York a few decades ago.
You might be less risk averse, but I certainly would like the highest quality water possible in the home.
Why risk anything less? If there's a treatment plant, what treatment will be done, and what assurances there might be that if millions of dollars are spent the trace organic materials, the "man-made chemicals" the USGS studied, are removed?
Otherwise, it's paying a lot for a little, perhaps for virtually nothing, as I see it.
_______UPDATE_______
There is a National Water Quality Monitoring Council [NWQMC] and, you guessed it, they are concerned with monitoring and assuring nationwide water quality maximization. There is this website, some conference information, and a 2006 conference guide I found online. This Google. If any reader knows more about water quality, and the problem of trace man-made chemical contamination, please add some info in a comment.