Making Water Less Safe

[Guest guest]

Making Water Less Safe

 

 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed new regulations

last year that may make disinfecting public water supplies less effective and

even cost prohibitive, according to many local public health officials. And a

provision of a Senate bill would exempt the EPA from the requirement that the

regulations be justified by a cost-benefit analysis.

 

Every day, 25,000 people in developing countries die from such water-borne

diseases as cholera and typhoid fever because public water supplies are not

disinfected. Chlorine compounds have been used to disinfect water in the U.S.

and other countries for nearly 100 years, resulting in the elimination of many

diseases.

 

However, when chlorine combines with other organic compounds in water

treatment facilities, such as decomposing leaves, " disinfection by-products "

such as chloroform are formed. The health effects of these by-products in minute

quantities are largely unknown, but the EPA wants to eliminate them because of a

hypothetical risk of cancer.

 

a.. The regulations would add an additional $4 billion a year to the

cost of chlorination, according to the American Water Works Association.

 

b.. Experts are concerned that small water systems might abandon

chlorination, adopting alternative treatment methods that produce other

by-products and health risks.

 

c.. A study by the Congressional Budget Office points out that the EPA

is unsure of the cancer risk, with estimates of the average cost per cancer

avoided ranging from $867,000 to as much as $19 billion.

Requiring federal regulatory agencies to justify proposed rules by

conducting cost-benefit analyses is one way of reducing the cost of federal

regulations. However, the Senate version of a bill reauthorizing the Safe

Drinking Water Act would exempt the EPA's proposed rule from meeting such a

standard.

 

Sources: " Controversial Disinfectants/Disinfection By-Products Rule Clouds

Future of SDWA in House, " EPA Watch, Vol. 5, No.1, January 15, 1996; and " The

Safe Drinking Water Act: A Case Study of an Unfunded Federal Mandate, "

Congressional Budget Office, September 1995, Washington, DC.

 

 

 

 

 

karl theis

video field reporter

www.RealityExpander.com Ch.10 TimeWarner

Austin,Texas cell 512 297-9875

e-mail: theis888 www.exposureofthetruth.isfamous.com

 

 

 

 

 

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