Most Americans think the same thing about the water that comes out of their tap: absolutely nothing.
That’s right. No matter where you live in the United States — rural or urban, in the heartland or on a coast, east or west — chances are good that you turn on the tap and use what comes out for brushing their teeth, bathing, cleaning, cooking or even drinking. You probably don’t give it a second thought.
It’s not like it is in some foreign countries, where you’re advised to boil water before drinking it, to avoid opening your mouth while bathing in it or to use bottled water to brush your teeth.
Here in the U.S., the water that comes out of your tap is perfectly “legal.” The relationship you have with it is probably one of indifference.
But how safe is it?
The Safe Water Drinking Act: What Does the Government Do to Keep Tap Water Safe?
Since the 19th Century, federal agencies have taken measures to promote the cleanliness of our tap water. Congress has passed laws to reduce the pollution levels of our national bodies of water.
In 1974, with the passage of the Safe Water Drinking Act (SDWA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began to set and enforce drinking water standards. Prior to the legislation, drinking water standards had been very disorganized and deficient.
How bad was it? A 1969 report found that 40% of all public water systems weren’t doing enough to keep their water safe. Between 1960 and 1970, there were 46,000 instances of waterborne disease in the U.S.
Enter the EPA.
Under the SDWA, the EPA gained full authority to set national health standards for drinking water. The EPA delegated enforcement of those standards to the states, but the agency reserved the right to step in if states failed in their enforcement duties.
The law also gave state governments the power to create standards for secondary or nuisance contaminants. Those are pollutants that don’t pose any serious health risk, but which create bothersome problems like dry skin or scale on faucets.
Important note: The EPA’s regulatory power only extends to public water systems that serve more than 25 people. The government does not regulate the water in private well systems. That means the millions of Americans with well water must monitor the water on their own.
This is How the Government Falls Short in Its Efforts to Keep Our Drinking Water Safe
Let’s get one thing straight: While the SDWA hasn’t been perfect in its efforts to eliminate water contamination, water quality has drastically improved in this country since the act’s inception. Contamination levels have gone down, and the EPA has done an excellent job of holding states and local water providers accountable.
Check out our blog for a more in-depth discussion on the history, background and effectiveness of the SDWA and the federal government’s efforts to keep our drinking water safe.
That’s the good news. Here’s the bad.
The Federal Government Doesn’t Keep Our Water As Safe As it Could
Right off the bat, there’s a key limitation of the SDWA. The federal government doesn’t regulate well water, and smaller water systems get left behind. We discuss the unique water safety concerns of people on well water systems elsewhere on our YouTube channel and in this blog.
Beyond those limitations, there’s another big problem that affects everyone.
The EPA enforces safe drinking water limits for 90 contaminants, but that list of contaminants has not been updated since 1996!
Does that sound right to you? Think of all that has happened since 1996. The “clean eating” and organic food and drink movements have taken off. Health and wellness supplements have exploded in popularity. People monitor what they put in and on their bodies now more than ever; they care about the chemicals in the containers they use and how they might impact their bodies and their minds.
And yet, for the past 25+ years, the EPA hasn’t added a single new contaminant to the list of water pollutants they monitor our water for.
How Safe is My Tap Water to Drink? Here’s What You Haven’t Considered
Ronald Reagan famously quipped: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.”
How well does the government regulate tap water? To get an idea of how complete the government’s list of tap water contaminants are, let’s take a closer look at what they don’t include.
Chemicals like perchlorate, chromium-6 and PFAS are still dangerously underregulated by the federal government.
Rocket Fuel in Your Tap Water? The EPA Doesn’t Regulate Perchlorate
Would you knowingly drink a chemical compound that’s used to create rocket fuel, fireworks and airbag initiators in vehicles?
Unless you’re particularly masochistic, the answer to that is surely a firm no.
Yet in California and Massachusetts, people found that perchlorate, a chemical used to create rocket fuel, was seeping into their drinking water.
The EPA has tried to put a strict enough regulation on perchlorate in place, proposing a 1 ppb limit in 2002. However, they received a ton of push back as that strict a limit would necessitate a costly cleanup process. That sent the government back into the deliberation phase.
Officials also performed questionable tests, which showed perchlorate might not be as dangerous as we originally thought. These experiments were dubious because they were performed on healthy adults. However, the people most vulnerable to harm from perchlorate are pregnant women, children and people with preexisting conditions.
As it stands now, the EPA has not established a legal limit to the amount of perchlorate that’s “safe” for our drinking water. This impasse makes residents of California and Massachusetts particularly vulnerable to perchlorate contamination in tap water.
Chromium-6: Does the Government Allow Too Much of this Carcinogen in Our Tap Water?
Chemical runoff from industrial processes is a major contributor to tap water contamination. This is a concern that has a strong negative impact on the quality of tap water in the Chicagoland area. Irresponsible companies have polluted Lake Michigan with the chemical, putting Chicagoans at risk of cancer, heart disease and other health problems.
The EPA has set a legal limit of 100 ppb in place for total chromium, including chromium-6.
But that limit is way too high. The EWG suggests that the limit should be a far stricter 0.02 ppb. Any amount higher than that puts the public at risk.
Will the government lower their upper limit on chromium-6? Doubtful. To do so would be expensive, time-consuming and tedious. All things that the government shies away from.
That leaves it as a prime example of the shortcomings of government-set standards for tap water pollutants.
The Dangers of PFAS, or “Forever Chemicals,” in Your Tap Water
PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl substances and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are human-made chemicals invented in the 1930s. They are also known as PFAs or “forever chemicals” due to their unfortunate ability to stick around for a really long time.
PFAS are in the drinking water of 49 states. They resist heat, oil, and stains. They can also last for years and years and live in your water, attacking your health.
