EPA: http://www.epa.gov/safewater/ndwac/council.html |
EPA: http://www.epa.gov/safewater/ndwac/arsenicwg.html |
Arsenic In Water
-- The current standard for arsenic is 50 parts per billion
-- The added lifetime risk at 10 parts per billion -- the level in the Clinton rule --
is greater than 3 in 1,000 people, the study states.
-- I'm going to push for three” parts per billion | Sen. Boxer
Bush Team OKs Clinton Arsenic Rules
By ELIZABETH SHOGREN, Times Staff WriterWASHINGTON -- The Bush administration announced Wednesday that it will require an 80% reduction in the amount of arsenic in drinking water, implementing the same Clinton administration standard that it blocked eight months ago.
By making her decision Wednesday, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christie Whitman likely was seizing the last opportunity to set her own standard. A conference committee of Senate and House members was expected to decide as early as today whether to pass legislation requiring the EPA to set a standard no higher than 10 parts per billion, the standard Whitman put in place.
The current standard for arsenic is 50 parts per billion. Arsenic can cause cancer.
Whitman, unveiling her decision in a letter to the members of the conference committee, said: “This standard will improve the safety of drinking water for millions of Americans and better protect against the risk of cancer, heart disease and diabetes.”
Congressional and outside observers of the political maneuvering over the arsenic standard said it was obvious that the administration saw this as its last chance to act on its own.
“They got caught because Congress refused to yield,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).
“We wasted all this time for nothing. They should have left the Clinton standard in place.”“The conference committee was just about to make it law that the agency could not go above 10” parts per billion, said Erik K. Olson, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “The handwriting was on the wall. The science was in. [Administration officials] wanted to cut their losses.”
But Rep. Sherwood L. Boehlert (R-N.Y.) defended Whitman's reassessment of the Clinton administration's arsenic standard.
“I don't see how anyone can fault her for getting the best possible science to justify the decision,” said Boehlert, a strong environmentalist.
Noting that the compliance date for the Bush administration standard is the same one specified by the Clinton rule--2006--he added that Whitman's review did not delay the cleanup of drinking water systems.
The issue had become a political liability for the Bush administration. Environmentalists and their congressional supporters were outraged in March when Whitman revoked the Clinton administration standard, arguing that the costs and benefits of the reduction had not been adequately weighed as required by the Safe Drinking Water Act.
For months, environmentalists kept up the political pressure on Whitman, and this summer, both houses of Congress passed legislation to force Whitman's hand.
Over time, public opinion polls reflected voters' concern about the administration's handling of environmental issues in general and the arsenic standard specifically, and some of President Bush's lowest approval ratings were for his environmental positions.
Bush administration officials then began to backpedal, suggesting that they might even advocate a standard tougher than the one set by the Clinton administration. By August, President Bush had singled out the arsenic decision as one action he would like to do over.
Meanwhile, Whitman ordered studies by three separate panels to investigate the health risks of arsenic in drinking water and the costs to communities of removing the chemical from their water systems.
Wednesday's decision came after one of those studies showed that even minute amounts of arsenic could lead to higher rates of lung and bladder cancer than earlier research had indicated.
A National Academy of Sciences study showed that the lifetime risk for people consuming water daily with 10 parts per billion of arsenic is 3 in 1,000 people.
Federal EPA standards generally seek to limit increased lifetime cancer risk to no more than 1 in 10,000 people, so the new standard has a cancer risk 30 times greater than the norm.
A previous study by the academy found that the current standard, 50 parts per billion, “could easily” result in 1 person out of every 100 developing cancer.
Environmentalists and some members of Congress said that the battle is not over.
“In light of their own study, I'm going to push for three” parts per billion, said Boxer, author of the Senate measure to force Whitman into action.
Olson, of the Natural Resources Defense Council, called the administration's position that it was seeking out sound science a “charade.” If officials were willing to accept the implications of their studies, he said, they would have set the standard at three parts per billion.
For her part, Whitman said she is still concerned about the costs that small communities will face trying to comply with the new rule.
“It's not enough just to set the right standard,” Whitman said in the letter to the conference committee. “We want to work with local communities to help them meet it.”
The EPA plans to spend $20 million over the next two years on research and development of cost-effective technologies for reducing arsenic in drinking water.
Arsenic occurs naturally in the drinking water of several regions of the country. It also can be introduced into the environment by other means, including mining activities and wood treatment.
Arsenic levels exceeding 10 parts per billion are found in 3,000 water systems serving 13 million people, most of them in arid Western states.
About 500 California water systems -- most of them small -- have arsenic levels higher than 10 parts per billion, according to David P. Spath, chief of the division of drinking water and environmental management for the state Department of Health Services.
CA Department of Health Services: http://www.dhs.ca.gov |
State officials must set their own arsenic standard by 2004, and given the results of the academy study, they are considering whether 10 parts per billion is stringent enough.“It's in the ballpark of what we would think is appropriate,” Spath said. “If one assumes that these risks are correct, there is potentially some risk for exposure over a long period. But at the same time, Congress and the state Legislature have decided that we have to weigh benefits and costs when setting drinking water standards.”
Krista Clark, spokeswoman for the Assn. of California Water Agencies, was surprised but relieved with the announcement of the decision. Whitman had a deadline of February for coming up with the new standard, so water agency officials expected the congressional conference committee to have the next say on the matter.
“We've always had a lot of confidence that 10 parts per billion -- for public health reasons -- is where we want to go. We were surprised with the administration's decision to review the standard,” Clark said.
But water agencies were “heartened” by the administration's expediency in ordering new studies and coming to its own finding.
“If this really is the end of the road, we're ready to get our financing together and our treatment plants built,” Clark said. “This has been a long, long time coming. I think the administration is doing the right thing.”
Even Minute Levels of Arsenic
Could Cause Cancer, Study Says
Health: Report finds the substance in drinking water
is more dangerous than earlier thought. State water suppliers could be affected.By DEBORAH SCHOCH, TIMES STAFF WRITER
New evidence suggests that arsenic in drinking water could be more hazardous than earlier thought--a finding that could shape new standards for drinking water in California and nationwide.
Even minute amounts of arsenic in drinking water could lead to higher rates of lung and bladder cancer than initial research showed, according to a study released this week by the National Academy of Sciences.
The study provides new ammunition for those opposed to the controversial Bush administration decision in March to delay a more stringent drinking water standard for arsenic, pending further study. Since then, administration officials have tried to find a way out of the public relations disaster caused by that announcement. The new report “absolutely raised more concern” when U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chief Christine Todd Whitman was briefed on it this week, a spokesman said.
The findings could have an effect in California and other arid Western states where high concentrations of arsenic occur naturally in some ground water.
“They're certainly of great interest to us,” said Allan Hirsch, spokesman for the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, part of the California Environmental Protection Agency. California is conducting its risk assessment of arsenic and could set a tougher standard for drinking water than that of the federal government.
The study released this week found that people consuming water daily with 3 parts per billion of arsenic have an increased risk of developing bladder or lung cancer. Specifically, 1 in 1,000 such people could be expected to develop one of those cancers in their lifetime because of the arsenic.
The added lifetime risk at 10 parts per billion -- the level in the Clinton rule -- is greater than 3 in 1,000 people, the study states. It also notes that some studies overseas have linked arsenic exposure to diabetes, respiratory and cardiovascular problems and birth defects. The committee conducting the study recommends more research on arsenic's potential ties to illnesses other than cancer.
Federal EPA standards seek to limit increased lifetime cancer risk to 1 in at least 10,000 people.
California and federal regulations allow arsenic at no more than 50 parts per billion in tap water. After a 1999 National Academy study, the EPA proposed tightening that level to 5 parts per billion, later changing the level to 10 parts per billion, the level adopted by the Clinton administration in its final days.
That level provoked sharp criticism from several Western states, utilities and the mining industry, which questioned the science used by the EPA and cited the high costs of compliance.
So Whitman rescinded the Clinton rule in March, infuriating environmentalists and some scientists.
After the March announcement of the delay, the EPA asked the National Academy's National Research Council to independently review the most recent findings about arsenic risk. The EPA asked for an evaluation of the cancer risk of consuming water daily with arsenic levels of 3, 5, 10 and 20 parts per billion.
One environmental group, the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the study illustrates the fallacy of the Bush administration postponing the Clinton era standard.
“The National Academy made it very clear that the scientific consensus is that low levels... present very high cancer risks,” Erik D. Olson, senior attorney with the council. His group believes the standard should be set at 3 parts per billion.
In California, arsenic levels in ground water used for drinking vary widely, and that water is treated to the 50-parts-per-billion standard, said David P. Spath, chief of the division of drinking water and environmental management for the California Department of Health Services.
Ground water in the Central Valley, for instance, can have arsenic levels of 20, 30 or 50 parts per billion. Some wells in arid areas in San Bernardino and Riverside counties have levels above 100 parts per billion before treatment, state figures show.
If a 10-parts-per-billion level were adopted statewide, about 500 water companies would have to treat water more stringently. If a 3-parts level were chosen, 40% to 50% of the water companies could be affected statewide. Many of those water systems are quite small, said Spath, chairman of the National Drinking Water Advisory Council.
“We're probably talking about a couple of thousand companies,” he said. “As a result, the cost would be borne by a small number of people, and they would generally be very high.”
THE NATION
EPA Won't Relax Arsenic Rule, Officials Say
From the Washington PostWASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency has concluded that it must adopt a new standard for the amount of naturally occurring arsenic allowed in the nation's drinking water that is at least as tough as the one proposed by the Clinton administration, officials said Monday.
EPA Administrator Christie Whitman decided to recommend a stringent new limit after receiving a report from the National Academy of Sciences that found that the health risks posed by arsenic are much greater than previously assumed by the EPA, according to agency officials.
“This increases our concern about arsenic and what the level should be,” an EPA official said Monday night. The decision addresses one of the most controversial environmental decisions the Bush administration has made. In March, the administration set aside a Clinton administration regulation tightening the 50-year federal standard for arsenic levels in drinking water from 50 parts per billion to 10 ppb. The move touched off criticism from Democrats, environmentalists and moderate Republicans and prompted a House vote seeking to reverse the action.
Whitman charged at the time that the Clinton rule had been hastily crafted without adequate scientific study or consideration of the costs for small communities that would have to change their filtration systems. She ordered further examination, by the academy and other bodies.
The review focused on alternative standards -- ranging from as low as 3 ppb to as high as 20 ppb. The academy concluded that the health risks are greater than had been thought at any of those reduced levels.
After receipt of the report, an agency official said: “We are not going to go above 10 parts per billion,” said the official. “That's just not going to happen.”
Arsenic occurs naturally in rocks, soil, water, air, plants and animals. High levels are found most commonly in drinking water in Western states. International studies have linked long-term exposure to arsenic in drinking water to cancer of the bladder, lungs, skin, kidney, nasal passages, liver and prostate, according to the EPA. The EPA's proposal must still be approved by the White House. A spokesman for the president could not be reached.
A separate study conducted by the National Drinking Water Advisory Council, which advises the EPA on drinking water safety, concluded last month that the Clinton administration had done a “credible job” of calculating the costs to water systems of toughening the standards to 10 ppb.
Environmentalists said Monday night that, taken together, the two studies seriously undermined the rationale for blocking the Clinton administration rule.
LA Times | July 28, 2001
House OKs Measure to Cut Arsenic in Water Health: In a rebuke for Bush administration, the provision would halt an EPA review of a Clinton-era standard. Senate approval is expected.By ELIZABETH SHOGREN, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON -- In another rebuff of Bush administration environmental actions, the House voted Friday to require the Environmental Protection Agency to reduce by 80% the allowable level of arsenic in drinking water.
The provision, which passed 218 to 189, would halt an EPA reassessment of an arsenic standard approved during the waning days of the Clinton administration.
“Americans may disagree on a lot of things, but drinking arsenic isn't one of them,” said Rep. David E. Bonior (D-Mich.), chief sponsor of the amendment. “When you turn on the kitchen sink, you ought to be able to drink what comes out without worrying about being poisoned.”
The proposal -- offered as an amendment to the funding bill for the EPA and the Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development departments -- would lower the maximum acceptable level of arsenic in drinking water from 50 parts per billion to 10 ppb. The Senate is expected to approve the measure, and, because it is attached to a broad spending bill, a presidential veto is considered unlikely.
A 1999 study by the National Academy of Sciences found that exposure to arsenic in drinking water can cause lung, bladder and skin cancer, and it recommended reducing the acceptable level. Its report said the current EPA standard “could easily” put 1% of the nation's population at risk of developing cancer. That's roughly 10,000 times the level of risk allowed for carcinogens in food.
Arsenic also has been linked to liver and kidney cancers.
Arsenic levels exceeding 10 ppb are found in 3,000 water systems serving 13 million people, most of them in arid Western states, according to the EPA. Among them are hundreds of California water systems, and the cost of bringing those systems into compliance is estimated at $500 million, according to the Assn. of California Water Agencies.
EPA Administrator Christie Whitman was roundly criticized by environmentalists and congressional Democrats in March when she delayed implementation of the stricter arsenic standard to allow her agency to study anew where to set the level.
The agency has ordered a cost-benefit analysis and has asked the National Academy of Sciences to update its findings. The results of both studies are due in early fall.
Whitman has said the standard would wind up somewhere between 3 ppb and 20 ppb. The agency's reassessment is scheduled to be completed and new regulations finalized by February.
“I am disappointed that the U.S. House of Representatives decided to prejudge the outcome of this issue,” Whitman said after the vote.
The House vote is another signal of congressional uneasiness with the Bush administration's moves to roll back environmental safeguards. Nineteen Republicans voted for the amendment; six Democrats voted against it.
Public opinion polls show that President Bush is vulnerable on environmental issues, and members of Congress in districts considered politically moderate appear to be distancing themselves from his environmental actions. On the arsenic issue in particular, polls consistently have shown that a majority of Americans believe the Bush administration should have kept the stricter standards approved by the Clinton team.
Congressional Republicans accused Democrats of merely trying to score political points with the amendment.
“This has very little to do with the environment and everything to [do with] sticking a finger in the eye of the president,” said John Scofield, spokesman for the House Appropriations Committee.
Democrats insisted that their amendment was not about politics but about protecting Americans.
“The bottom line... is that the U.S. standard for arsenic should not be among the worst in the world,” said Rep. Bill Luther (D-Minn.).
The European Union and the World Health Organization have adopted a 10 ppb standard for arsenic in drinking water.
During the debate, congressional Republicans defended Whitman's decision to review the arsenic standard.
“The sound science is simply not there to justify a change from 50 parts per billion to 10 parts per billion,” said Rep. Doug Bereuter (R-Neb.). “The health benefits have not been shown to justify the enormous costs.”
Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.) said the tougher arsenic standard poses a public health hazard because it would force some rural water systems to close.
“We'll go back to having untreated water with wells,” she said. “You shouldn't take away our water until you have the right answer.”
Whitman has attempted to counter characterizations of the EPA reassessment as a rollback, saying she may propose an even tougher standard than that of her predecessor.
She repeatedly has stressed that there would be no change in the deadline for compliance with the standard: January 2006.
“It should be noted that this amendment will not put a standard in place any sooner than planned under EPA's science-based approach,” she said Friday.
But congressional Democrats contend the Whitman review has caused unnecessary delays. If the Clinton administration's standard had been allowed to take effect in March, as scheduled, water systems early next year would begin informing consumers about the presence of arsenic above safe levels in their drinking water. That would provide a strong incentive for local officials to move quickly in providing uncontaminated water, Democrats said.
The California Nevada Section of the American Water Works Assn. this week wrote Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) to express support for the 10 ppb standard and to voice concerns that the delay caused by Whitman's review was creating an “unrealistic timeline for compliance, which creates a handicap in meeting this critical public health standard.”
Five years ago, Congress required the Clinton administration to establish a new standard for arsenic in drinking water, but the standard was not finalized until last January.
Arsenic occurs naturally in some ground water, but mining, wood processing and other industries can increase concentrations through runoffs from their operations.
The arsenic vote is only one example of Congress reversing efforts by the Bush administration to weaken or alter environmental protections.
The Senate earlier this month voted to forbid the Interior Department from allowing drilling for oil and gas or mining for coal in national monuments.
The House voted to block oil and gas development in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, contributing to an administration decision to scale back future lease sales there. The House also voted to reinstate Clinton administration regulations to heighten environmental protections for hard-rock mining on public land.
Both houses rejected a Bush administration effort to wrest from the courts control over listing endangered and threatened species and designating habitats for their recovery.
NY Times
House, in Rebuke to President, Bars Easing of Arsenic RulesBy DOUGLAS JEHL
WASHINGTON, July 27, 2001 -- In a new setback for the White House on environmental policy, 19 House Republicans joined with 198 Democrats today to bar the Bush administration from easing rules on arsenic in drinking water beyond those set under President Bill Clinton.
The move was a defeat for the House Republican leadership, and it was latest in a series of congressional rebukes to President Bush and his team over such issues as offshore oil drilling, mining and energy exploration in national monuments. In each case, handfuls of Republicans have voted with Democrats to impose barriers to administration plans.
If upheld by the Senate, where Democrats hold a one-vote edge, today's House vote would force the Bush administration to choose between putting in place the Clinton rules or tightening them further, thus guaranteeing a 80 percent reduction in the arsenic standard by 2006, when the rules are due to take effect.
The Bush administration had announced in March that it would suspend the Clinton arsenic rules, which set the standard at 10 parts per billion.
The White House has questioned whether the decision was based on an adequate understanding of the level at which arsenic in drinking water might pose an unacceptable risk to human health, but it promised that its own review would set a standard no higher than 20 parts per billion.
But the very idea of easing rules for arsenic has been assailed by the administration's critics as a sign that the White House does not care about the environment and health, and this political assault apparently proved impossible for 19 House Republicans to ignore.
“This issue just has achieved a great resonance in the public and therefore in the legislature,” said Ed Hopkins, director of the environmental quality program for the Sierra Club. “People do not want arsenic in their drinking water, and the legislators are responding to that.”
According to estimates by the Environmental Protection Agency, as many as 3.5 million Americans, most of them in rural areas, would be affected by a decision to raise the arsenic standard from the level set by the Clinton administration to the maximum level being considered by Mr. Bush.
But some of the communities most affected by the debate have been the loudest critics of the Clinton rules, arguing that they would impose costs of many millions of dollars on impoverished local water authorities.
The measure, an amendment to $113 billion appropriations bill for the Veterans Administration, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and many other agencies, was approved by a vote of 218 to 189. Six Democrats joined 182 Republicans in voting against the measure, which was sponsored by Rep. David Bonior of Michigan, the Democratic whip. The two independents in the House split their votes.
California Environmental Protection Agency: http://calepa.ca.gov |
California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment
OEHHA: http://www.oehha.ca.gov |
Natural Resources Defense Council
NRDC: http://www.nrdc.org |
Drinking Water: http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/default.asp | links |
National Drinking Water Advisory Council:
| http://www.epa.gov/safewater/ndwac/council.html |
Arsenic: http://csf.colorado.edu/bioregional/2001/msg00375.html |
Arsenic: http://www.epa.gov/safewater/ndwac/ndwac_asgroup.html |
Arsenic: http://legalminds.lp.findlaw.com/list/epa-water/msg00800.html |
CA Department of Health Services: http://www.dhs.ca.gov |
National Academy of Sciences
| http://www4.nationalacademies.org/nas/nashome.nsf |
National Academy's National Research Council
| http://www.nas.edu/nrc/ |
Safe Drinking Water: http://www.safedrinkingwater.com |
Arsenic: http://www.safedrinkingwater.com/archive/sdwn053001.htm |
EPA: http://www.epa.gov |
EPA Water Office: http://www.epa.gov/OST |
EPA Ground Water: http://www.epa.gov/safewater |
EPA Water: http://www.epa.gov/epahome/waterpgram.htm |
EPA Arsenic: http://www.epa.gov/safewater/ars/0501mtgsum.html |
EPA California Water: http://www.epa.gov/safewater/dwinfo/ca.htm |
EPA Local Drinking Water: http://www.epa.gov/safewater/dwinfo.htm |
EPA CA report: http://yosemite.epa.gov/ogwdw/ccr.nsf/California?OpenView |
Ed Hopkins, director of the environmental quality program for the
Sierra Club: http://www.sierraclub.org |
Clean Water: http://www.sierraclub.org/cleanwater/index.asp |
Arsenic in water:
| http://www.sierraclub.org/cleanwater/waterquality/arsenic.asp |
American Water Works Assn.: http://www.awwa.org |
The American Water Works Association (AWWA) is an international nonprofit scientific and educational society dedicated to the improvement of drinking water quality and supply. Founded in 1881, AWWA is the largest organization of water supply professionals in the world. Its more than 50,000 members represent the full spectrum of the drinking water community: treatment plant operators and managers, scientists, environmentalists, manufacturers, academicians, regulators, and others who hold genuine interest in water supply and public health. Membership includes more than 4,000 utilities that supply water to roughly 180 million people in North America.The AWWA Mission and Vision
The American Water Works Association is dedicated to the promotion of public health and welfare in the provision of drinking water of unquestionable quality and sufficient quantity. AWWA must be proactive and effective in advancing the technology, science, management, and government policies relative to the stewardship of water.VISION:
AWWA will be the leading force in the world dedicated to safe drinking water.
The full House on July 27 voted 218-189 to add language to EPA’s FY2002 spending bill (H.R.2620) that would stop EPA from spending funds to delay the arsenic rule as promulgated in January or from proposing or finalizing a rule that would “increase the levels of arsenic in drinking water permitted under that regulation.”The amendment from Democratic Whip David Bonior (D-Mich.) passed with 19 Republicans joining 198 Democrats and one Independent. If also approved by the Democrat-controlled Senate, which is expected to consider its version of the bill (S.1216) next week, and sent to the White House, such language would throw the future of EPA’s ongoing review into doubt. It could trigger a showdown with President Bush, who ordered the review of the Clinton-era regulation.
Also Friday, the House rejected against an amendment from Rep. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., that would have reversed a provision that diverts $25 million for EPA enforcement activities to the states.
House Clerk: http://clerkweb.house.gov/floor/current.htm |
