By Aaron Kesel
The Environmental Working Group, a non-profit research organization environmental watchdog, released a searchable database Thursday that shows almost 50,000 public water systems in the U.S. are contaminated with dozens of harmful chemicals.
Some of the chemicals found in your drinking water include – arsenic, hexavalent chromium, radiation, chloroform, perfluorooctanoic acid, Bromodichloromethane, Dichloroacetic acid, Barium, and Uranium; and that’s just scratching the surface of the 250-plus contaminants the group discovered.
EWG researchers spent the last two years collecting data from independent state agencies and the EPA for drinking water tests conducted from 2010 to 2015 by 48,712 water utilities in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Researchers tested the utilities for approximately 500 different contaminants, finding a whopping 267 contaminations of Americans’ water supplies.
EWG’s database is an interactive map where you can click on each state and review their test results.
In the results are listed contaminants found above health guidelines and above legal limits.
A subsequent report released with the database noted that contaminants detected in the nation’s tap water included:
- 93 linked to an increased risk of cancer. More than 40,000 water systems had detections of known or likely carcinogens exceeding established federal or state health guidelines – levels that pose minimal but real health risks, but are not legally enforceable.
- 78 associated with brain and nervous system damage.
- 63 connected to developmental harm to children or fetuses.
- 45 linked to hormone disruption.
- 38 that may cause fertility problems.
- Chromium-6, made notorious by the film “Erin Brockovich.” This carcinogen, for which there are no federal regulations, was detected in the drinking water supplies serving 250 million Americans in all 50 states.
- 1,4-Dioxane, an unregulated compound that contaminates tap water supplies for 8.5 million people in 27 states at levels above those the EPA considers to pose a minimal cancer risk.
- Nitrate, chemical from animal waste or agricultural fertilizers, was detected in more than 1,800 water systems in 2015, serving 7 million people in 48 states above the level that research by the National Cancer Institute shows increases the risk of cancer – a level just half of the federal government’s legal limit for nitrate in drinking water.
Overall, the organization found more than 250 million Americans are drinking water with “unsafe” levels of various contaminants.
Last year, the EWG found that two-thirds of Americans’ water is contaminated with the carcinogen that Erin Brockovich exposed – chemical chromium 6 or hexavalent chromium – affecting the tap water of more than 218 million Americans. That’s an additional 32 million Americans that are affected by other chemicals highlighted in this new study.
A 2008 study by the National Toxicology Program found that chromium-6 in drinking water caused cancer in rats and mice that were exposed to the chemical.
EWG is urging consumers to use a drinking water filter to reduce the level of chemical intake in the human body. They’re also pressing the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) to update their rules on chemical contaminants found in drinking water that “can pose what scientists say are serious health risks – and still be legal.”
“Americans deserve the fullest picture possible of what’s in their tap water,” EWG President Ken Cook said. “But they won’t get that information from the government or, in many cases, from their utilities. The only place they’ll find that is EWG’s drinking water report.”
“Just because your tap water gets a passing grade from the government doesn’t always mean it’s safe,” Cook added. “It’s time to stop basing environmental regulations on political or economic compromises, and instead listen to what scientists say about the long-term effects of toxic chemicals and empower Americans to protect themselves from pollutants even as they demand the protective action they deserve from government.”
It’s been 20 years since the EPA last passed any new drinking water regulations. Regardless, it’s clear that municipalities have not been following them.
If you’re in the U.S. you can check your own water supply by visiting the Tap Water Database, which allows anyone in the U.S. to enter their zip code or local utility’s name and find out what’s lurking in their local water supply.
Aaron Kesel writes for Activist Post. Follow us at Twitter and Steemit. This article is Creative Commons and can be republished in full with attribution.
forgot to list flouride …
Chlorine is worse! I find hard any restaurant in the US which supplies drinking water without chlorine taste.
You’d think as competitive as the restaurant business is, they would provide bottled water instead of tap water.
Glad I have my own well, that being said, the chemtrail government can be corrupting most of the water from the Underground water as well. BUT much better than what they put in city water.
Chemt rails? What are you smoking? Chemtrails are the pollution we the human beings put in the air through industrial activities, transport, etc. By the way the US military is the World largest user of fossil fuels – 9 to 11% of the Worldwide oil production. Stop the military crap and we have less chem trails.
parrot the globalist USA haters, again, open your eyes and watch the sky. I don’t agree with US intervention across the world, I believe in a strong defense and protecting myself and my family. look at geoengineeringwatch.org and learn something.
@gmatch…Chemtrails are aeorolized poisons pumped into the atmosphere from jet planes. Now we have leaked photos of the insides of the spray planes with all the tanks and equipment, and photos of the nozzles on the outsides of the planes. Get with it Einstein, are you one of the morons who heard the trigger words “conspiracy theory” and your brain froze up ?
Haven’t you stupid Americans heard of rainwater tanks.. My guess is that they have been made illegal.. How stupid is that!…In Australia millions of us only drink God given free from the sky rainwater… Wake up you idiots… Though I guess that by now it’s too late!
We have rain water tanks of a capacity of 120.000 gallons! We can’t drink that water straight from the tank and all filters we have in place (Osmosis, coal, etc) are not good enough. So – there is a risk. 1000 gallon of county water would cost us (irregation) 18 USD.
Several states have made it ILLEGAL to collect rainwater as corporations passed laws to make sure the little guy could not prosper from it. Besides with the military burning munitions at 200 sites & factories& coal polluting air as well as water with massive amounts of chemicals; the rainwater is not safe either. In SC it comes out of the sky at 3.3 ph and my well at 4.4. I test my well for over 50 contaminants [clear] but had to add a soda ash pump to bring the ph back to a normal 7.0 as it was too acidic for showers, pipes, & appliances, not to mention drinking.
use baking soda dude
Logically this would work on at least a glass of water, but then there is the taste, the aluminum contamination, the cost and the problem that it needs to stay suspended in solution that makes soda ash much more practical for whole house applications from a holding tank with a titration pump. If one desires the pump can be turned up to make alkaline water instead of buying the expensive stuff at the health food store.
Once you buy the tank & pump the soda ash is only about $50 a year.
Everything you jus said is complete nonsense.
There is no Aluminum contamination. The taste ? Are you serious ? I drink it everyday for health. Cured my 3 root canals that were required no longer.
Grow up dude, you are living in stupid fantasy world.
Stay in solution requires slight agitation once in a while, that or you can get Baking Soda (Sodium Hyrdo Carbonate, somtimes incorrecly called BiCarbonate: 1 Na atom, 1 Hydrogen, 1 Carbon, 3 Oxygen) which is finely grounded or milled. That will obviate the problem.
You really should look into the health benefits of baking soda (Sodium Hydro Carbonate should be in every home pharmacy along with colloidal silver) as you seem ignorant of them.
Chemtrails are poisoning everything on earth. Including rainwater.
Fracking is soooo goooood. Soon America will import water.
Back in the 70’s there was a Saudi prince who was going to hire tug boats to capture large icebergs and chop them up for drinking water near his home. Seems like someone ought to look into that, before they all melt.
On that same note, I have seen bottled glacial water in my local store but it is very expensive…about a buck a for a half liter bottle.
Thanks Aaron for your good article. Not only do you explore the trouble with the water offered by our nation’s water utilities but also you offered insight on how to check what is our own water supply. Keep up the good work.
What do you expect ?
What do you expect when the US Pentagon/Military wasted $10 TRILLION as they recently reported.
But no Americans are aware of that right ? Gotta update the Facebook profile right ?
What about the $23 TRILLION in zero-interest rate loans given to the owners of the FEDERAL RESERVE ?
What about that ?
Funny how that adds up to $33 TRILLION ?
Like the 330ml bottles, like the one degree above freezing is 33F, like the 33,000 missing emails.
Like the 5 33-year old victims of Ebola during that scare ?
$33 TRILLION has been stolen
What do you expect the water to taste like ?
Bitter poison, correct!
If any of you are still wondering if perhaps this is a deliberate action, designed to make us sick, just read that list again, and know this: Cancer treatments are the. most. lucrative. source of wealth in the world !
Now, if you were a slimy money-mad psycho sadist narcissist with unlimited power and a vested interest in the pharmaceutical industry, wouldn’t you go the extra mile to give cancer to as much of the population as you possibly could?
Probably 95% of Government agencies are to protect them — Not You!
Oh so true. We Americans must come to realize our government employees are there to serve those having the greatest influence over our government (did I say OUR government, silly me), not us.
All the governments Fed-state- muni have made sure their employees are well paid with great benefits, in order to cover up the murder of thousands and later – millions.
If any of you are still wondering if perhaps this is a deliberate action, designed to make us sick, just read that list again, and know this: Cancer treatments are the. most. lucrative. source of wealth in the world !
Now, if you were a slimy money-mad psycho sadist narcissist with unlimited power, high-paid lobbyists in congress, and a vested interest in the pharmaceutical industry, wouldn’t you go the extra mile to give cancer to as much of the population as you possibly could?
Can we get the results by community so we can make more informed decisions?
If any of you are still wondering if perhaps this is a deliberate action, designed to make us sick, just read that list again, and know this: Cancer treatments are the. most. lucrative. source of wealth in the world !
Now, if you were a slimy money-mad psycho sadist narcissist with unlimited power, high-paid lobbyists in congress, and a vested interest in the pharmaceutical industry, wouldn’t you go the extra mile to give cancer to as much of the population as you possibly could?
Don’t even go there. Monsanto’s GMO’s need to use Round-up which will kill you a lot faster than the water will.
Your corrupt government officials that allow it need the extra money.
America… You are screwed.
EWG doesn’t post East Bay Municipal Water District info and that is the largest East Bay water district
Water companies are now adding chloramine in addition to chlorine to water systems which not only creates a chemical soup but is impossible to remove with ordinary water filters…you have to use reverse osmosis to get rid or chloramine and the traces of poybutene ether gasoline additives curently polluting most California water systems