Hundreds of Toxic Chemicals Are Coursing Through Our Tap Water, New Report Says
▻https://www.ehn.org/drinking-water-pollution-2655521279.html
Compared to the previous (2019) update to the database, which identified 268 chemicals in America’s water utilities, the new database added 56 new chemicals. […]
Currently, the EPA regulates more than 90 contaminants in drinking water, a fraction of the agency’s inventory of more than 85,000 chemicals that fall under the Toxic Substances Control Act. The EPA’s Office of Water has not added any new substances to its regulated list since 2006.
Even for substances that are regulated by the EPA, their “legal limits were set based on outdated science,” Uloma Uche, an environmental health scientist at EWG who helped construct the tap water database, told EHN. While the EPA determines contaminants’ regulatory standards based on their individual harms, it fails to consider the additive effect of a chemical mixture.