Dangerous levels of the “Erin Brockovich chemical” chromium-6 are contaminating tap water consumed by hundreds of millions of Americans, according to a national report released yesterday.
The US Environmental Protection Agency has never set a specific limit for chromium-6 in drinking water. There is scientific uncertainty regarding safe levels of this chemical in drinking water and possible long-term consequences of ingestion. But this new analysis from the Environmental Working Group, an independent advocacy group, examines evidence from water systems throughout the nation and concludes that the tap water of 218 million Americans contains levels of chromium-6 that the group considers dangerous.
“Whether it is chromium-6, PFOA or lead, the public is looking down the barrel of a serious water crisis across the country that has been building for decades,” Brockovich said in a written statement, blaming it on “corruption, complacency and utter incompetence.”
“Americans are exposed to dozens if not hundreds of other cancer-causing chemicals every day in their drinking water, their consumer products and their foods,” Bill Walker, co-author of the report and managing editor of the Environmental Working Groupalker said. “And what the best science of the last decade tells us is that these chemicals acting in combination with each other can be more dangerous than exposure to a single chemical.”
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/20/health/chromium-6-in-drinking-water/index.html
The report itself stated the following:
Spurred by a groundbreaking 2010 EWG investigation that found chromium-6 in the tap water of 31 cities and a Senate hearing prompted by the findings, the EPA ordered local water utilities to begin the first nationwide tests for the unregulated contaminant. From 2013 to 2015, utilities took more than 60,000 samples of drinking water and found chromium-6 in more than 75 percent of them. EWG’s analysis of the test data estimates that water supplies serving 218 million Americans – more than two-thirds of the population – contain more chromium-6 than the California scientists deemed safe.
http://www.ewg.org/research/chromium-six-found-in-us-tap-water
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