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Americas Tap Water: Too Much Contamination, Not Enough Reporting, Study Finds
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of New York Times


New York Times, May 4, 2017
Posted: July 10th, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/04/us/tapwater-drinking-wate...

If you live in the United States, there is a nearly one-in-four chance your tap water is either unsafe to drink or has not been properly monitored for contaminants in accordance with federal law, a new study has found. In 2015, nearly 77 million Americans lived in places where the water systems were in some violation of safety regulations, including the 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act, according to the report released on Tuesday from the Natural Resources Defense Council. Its not only that some tap water has high levels of lead, nitrates, arsenic or other pollutants, said Mae Wu, a senior attorney with the councils health program. It is that too often, a lack of reporting means residents cannot be sure whether their drinking water is contaminated or not. Marc Edwards, a scientist at Virginia Tech ... played a major role in bringing the crisis to national attention. Mr. Edwards said he agreed with the resources defense councils conclusion that the government has not done enough to enforce regulations on drinking water safety. This has been tolerated so long, and it is so ingrained in the E.P.A. culture to look the other way, he said. Theyre going to need outside pressure to act and enforce existing laws. The councils report found that there were around 80,000 reported violations of drinking water safety regulations in 2015. Of those, more than 12,000 were health-based violations, or cases that involved actual contamination problems. In addition, the N.R.D.C. said, Nearly nine in 10 violations were subject to no formal action.

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