Probable Carcinogen Hexavalent Chromium Found in Drinking Water of 31 U.S. Cities
December 20th, 2010Add it to the list:
Can You Do This With Your Tap Water?
Via: Washington Post:
An environmental group that analyzed the drinking water in 35 cities across the United States, including Bethesda and Washington, found that most contained hexavalent chromium, a probable carcinogen that was made famous by the film “Erin Brockovich.”
The study, which will be released Monday by the Environmental Working Group, is the first nationwide analysis of hexavalent chromium in drinking water to be made public.
It comes as the Environmental Protection Agency is considering whether to set a limit for hexavalent chromium in tap water. The agency is reviewing the chemical after the National Toxicology Program, part of the National Institutes of Health, deemed it a “probable carcinogen” in 2008.
The federal government restricts the amount of “total chromium” in drinking water and requires water utilities to test for it, but that includes both trivalent chromium, a mineral that humans need to metabolize glucose, and hexavalent chromium, the metal that has caused cancer in laboratory animals.
Don’t worry, according to the WaPo headline, it’s only a “probable” carcinogen.
Here’s a link to the study, which actually lists the cities:
http://www.ewg.org/chromium6-in-tap-water/findings?sid=ST2010122002654
Charming. We lived in the top offender during the 1990s. The source for Hexium Chromium there is almost certainly Tinker Air Force Base, which is/was a SuperFund site.
http://www.deq.state.ok.us/lpdnew/SF/Superfund%20Project/SF%20Site%20Summaries/TinkerAFB.html
I suppose when you just pour industrial byproducts and contaminants into open pits, you should expect some eventual issues.
In a U. class, my wife was told that the contamination source was an underground plume from the base that had not yet (at the time) reached the aquifer supplying Norman’s water. I just hope that was actually true.
Zeke