There are plenty of chemicals that the EPA requires municipalities to check on and limit in their water supplies. But there are more and more chemicals found in our water that aren’t on this list. As a result, an advocacy group is very concerned about the safety of women and children in America.

Olga Naidenko, Ph.D. is a senior scientist with Environmental Working Group of Washington, D.C. She addressed a letter to the EPA in August, 2008 (www.ewg.org/node/27005).  On behalf of her advocacy group, she told the EPA that it should be setting water regulations that protect pregnant women and children from chemicals in drinking water.

The current EPA system involves listing questionable chemicals, including prescription drugs and agricultural chemicals, and then deciding not to regulate the bulk of them.  She charged the EPA with “shielding toxic water pollutants from regular scrutiny,” using this listing process.

She listed eleven significant contaminants currently exempt from EPA regulations. The EPA, she said, claimed that none of the contaminants  “were found nationally at levels of public health concern in public water systems.”

But the EWG study team discovered significant levels of exposure to four toxins, in reviewing EPA data.  It found that dacthal, a herbicide, contaminated water served to 486,000 people in six states.  In addition the study found significant exposures to aldrin, a neurotoxic form of dieldrin, and to soil fumigant 1,3-dichloropropene.

In addition, a USGS study by Kolpin and others in 2002 (Environmental Science Technology 36(6)) showed that veterinary and human antibiotics, as well as prescription and nonprescription drug and  anti-microbial compounds, are frequently found in our streams, said Naidenko. Many of these streams serve as important sources of drinking water. These potent compounds are all unregulated at this time, wrote Naidenko.

We’ve found out that toxins and prescription drugs are in our water supply. The best protection available for your family is a triple-carbon filter, proven to get rid of many toxins, yet holding onto the essential minerals needed for health. Check into home water filters, especially the durable, high-flow, triple-carbon filters made by Multi-Pure.