Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 23:39:32 -0600

Allene R. Wahl, Ph.D., C.N.C.

Int'l. Resource Center for Chemically Induced Immune Disorders

True cause of immune epidemic:

To: Undisclosed-recipients:;

Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 19:48:03 -0500

Subject: State PIRGs update - Arsenic Standards

Hello,

As you've probably heard, the EPA recently announced that it intends to set a 10 part per billion standard for arsenic in drinking water. While this decision is a long-delayed advance for public health, a 10 ppb standard is actually 30 times higher than the EPA's highest acceptable cancer risk.

Follow the link below to go to a web page where you can e-mail your senators and ask them to support a 3 part per billion standard for arsenic, which would provide strong protection against arsenic in drinking water.

BACKGROUND

Over 30 million people drink water containing dangerous levels of arsenic. Arsenic is known to cause cancer and is linked to other adverse health effect including diabetes, heart and lung disease and adverse reproductive impacts.

In March 2001, the EPA suspended a January 2001 rule that set a 10 ppb standard for arsenic and implemented three reviews that would reassess issues related to arsenic's harmful health impacts and the costs of treating water to remove arsenic. One review by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that the EPA had vastly underestimated the risk posed by drinking even low levels of arsenic. In its first rule, the EPA claimed that a 10 ppb arsenic standard would result in 1 death in every 10,000 people, which is the EPA's highest acceptable cancer risk for drinking water contaminants. The National Academy of Sciences found that a 10 ppb standard is actually 30 times higher than the EPA's highest acceptable cancer risk, and that a 3 ppb standard is at least 10 times higher. This reassessment also concluded that the agency has disregarded information demonstrating that the costs and benefits of regulating arsenic likely favor a far more protective standard than 10 ppb.

Unfortunately, polluting special interests are working hard to stop any increase in protection against arsenic in drinking water. The mining, electric utility, and wood preserving industry, which create lots of arsenic contamination or use massive amounts of arsenic in its industrial processes, fear that increased protections will result in increased liability to clean up their arsenic contamination, since drinking water standards are used as clean up standards at toxic waste sites.

On October 31, the EPA once against announced that it would set the standard for arsenic in drinking water at 10 ppb. However, a 10 ppb standard goes against a vast amount of scientific information and over 95,000 public comments that support a 3 ppb standard. While this decision is a long-delayed advance for public health, it also demonstrates that the EPA never should have suspended the 10 ppb standard set by the agency in 2001, and that the agency continues to ignore sound science and the public's desire for a cost-effective and justified protection against arsenic in drinking water.

Follow the link below to go to a web page where you can e-mail your senators and ask them for strong protections against arsenic in drinking water.

Sincerely,

Grant Cope

Staff Attorney

P.S. I want to thank you again for your support. Please feel free to share this e-mail with your family and friends.

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