AFTER JOHANNESBURG: Your water - or your life?

By George Glasser* and Jane Jones**

What is the legacy of Johannesburg? Despite widespread dissatisfaction over the Summit's many failures, delegates were in agreement that our poorest world neighbours have the basic right to sanitation and safe drinking water.

Meanwhile, here in the United Kingdom we are largely oblivious to our own drinking water problems. We might occasionally complain about a slight smell of bleach in the water, or experience 'inconvenience' when the water company turns off our taps to dig up the road. We are unaware of the energies being expended by Government scientists and water company personnel to provide us with drinking water which is as free as possible from toxic substances which can and do accumulate in our bodies.

In order to provide safe drinking water, Government sets water quality standards. These standards are not 'written in stone'. Although based on 'best cost and technology for industry,' they are designed to minimise serious adverse health effects known to be caused by extremely tiny amounts of specific contaminants.

For example, water companies now strive to reduce their dependence on Chlorine as a disinfectant because this chemical - and the by-products it creates in water - have been found to cause a variety of cancers.

The contaminant regulation for Arsenic has recently been revised downward to 10 parts per BILLION, to reduce deaths from prostate, skin, bladder, kidney, liver and lung cancers. Recommendations have been made for future downward revision of the Arsenic regulation to further reduce these cancers, but, at the present time, the cost would be prohibitive.

The United States authorities have set a regulation to minimise exposure to Beryllium at a minuscule 4 parts per billion because it is a 'probable' carcinogen. .

Recognition of the extreme neurotoxicity of Lead and Mercury is reflected in the standards for these minerals.

Currently, the standard for Lead is 50 parts per billion. By 2003, water companies must reduce Lead contamination to 25 parts per billion and to 10 parts per billion by 2013.

The standard for Mercury is currently an infinitesimal 1 part per billion.

The stated "ideal goal" for known neurotoxicants and carcinogens in drinking water is ZERO contamination. However, it is generally accepted that industry is unlikely ever to achieve this goal.

Water companies are compelled to spend billions of pounds to comply with regulations designed to remove dangerous contaminants from the drinking water in order to protect public health. So, who would knowingly promote or endorse the use of any chemicals (NOT related to water purification treatments) that are contaminated with neurotoxicants and/or cancer-causing agents?

While the Department of the Environment constantly drives water companies to reduce contaminant levels in drinking water, the Department of Health actively promotes water fluoridation using a dangerously contaminated industrial grade chemical. 'Water fluoridation is a preventive treatment,' they explain, 'which addresses inequalities in dental health by reducing tooth decay in children.'

Laboratory analyses show that the chemical used in water fluoridation schemes (hexafluorosilicic acid) is contaminated with several neurotoxicants and cancer-causing agents including Arsenic, Beryllium, Lead, Mercury, Cadmium, Vanadium, Silicon and Radionuclides.

The authors of an October 2000 American Water works Association journal, OPFLOW, article stated that 90% of the Arsenic contamination found in drinking water is attributable to fluorosilicic acid used in artificial fluoridation schemes. The EPA had lobbied Congress and the Senate to reduce Arsenic levels to three, or no more than five parts per billion.

They ultimately settled for 10 parts per billion, because of the cost of removing the Arsenic.

In America, Maximum Contaminant Level Goals for carcinogens are set at ZERO because the US Environmental Protection Agency assumes there is no absolutely safe level of exposure to any cancer-causing agents. Curiously, that same Agency turns a blind eye to the presence of neurotoxicants and carcinogens in fluoridation chemicals.

How can rational people in Government positions promote, endorse and permit the addition to public drinking water supplies of any chemical not essential for water purification, when that chemical contains several known neurotoxicants and cancer-causing agents?

http://www.npwa.freeserve.co.uk/mccormick_letter.html
http://www.npwa.freeserve.co.uk/Public_comment.html
http://www.npwa.freeserve.co.uk/pollution.htm
http://www.npwa.freeserve.co.uk/vulnerable.htm
http://www.npwa.freeserve.co.uk/dental_fluorosis.html

* Environmental writer.
** Campaign Director, National Pure Water Association, UK