EWG INVESTIGATION
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EWG Statement, 03/10/2008
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WHAT'S IN YOUR WATER?
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NATIONAL SUMMARY
Quality Varies Across the U.S.
CONTAMINANTS DATABASE
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About The Data
EWG collected tap water contaminant data from 42 states over a two and one half year period. The overwhelming majority of the data we obtained were from utilities, with a much smaller component from the states as a part of special monitoring initiatives. EWG painstakingly pieced these data together, and created a website where the public can access the information free of charge at www.ewg.org/tapwater/.
Some officials from water utilities, state governments and political appointees at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are criticizing the data on EWG's tap water website.
These objections are curious and a bit ironic, because the data they are objecting to are their own.
Perhaps what disturbs this handful of officials is that EWG is giving the public all the data on contaminants in their tap water, not just the sanitized version of contaminant monitoring that utilities provide the public each year.
Federal law requires water utilities to send virtually every American an annual report on contaminants in their drinking water. These reports, however, provide only a partial picture of what people are actually drinking. They contain only average levels of most contaminants, as opposed to a full reporting of all test results, and they provide no information on chemicals that are not regulated by the EPA—even though more than half of the contaminants utilities actually found in treated tap water are unregulated.
After we assembled our tap water monitoring database, we took the extra step of approaching the major water utility lobbying groups to brief them on what their data said, and we gave them a months-long window to send us corrections to their data. Over 500 water utilities did just that. Those that did not can still respond by clicking the Utility Operators link at the top of the first page of the site.
What is remarkable is that EWG is providing a web site to the public that should rightfully be presented by the EPA. Almost a decade ago, the Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments of 1996 became law, including a requirement that the EPA produce just such a public service. It still hasn't. We encourage you to ask Cynthia Dougherty at the EPA why that is. You can email her at dougherty.cynthia@epa.gov or call her at 202-564-3750.
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