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EWG Statement, 03/10/2008

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NATIONAL SUMMARY

Quality Varies Across the U.S.

CONTAMINANTS DATABASE

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Tap Water Quality Report The State of Massachusetts 620 Water Systems Serving 9,047,871 People

An Environmental Working Group analysis of tap water tests from 1998 through 2003 for 620 communities across Massachusetts shows 17 pollutants were found in drinking water across the state.

Pollution Summary

17 14	2 1	4 3	10 8	6 5	9 8
Total pollutants	Agricultural pollutants	Sprawl and Urban pollutants	Industrial pollutants	Water Treatment and Distribution Byproducts	Naturally occurring pollutants
Number of pollutants detected (1998 - 2003)			Over health based limits

NOTE: Health based limits included in this analysis include enforceable drinking water limits (called Maximum Contaminant Limits, or MCLs) as well as governmental, non-enforceable health guidelines, such as Maximum Contaminant Limit Goals (MCLGs), lifetime health advisory levels, one-day and ten-day advisory levels to protect children from non-cancer health endpoints, and other government-established health guidelines for tap water contaminants.

Health Summary

The federal government has set standards for 80 chemical pollutants in tap water, balancing health concerns and treatment costs.

Contaminants found in state tap water (1998-2003): 17

Total population exposed above health-based limits: 5,617,520

Communities served water with contaminants above health-based limits: 130

Health effects or target organs of contaminants found: Cardiovascular or Blood Toxicity, Cancer, Developmental Toxicity, Endocrine Toxicity, Kidney Toxicity, Gastrointestinal or Liver Toxicity, Neurotoxicity, Reproductive Toxicity, Respiratory Toxicity, and Skin Sensitivity.

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Contaminants found above health based limits: 14

Rank	Contaminant Name	Population Exposed (of 9,047,871 Total)		Number of Water Systems (of 620) Total
		At Any Level	Above Health Limits See Note	With Detected	Above Health Limits See Note
1	Nitrate	6,672,577	260	432	2
		Chemical that enters water from fertilizer runoff, leaching septic tanks, and erosion of natural deposits
2	Total trihalomethanes (TTHMs)	6,642,895	5,364,191	168	101
		Measure of four disinfection by-products
3	Chloroform	4,524,204	17,000	104	1
		Disinfection by-product
4	Alpha particle activity	669,880	1,700	79	3
		From mining waste polluants and natural sources
5	Total haloacetic acids	4,641,543	771,353	66	11
		Measure of disinfection by-products; refers to the sum of the concentrations of dichloroacetic acid, trichloroacetic acid, monochloroacetic acid, monobromoacetic acid and dibromoacetic acid in a water sample.
6	Bromodichloromethane	3,436,437	2,161,377	55	7
		Disinfection by-product
7	Dibromochloromethane	3,225,282	56,795	47	2
		Disinfection by-product
8	Tetrachloroethylene	629,440	397,829	35	22
		Pollutant from dry cleaning and various industrial factories
9	Gross beta particle activity (pCi/L)	435,910	0	27	0
		Mainly pollutants from nuclear testing and industrial and medical instruments
10	Radium-226	55,021	0	9	0
		Radioactive element usually found around uranium deposits

View Full Table

NOTE: Health based limits included in this analysis include enforceable drinking water limits (called Maximum Contaminant Limits, or MCLs) as well as governmental, non-enforceable health guidelines, such as Maximum Contaminant Limit Goals (MCLGs), lifetime health advisory levels, one-day and ten-day advisory levels to protect children from non-cancer health endpoints, and other government-established health guidelines for tap water contaminants.

Testing Summary

The federal government has set standards for some of the pollutants found in tap water supplies.

Contaminants reported as tested by water suppliers in Massachusetts		130
	Contaminants tested due to federal law:	84
	Contaminants tested in addition to those required by federal law:	46

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Violations Summary

According to EPA, in 2003 6% of America's public water systems reported one or more violations of a health-based drinking water standard, and 26% reported significant violations of either monitoring and reporting requirements or health-based standards.

Reported violations (1998 - 2003): 1,999

Number of MA systems with violations: 409 (66%)

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Information on violations is drawn directly from EPA's national violations database in the Agency's Safe Drinking Water Information System. Analyses by others have raised questions about the quality of the information in EPA's database. For the purposes of this investigation, EWG is not showing below or including in our analyses, those violations for individual water suppliers that occurred on days for which the total number of violations assigned by EPA to that water supplier was greater than 20. This criteria was based on common characteristics of incorrect violations data as identified by water utilities, from a review of EPA's violations data by several hundred utilities prior to the release of EWG's investigation.