EWG INVESTIGATION
Findings
About The Data
News Release
EWG Statement, 03/10/2008
Related News Clips
WHAT'S IN YOUR WATER?
Find Your Water Company
NATIONAL SUMMARY
Quality Varies Across the U.S.
CONTAMINANTS DATABASE
Find a Contaminant
Credits
Sign up to receive email updates from EWG
|
|
 | Tap Water Quality Report The State of West Virginia541 Water SystemsServing 1,441,804 People |
An Environmental Working Group analysis of tap water tests from
1998 through 2003 for 541 communities across
West Virginia shows 2 pollutants were found in drinking water across the state.
Pollution Summary
| 2 | Total Contaminants Detected (1998 - 2003) | | 0 | Agricultural Pollutants
(pesticides, fertilizer, factory farms) | | 0 | Sprawl and Urban Pollutants
(road runoff, lawn pesticides, human waste) | | 2 | Industrial Pollutants Cyanide, Alpha particle activity (excl radon and uranium) | | 0 | Water Treatment and Distribution Byproducts
(pipes and fixtures, treatment chemicals and byproducts) | | 1 | Naturally Occurring
(naturally present but increased for lands denuded by sprawl, agriculture, or industrial development)Alpha particle activity (excl radon and uranium) | | 0 | Unregulated Contaminants
EPA has not established a maximum legal limit in tapwater for these contaminants |
2 | 0 |
| | 0 | 0 |
| | 0 | 0 |
| | 2 | 0 |
| | 0 | 0 |
| | 1 | 0 |
|  | | 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): 2
Total population exposed above health-based limits: 0
Communities served water with contaminants above health-based limits: 0
Health effects or target organs of contaminants found: .
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 West Virginia | 134 |
| | Contaminants tested due to federal law:
| 84 |
| | Contaminants tested in addition to those required by federal law:
| 50 |
[View Details]
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): 3,566
Number of WV systems with violations:
417 (77.1%)
[View Details]
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.
|
