Tap Water

The Environmental Protection Agency has handed a major victory to veterans, civilian workers and families who resided at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina when its drinking water was polluted with the chemical trichloroethylene, a solvent used to remove grease from metal.

Across the nation, water agencies have conducted hundreds of voluntary tests for this pollutant in response to EWG's startling discovery in 2010 that chromium-6 contamination is widespread in Americans' water supplies.

A new report from Government Accountability Office, Congress's investigative arm, shows that a number of states have made serious errors in tap water safety data reporting. GAO attributed the lapses to inadequate funding and oversight.

A Government Accountability Office investigation released last week has found that the Environmental Protection Agency's efforts to protect drinking water and public health from dangerous contaminants are inadequate.

Veterans and their families made ill by contaminated well water at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina should not have to fight to get medical care and services.

The Water Research Foundation, an offshoot of the American Water Works Association of water utilities, has accused Environmental Working Group of informing utility customers about the presence of chromium-6, a suspected carcinogen, in their tap water. "Reckless and irresponsible," the foundation claims.

Tap water industry representatives made no mention of their chromium-6 2004 study when they testified alongside EWG at a Feb. 2 Senate environment committee hearing on chromium-6 pollution.

Some water utility representatives have protested Environmental Working Group’s report of laboratory tests that found worrisome levels of chromium-6, a suspected carcinogen, in the drinking water of 31 cities across the country. Yet the tap water industry was worried enough about the contaminant to conduct its own extensive survey in 2004 that found clear evidence of widespread chromium-6 pollution in untreated source water. The survey, conducted by the Awwa Research Foundation (since renamed the Water Research Foundation), an offshoot of the American Water Works Association, obtained data on 341 source water samples from 189 utilities in 41 states. The conclusion: chromium-6 is common in American groundwater.

The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed a nationwide plan to require water utilities to test drinking water for 28 contaminants currently unregulated by federal law, including six perfluorinated chemicals, a family of toxic industrial chemicals found widely in consumer products.