EPA promises new arsenic standards after environmental group sues White House

Bart Jansen

Thursday, May 11, 2000 | 10:26 a.m.

WASHINGTON - The Environmental Protection Agency said it would propose stricter standards for arsenic in drinking water in the next few weeks after an environmental group sued the Clinton administration for delaying the process.

J. Charles Fox, the EPA's assistant administrator for water, acknowledged the agencies involved could have done a better job in meeting a legally mandated Jan. 1 deadline to revise the current standards, which are in "no way protective of public health."

The EPA will propose a "good protective rule that will significantly lower" the amounts of allowable arsenic in drinking water by June, Fox said Wednesday after the Natural Resources Defense Council filed suit against the Clinton Administration.

Fox declined to say what the new standard might be.

"It is fair to say we are overdue," he said, explaining that the complicated process of arriving at a new strengthened nationwide standard has been a decade in the making.

The Natural Resources Defense Council's federal suit says the White House's Office of Management and Budget has blocked the Environmental Protection Agency from proposing an arsenic standard that a law required it produce by Jan. 1.

"It's outrageous that unaccountable White House bureaucrats are illegally blocking EPA from protecting the public from arsenic in their tap water," said Erik Olson, a lawyer for group.

A White House spokesman declined comment.

Arsenic, which is known to cause cancer, has been found in particularly high concentrations in drinking water in the western United States, including Nevada.

The American Water Works Association based in Denver said the lawsuit would hurt efforts to reduce arsenic levels. Jack Hoffbuhr, the group's president, said the case could slow the rule-making process.

A 1996 law required EPA to propose a new arsenic standard by Jan. 1, 2000, and issue a final regulation by Jan. 1, 2001. The agency met last June with water systems, public health organizations, environmental groups and other interested parties.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington asked a judge to order the Office of Management and Budget to stop reviewing the proposed regulation and allow EPA to continue its process to create a regulation.

A National Academy of Sciences study in 1999 found that arsenic in drinking water causes bladder, lung and skin cancer, and might cause kidney and liver cancer. Arsenic might also cause birth defects and reproductive problems.

EPA's current standard, set in 1942, "does not achieve EPA's goal for public-health protection and therefore requires downward revision as promptly as possible," the national academy report said.

"The health of millions of Americans is being put at risk every day that EPA fails to act," said Adrianna Quintero, another Natural Resources Defense Council lawyer.

An estimated 56 million people nationwide have been drinking water with unsafe arsenic levels, the defense council estimated, based on EPA figures.

The current arsenic drinking water standard is 50 parts per billion, which most utilities meet. But the National Academy of Sciences estimates one out of 100 people who drink two liters of such water over the course of a lifetime will get cancer.

"That's an extremely high cancer risk," the defense council said, compared with typical risks for toxins and contaminants of one in 10,000 during a lifetime.

Arsenic at just 1 part per billion in water would translate into a 1-in-5,000 chance of cancer. At that risk level, there are 56 million people in 8,000 communities nationwide suffering risky arsenic levels in their water, the defense council says.

The World Health Organization has set a standard of 10 parts per billion of arsenic in water.

The American Water Works Association estimated it would cost the Association of California Water Agencies $600 million a year to meet an arsenic standard of 10 parts per billion in water.

The U.S. Geological Survey released a report Monday that found 10 percent of the nearly 19,000 wells it checked nationwide exceeded the 10 parts per billion standard. The broadest concentrations of arsenic above the World Health Organization standard occur in Nevada, Arizona and California.

Arsenic is a naturally occurring element and is found in ground water largely because of minerals dissolving naturally over time as rocks and soils weather.