According to an analysis of the available data performed by a non-profit group called the Environmental Working Group, since 2004 over 62 million Americans have been exposed to drinking water that violates existing government health guidelines. Most of these chemicals are not actually monitored or regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act, but among those that are, forty nine of them have been found at levels that violate the existing legal standards of the Act. But those substances not regulated by the provisions of the Act are not prohibited or controlled in any way, leaving industries or individuals free to dump them into our lakes, ponds, rivers, and groundwater with impunity if they so desire.
Some of the pernicious substances that have been found in water supply systems across the United States include:
- Arsenic (declared safe for drinking water by the government at twice the levels recommended by private scientists)
- Uranium
- Mercury
- Lead
- Manganese
- Perchlorate - a rocket fuel additive
- Trichloroethylene - a degreaser used in manufacturing
- Perchloroethylene - a dry cleaning solvent
The last three chemicals on this list have become quite ubiquitous, and yet none are currently regulated by the Safe Drinking Water Act, even though all three appear to increase cancer risk. But trying to get anything new added to the Act since its original passage has been like trying to fit the proverbial camel through the eye of a needle, and that has turned this piece of legislation into little more than window dressing disguised as meaningful consumer protection.
According to the most recent findings, the ten largest water supply systems in the United States, which provide drinking water to over 28 million Americans, are contaminated with an average of 23 chemicals per system. While it is true that the majority of these chemicals are found at levels declared acceptable by the government, as we have already seen these standards should be taken with a grain of salt. And of course these standards were set based on the assumption that a person would only be exposed to one particular chemical at a time; when twenty-three different chemicals are mixed together in one big toxic stew, no one really has any idea what kind of damage this might do if consumed and absorbed by the human organism.
Keep in mind that the real causes of disease or infirmity are extremely difficult to pin down in most instances, as the processes behind the development of illness or dysfunction inside the human body are quite complex and still somewhat mysterious. Even when the cause of a disease is an identifiable viral or bacterial agent, it is possible that an immune system weakened by exposure to toxic chemicals could ultimately be to blame. The bottom line is that exposure to this mixture of potentially dangerous substances, even when they are contaminating the water supply in very small amounts, could be implicated in all kinds of health disorders without us even knowing what is going on.