Later today New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen is expected to ask a legislative committee to impose some of the toughest restrictions on arsenic in drinking water. NHPR?s Dan Gorenstein reports.
Later today New Hampshire Governor Jeanne Shaheen is expected to ask a legislative committee to impose some of the toughest restrictions on arsenic in drinking water. NHPR?s Dan Gorenstein reports.
The new rules would lower the accepted arsenic level to ten parts per billion, five times lower than the current limit. Last year the environmental protection agency proposed a similar reduction on the national level. The Bush administration has put that move on hold. But state officials say they don?t want to wait.
Shaheen?s proposal would place the state right in the middle of that at 10 parts per billion. Thanks to geology, New Hampshire has one of the highest levels of the metallic element in the nation. Combine that with recent public health studies and scientists say there is compelling evidence to take action. Health and Human Services toxicologist John Drysic
recent studies of human populations have found risk in {other} internal types of cancer. Namely bladder and lung cancer are the two primary concerns that have been tied in to elevated arsenic exposure.
In deciding on the new standard, the state factored in both the risk to the public and cost to drinking water systems. Being sensitive to a town like Seabrook where the cost of bringing in a new system has been estimated at around 8 million dollars. But also recognizing that New Hampshire is part of a belt of high bladder cancer rates, which could possibly be caused by exposure to arsenic.
Joshua Hamilton, director of environmental health sciences at Dartmouth College, says the five-fold reduction establishes a reasonable middle ground.
Currently don?t have enough information about helath affects and people on those low levels to know wether there is any difference between 10 and 5 ppb, or wether there are any affects at all. And the fact that it is twice as expensive to remediate at 5 ppb, as 10, it seems prudent to lower it to ten.
The state?s action, however, would only require public water suppliers to comply with the standard. In New Hampshire about one third of the population draws water from private bedrock wells. Bernie Lucey of the Department of Environmental Services says those people need to take steps to protect themselves.
people that have bedrock wells should have an arsenic test to identify whether they might be at risk to higher arsenic concentrations. Arsenic has no taste or color, and consequently the only way people are going to know is if they have their water tested.
The new limit would go into affect in 2006. 8 communities would need to upgrade their water systems to meet the standard. For NHPR News, I?m Dan Gorenstein
