Friday, December 18, 2009

Hype is More Dangerous than Chemicals in the Water

Officials at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are working hard to hype drinking water risks as they ask Congress to expand their authority under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). They have the assistance of sensationalist journalism at The New York Times, whose main source of information appears to be left-leaning activists at the Environmental Working Group (EWG). In a story on this topic today, The New York Times claims that data collected by EWG from EPA databases between 2004 to present shows that there is a growing body of evidence that individuals are increasingly exposed to dangerous chemicals in our water supply. Their arguments are wrong for myriad reasons. First, the idea of a national drinking water crisis is off the mark. Most of the U.S. water supply is quite safe—among the safest in the world. And consumers have a variety of options that include bottle water—whose record is even better than tap—when problems in their public water systems do emerge. More importantly, exposure to chemicals does not translate into significant risks. Humans are exposed to hundreds of thousands of trace chemicals every day—man-made and natural—without ill effect. Risks result not from low exposures but from relatively high ones to certain chemicals over decades...read more

No comments: