On Mon, 1 Nov 2004 11:48:43 -0800, "Hound Dog"
wrote:

As a matter of fact, I am not even aware of anywhere in North America where
such conditions exist, do you?


By David Nakamura
Washington Post Staff Writer
March 12, 2004; Page B01

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has overstated the purity of
the nation's drinking water in four recent years, potentially leaving
millions of people at risk, according to a new report.

From 1999 through 2002, the EPA announced that it met its goal that 91
percent of U.S. residents have access to safe tap water. But the data
the EPA used to make those conclusions were "flawed and incomplete"
because states did not report all violations to the federal agency,
stated a report released this week by Kwai Chan, the EPA's assistant
inspector general.

Despite that, the EPA trumpeted the inaccurate rates to the media,
giving a false impression to the public, Chan said. The EPA's
documents show that some agency officials believe that in 2002, only
about 81 percent of the jurisdictions monitored had safe drinking
water, far lower than the official agency estimate of 94 percent for
that year. The lower number would put roughly 30 million additional
people at potential risk.

Benjamin H. Grumbles, the EPA's acting assistant administrator for the
office of water, acknowledged in a letter responding to the inspector
general's report that the agency's records are incomplete. He said the
EPA has been working hard to improve compliance in reporting from the
states and has made some strides but still has a long way to go.

Grumbles wrote that the EPA was not trying to mislead or lie to the
public with its reports but is simply "using the data that is
available to us through the national reporting system."

Chan's report, based on an independent analysis that the inspector
general's office began in June, was not prompted by the lead
contamination of drinking water in the District. However, Chan's
findings are important for the District because the city is one of two
jurisdictions -- Wyoming is the other -- that reports water problems
directly to the EPA. In all other areas, state governments have
primacy in overseeing local water agencies, and the EPA oversees the
states.

The EPA's oversight of the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority's handling
of the District's lead contamination problems has been criticized by
some local and federal leaders, who said the federal agency should
have demanded that WASA provide more information to the public after
the contamination was discovered two years ago.

A coalition of environmental groups met with high-level EPA officials
yesterday and harshly criticized WASA, according to Damu Smith, the
meeting's chairman and executive director of the District-based
National Black Environmental Justice Network. The coalition demanded
that the EPA determine whether low-income communities have experienced
worse lead contamination than other neighborhoods, he said.

"Our main message was that EPA has to take leadership in this
situation," Smith said. "The mayor and the city council don't have the
authority to force WASA to do what it needs to do. It's EPA that has
the power to do that."

Tom Voltaggio, EPA's deputy regional administrator, said that the
meeting was "excellent" and that more meetings will follow. "We want
to work with them and get their sense of where they think the best
place to put our time and energy is," he said.

WASA officials announced yesterday that they intend to release today
the results of hundreds of water tests conducted last month. The
agency also said it has retested two D.C. homes where water showed the
highest lead levels and found that the lead receded significantly
after the taps were flushed for 10 minutes.

A house on Evarts Street NE in the Bloomingdale neighborhood had lead
levels as high as 48,000 parts per billion, well above the federal
limit of 15 parts per billion. A house on Monroe Street NW had a level
of 24,000 parts per billion. Retests recently showed that the Evarts
house had a level of 6.7 parts per billion and the Monroe house 5.5
parts per billion after the taps were flushed, WASA officials said.

WASA Deputy General Manager Michael Marcotte said the high readings at
those houses probably were caused by partial lead service line
replacements done by WASA at both houses last year. When lead lines
are cut, the leaching of lead often increases because a protective
coating of lime on the pipes can become dislodged, officials have
said.

The EPA bases its statements about the quality of drinking water
across the country on data collected by states from their utilities,
which test for about 100 contaminants and pollutants, including lead,
arsenic, industrial chemicals and fecal matter.

The EPA inspector general's report states that the agency has a
verification program in which it reviewed 71 water systems where safe
drinking water violations were found. But of those, 17 had never been
reported by the states to the EPA's safe drinking water information
system, which is used to make the agency's official estimate of
jurisdictions with safe water. With 54,000 water systems nationwide,
it is difficult to determine just how many unreported violations take
place each year, the inspector general's report said.

Cynthia Dougherty, head of the EPA's safe drinking water program, said
the EPA does not know "what the right number is. The only number we
can use is what the states report. We have not figured out yet a good
way to come up with a different number."

Erik Olson, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an
environmental group, believes that the EPA's regulatory system is
"broken."

Federal authorities, he said, "don't even know the basic information
about public water systems."

The lead contamination in D.C. tap water, Olson continued, is only "a
very small part of the problem. There's a much more profound, serious
problem they're trying to paper over."

EPA officials said they are implementing more training for state
officials, simplified reporting formats and reduced complexity of
federal rules. But Paul Schwartz, national policy coordinator for
Clean Water Action, another environmental group, said the EPA is "not
really getting in there and aggressively [monitoring] these states.
The EPA has to take a far more proactive oversight role."




Acts of creation are ordinarily reserved for gods and poets. To plant a pine, one need only own a shovel.
-- Aldo Leopold