If you’d like to find out what else might be in your drinking water, the EWG’s National Drinking Water Database is a compilation and analysis of approximately 20 million records from state water utilities in 45 states and the District of Columbia. Bottled water is not a solution, since many types of bottled water are simply repackaged tap water. Meanwhile, if your drinking water contains chromium-6, the best way to filter it out is with reverse osmosis combined with a superior carbon filter. Lisa Jackson, EPA Administrator, said that once the reassessment is completed in 2011, EPA will likely “tighten drinking water standards to address the health risks posed by chromium-6.” The EPA is now also studying whether it should set a limit for chromium-6 in drinking water. The agency will provide technical assistance to the 31 cities that were found to have chromium-6 contaminated water, as more sophisticated testing techniques are required. However, on the heels of EWG’s findings, the EPA is urging, though not yet requiring, water utilities around the country to test for chromium-6. In other states, water utilities only test for total chromium-and only measure amounts at or above 10 ppb, 500 times higher than California’s new proposed limit. Preliminary tests have found that most of the total chromium in water is chromium-6, yet the EPA’s legal limit for total chromium is 100 ppb-5,000 times higher than California’s new proposed limit for chromium-6.Ĭurrently California is the only state that requires testing specifically for chromium-6. According to its 2009 analysis of drinking water, 74 million people drink tap water polluted with “total chromium.” Total chromium includes trivalent chromium (which occurs naturally in many vegetables, fruits, meats, grains and yeast), as well as the toxic chromium-6. The utilities that service the 31 cities whose tap water contained chromium-6 provide water to over 26 million people.Īnd in fact, EWG believes the actual number of people drinking chromium-6 contaminated tap water is much larger. The highest levels of chromium-6 were found in Norman, OK which measured 12.9 ppb Honolulu, HA with 2.00 ppb Riverside, CA at 1.69 ppb Madison, WI at 1.58 ppb and San Jose, CA which measured 1.34 ppb. 06 ppb now all 31 cities with chromium-tainted water have levels higher than California’s new proposed limit of. In its tests, EWG found that 25 of the cities tested had levels of chromium-6 higher than California’s original proposed limit of. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has classified chromium-6 as “likely to be carcinogenic to humans” when ingested through drinking water in a draft review of the chemical, but it does not require water utilities to test for it nor has it established safe legal limits for the chemical. 02 ppb because of new findings about the vulnerability of young children and sensitive populations to chromium-6 exposure. It is also present naturally in some minerals.Īfter the National Toxicology Program found that chromium-6 caused cancer in rats and mice in 2008, California proposed the establishment of a statewide legal limit of 0.06 parts per billion (ppb) of chromium-6 in drinking water. On December 31, the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment of the California Environmental Protection Agency revised its proposed limit to. Used in the manufacture of stainless steel, textiles, anticorrosion coatings, and in leather tanning, it gets into drinking water through industrial pollution. Chromium-6 is highly toxic and has been found to cause allergic dermatitis, and stomach and gastrointestinal cancer in animals and humans.
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