EPA will Begin Monitoring Addition Chemicals in Water

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published a list of 28 chemicals and two viruses that approximately 6,000 public water systems will monitor from 2013 to 2015 as part of the agency’s unregulated contaminant monitoring program. 

EPA has standards for 91 contaminants in drinking water, and the Safe Drinking Water Act requires that EPA identify up to 30 additional unregulated contaminants for monitoring every five years.  The list of contaminants to be studied includes total chromium and hexavalent chromium, also known as chromium-6, testosterone, and cobalt. 

EPA selected the contaminants by first reviewing the agency's contaminant candidate list, which highlights priority contaminants that need additional research to support future drinking water protections.  The contaminants on the list are know or anticipated to occur in public water systems.  However, they are not addressed by existing national drinking water standards.  Additional contaminants of concern were selected based on current occurrence research and health-risk factors.

Atrazine, which was banned in Europe because of persistent groundwater contamination and of which the US applies more than 150 million pounds on the product each year, has not made the list of contaminants to test for.

Review the list of contaminants.