Arsenic and Private Well Owners

Auburn, May 17, 2003 --- Private drinking well owners along New England’s coast are being warned about a potential risk of exposure to deadly arsenic.

Whether well owners in other parts of the country, including the Southeast, will eventually receive the same warning is anyone’s guess, says one expert.

(Photo: Courtesy of the Colorado State Cooperative Extension Service.)

What is certain is that with less than three years to go before new, more stringent drinking water standards for arsenic go into effect, a lot remains to be learned about arsenic and its risks to humans.

“People have known about arsenic and have used it for centuries for a great many things, including medicine,” says Dr. Jim Hairston, an Alabama Cooperative Extension System water quality scientist.

“But even now, arsenic is not well understood as far as all of the toxic effects it may have on the body,” he adds.

Scientists do know that consuming even minuscule amounts of arsenic in food or drinking water can be fatal – a view reinforced within the last few years by studies revealing a strong link between relatively high traces of arsenic in drinking water and incidents of cancer, particularly bladder and lung cancer. This is especially true in Bangladesh where geologic characteristics appear to contribute to a high incidence of trace amounts of arsenic both in surface and groundwater.

The findings from studies in Bangladesh and other high-risk countries are what prompted the Environmental Protection Agency in 2001 to establish stricter arsenic standards for the American drinking water supply. Standards that had not been changed since their adoption in the 1940s will be changed from 50 to 10 parts per billion in 2006.

“We’ve known for a long time that drinking water containing 50 or 60 parts per million of arsenic would kill you, which explains why the old standard was set at 50 parts per billion,” Hairston says.

Changing from the 50- to 10-parts-per-billion standard will be relatively easy for large municipal drinking water authorities, the costs of which will be covered merely by raising utility rates. But the switch will be much harder for small drinking water authorities, though EPA is developing ways to ease this transition.

On the other hand, one group that concerns EPA regulators is private well owners, especially those in parts of New England, who draw their water from wells drilled into subterranean formations characterized by an unfortunate combination of metamorphic rock, coupled with a high groundwater pH level.

No clear link has been established between water consumption in these areas and higher rates of cancer. Still, health officials in New England believe the geologic and groundwater characteristics of this region are cause enough to urge well owners in some areas to test their water for arsenic traces.

As Hairston observes, New England may be the first of several regions throughout the United States deemed at high risk of arsenic exposure.

“It could turn out that some well owners in Alabama and elsewhere in the Southeast face similar risks,” he says. “Right now, there is just no good information on how widespread this problem really is and how many people are drinking water beyond the 10 ppb level that will soon go into effect.”

The only way to determine arsenic levels is to have your groundwater supply tested by a reputable lab, Hairston says.

Arsenic contamination is not likely to vary from one year to the next, which is the case with some contaminants; so once the water has been tested, subsequent testing is usually not needed.

Arsenic occurs naturally in rocks, soil water, air, plants and even animals.

It is also released into the environment through natural activities such as volcanic actions, erosion of rock, forest fires and human action.

Roughly 90 percent of the current industrial arsenic use in the United States is with wood preservatives, though it is also used in paints, dyes, metals, drugs, soaps and semiconductors.

Agricultural applications, mining and smelting also contribute to arsenic releases into the environment.

(Source: Dr. Jim Hairston, Alabama Cooperative Extension System Water Quality Scientist and Auburn University Professor of Agronomy and Soils. 334-844-3973.)

Article in MS Word

Article in Text