health problems

What if I have city water?
A water utility is required to notify you if there is a violation, but you may want to consider having the water tested if you perceive that there may be a water problem in your home.

What if I have a private well?
If you have a well water source you are responsible to test the water for quality. In many states, an extensive analyses must be completed prior to the sale of a home. We recommend that you do not wait until you sell your home. Follow the recomendations of the USEPA.

US EPA Drinking Water Standards
The US Environmental Protection Agency, USEPA, has a long list, 103 in total, of drinking water standards. The EPA groups the regulations in two classifications, National Primary Drinking Water Regulations, NPDWRs or Primary Standards, and National Secondary Drinking Water Regulations, NSDWRs or Secondary Standards.

The Primary Standards are legally enforceable standards that apply to public water systems. Primary standards protect public health by limiting the levels of contaminants in drinking water.

The Secondary Standards are non-enforceable guidelines regulating contaminants that may cause cosmetic effects, like skin or tooth discoloration, or aesthetic effects, like taste, odor, or color, in drinking water. The EPA recommends these secondary standards to water systems, but does not require systems to comply. However, states may choose to adopt them as enforceable standards.

On this list, there are 87 Primary Drinking Water Standards which detail the potential health effects from exposure above the Maximum Contaminant Level, or MCL. There are an additional 15 Secondary Drinking Water Standards. This list of primary regulations is color-coded to clearly show drinking water contaminants from Inorganic Chemicals, Organic Chemicals, Disinfectants, Disinfection Byproducts, Microorganisms, and Radionuclides. While virtually any material in water in sufficient quantity can cause illness, the 87 primary regulations target the worst offenders.

Inorganic Chemicals
Some of the inorganic contaminants are arsenic, lead, nitrates, radium, uranium, and mercury. These substances can be toxic, carcinogenic, or otherwise harmful to humans. They behave as a cation, or as an anion. Therefore, no single solution is sufficient to treat every inorganic problem. None of these contaminants can be detected without a water analysis.

Organic Contaminants
There are 53 primary drinking water standards for organic contaminants.

Natural Organic Contamination
Naturally occurring sources can be as simple as leaves or other vegetation getting in the water, decaying, and releasing tannins which are organic compounds into the water. These will color the water brown or tea-colored. Low levels cannot be detected but high levels can stain clothes.

Man-Made Organic Contamination
Organic contaminants are from organic chemicals used in industrial processes and agriculture. Typical sources of organic contaminants include raw materials, a byproduct of manufacture, an airborne or waterborne organic chemical release from a plant, a spill of organic solvents, improper disposal, or illegal dumping of industrial chemicals. Over the years, agriculture has used many organic chemicals to fumigate crops and soil, kill pests, and prevent weed growth. Many of these have gotten into drinking water wells and surface water.

Disinfection Byproducts
Chlorine or chloramines are used to kill bacteria and a chlorine or chloramine residual is used to protect the water in municipal distribution systems. An unfortunate byproduct of this very necessary process to protect your health is that tri-halomethanes, THM's, are produced. By federal statute, a water system must have a detectable chlorine residual in every part of the distribution system down to the tap. A problem that can occur when the water is chlorinated to kill bacteria and to protect the water in large distribution systems, organics in the presence of chlorine will form tri-halomethanes, THM's, which can increase the risk of cancer. These organics are usually natural, but can be man-made in origin.

Improve public health protection by reducing exposure to disinfection byproducts. Some disinfectants and disinfection byproducts, DBPs, have been shown to cause cancer and reproductive effects in lab animals and suggested bladder cancer and reproductive effects in humans.

In many cases, source water from a lake, river, reservoir or ground water aquifer needs to be disinfected to inactivate or kill microbial pathogens. Microbial pathogens include a few types of bacteria, viruses, protozoa, and other organisms. Some pathogens are often found in water, frequently as a result of:

• Fecal matter from sewage discharges
• Leaking septic tanks
• Runoff from animal feedlots into bodies of water

• Cryptosporidium, giardia, and some other microbial pathogens are highly resistant to traditional disinfection.
• Disinfectants themselves can react with naturally-occurring materials in the water to form byproducts, such as trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids, which may pose health risks.

Microbiological
Bacteria are another organic contaminant that is difficult to detect without a water analyses. The presence of bacteria indicates a low chlorine residual in a city water utility's distribution system, or stagnant areas. In a well, it indicates that the well is being contaminated by surface water. The causes are generally poor well construction, or contamination from an abandoned well in the same aquifer.

Viral and bacterial pathogens are present in human and animal feces, which can, in turn, contaminate drinking water. Fecal contamination can reach ground water sources, including drinking water wells, from failed septic systems, leaking sewer lines, and by passing through the soil and large cracks in the ground. Fecal contamination from the surface may also get into a drinking water well along its casing or through cracks if the well is not properly constructed, protected, or maintained.

Ground water that is susceptible to fecal contamination may contain harmful viruses or bacteria. According to the US EPA, pathogens found in groundwater systems may include enteric viruses such as Echovirus, Hepatitis A and E, Rotavirus and Noroviruses and enteric bacterial pathogens such as E. coli, Salmonella species, Shigella, and Cholera. Ingestion of these viruses or bacteria can cause gastroenteritis or, in certain rare cases, serious illnesses such as meningitis, hepatitis, or myocarditis. Health implications in sensitive subpopulations may be severe and may cause death.

Radionuclides
While there are hundreds of radioactive contaminants, known as radionuclides, most are rarely found in your drinking water. People are much more likely to be exposed to the few that are used routinely for medical, military, or commercial purposes.

Most drinking water sources have very low levels of radionuclides, most of which are naturally occurring, although contamination of drinking water sources from human-made nuclear materials can also occur. Most radioactive contaminants are at levels that are low enough to not be considered a public health concern. At higher levels, long-term exposure to radionuclides in drinking water may cause cancer. In addition, exposure to uranium in drinking water may cause toxic effects to the kidney. To protect public health, EPA has established Maximum Contaminant Level, MCL, for several types of radioactive contaminants:

• Combined radium 226/228 (5 pCi/L)
• Beta emitters (4 mrems)
• Gross alpha standard (15 pCi/L)
• Uranium (30 µg/L)