Arsenic: How much is too much?

Arsenic: How much is too much?

Stiff penalties are about to kick in as the EPA begins enforcing tougher guidelines on contaminants in drinking water

Published January 8, 2006 in the Lansing State Journal
By Susan Vela

Across the state, hundreds of schools, cities, businesses, restaurants and mobile home parks are scrambling to make sure their drinking water is considered free of dangerous arsenic levels.

In Ingham, Eaton and Clinton counties, 13 of these regulated water system owners, including the City of St. Johns and the Village of Fowler, are retiring their wells, buying filtration systems, investing in improvements and considering hook-ups to municipal water systems to avoid costly fines taking effect Jan. 23.

The penalty will be steep - up to $5,000 a day - if they cannot provide drinking water with arsenic levels at or below 10 parts per billion, the standard instituted in 2002.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency stiffened the standard from 50 parts per billion because a growing number of studies linked arsenic to cancer.

"It's a serious issue in that it's dealing with a drinking water standard," said Rich Overmyer of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, the state's enforcement agency. Plus, "we have a lot of systems that look like they are not going to comply."

The cancer-causing toxin arsenic can be a health hazard even at lower levels, especially for young children, the elderly, unborn babies and the chronically ill.

Regulated water systems that must comply with the federal arsenic standard are community water systems and other public water systems that regularly serve more than 25 of the same people for more than six months a year.

According to the DEQ, 450 of the state's 3,000 regulated systems lag in meeting the federal standard. That means in 2005 their arsenic levels exceeded or hovered around the contaminant threshold of 10 parts per billion.

"I was as close to the borderline as you can be," said Danny Millisor, who manages the Windmill Truck Stop, a Dimondale establishment where every diner gets a clean glass of well water.

Windmill's arsenic levels ranged from 8 parts per billion in September, when the most recent test was taken, to 10 parts per billion last January.

"I never had a customer complain," said Millisor, who's hoping a recent tuneup of his water softeners will keep arsenic levels low.

Federal health officials, though, say water softeners do not remove arsenic.

Still, "there was no need to change (the standard). Arsenic is something that's God-given to the ground," Millisor added.

He's right about arsenic being a natural component of underground rock and soil formations. It leaches into groundwater.

Costly improvements

The DEQ reports about 115 Michigan schools, including Lansing's Gunnisonville Elementary School, own water systems - such as wells - that are likely arsenic exceeders, testing above or near the 2002 standard for arsenic.

According to DEQ records, Oakland County will require the most watching. It has 110 likely arsenic exceeders.

The city of St. Johns is retiring wells that were exceeding the guidelines, improving others and pursuing plans to buy land to drop a new well.

City Manager Dennis LaForest said about $600,000 in improvements were planned. That caused water bills to jump 22 to 30 percent since 2004.

"We fully expect ourselves to be in compliance," St. Johns' public services director Jeffrey Stephens said.

Compliance stressed

Overmyer said the state's main goal is compliance, which is why fines may be delayed for those who demonstrate a commitment to providing cleaner water.

The DEQ gave East Lansing-based Northstar Co-Op Inc., a dairy business registering double the permitted level of arsenic in its well water, the OK to use bottled water.

With the state's permission, students at Gunnisonville Elementary and Clinton County Regional Educational Service Agency, which provides support services to local school districts, also are drinking bottled water. The EPA doesn't consider that a long-term solution.

And Fowler Clerk Rhonda Feldpausch said the state approved the village's request to keep providing its 1,100 municipal water customers well water that registers about 20 parts per billion until May 2008.

A new arsenic and iron filtration system will be installed.

There are no filters or softeners associated with Cindy Kolp's water pipes. She has been drinking Fowler's water for most of her life and doesn't mind waiting until the new filtration system kicks in.

"It's not the water that has changed. It's the guidelines," she said. "People who live around here in their eighties seem to be doing just fine."

Tests determining compliance to the new guidelines began in 2005. Quarterly testing was required of those with significant levels of arsenic.

Those with four consecutive quarters averaging more than the standard could face serious fines after Jan. 23, unless they have an agreement with state officials.

While some doubt the DEQ's ability to enforce the tougher standard, arsenic experts are pleased to see the change.

Epidemiologist Allan Smith, a University of California-Berkeley professor and director of the school's Arsenic Research Program, said one person in 100 had the potential to develop cancer with the old standard.

Now only an adult drinking two liters of water a day registering arsenic levels of 10 parts per billion for 70 years might be in danger of health risks, according to the EPA.

"Better late than never," said Richard Wilson, a Harvard University physics professor and president of the Harvard-based Arsenic Foundation.

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Link: http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006601080638