WASHINGTON - The Environmental Protection Agency is tightening drinking water standards to impose stricter limits on four contaminants that can cause cancer.
In a speech today, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said the agency is developing stricter regulations for four compounds (tetrachloroethylene, trichloroethylene, acrylamide and epichlorohydrin). All four chemical compounds can cause cancer.
Two of the compounds (tetrachloroethylene and trichloroethylene) are used in industrial and textile processing and can seep into drinking water from contaminated groundwater or surface water. Two others (acrylamide and epichlorohydrin) are impurities that can be introduced into drinking water during the water treatment process.
One of those chemicals, tetrachloroethylene - also known as perchloroethene, or PCE - was discovered more than a decade ago in untreated groundwater in Augusta, and its presence led to the closure of several municipal drinking water wells.
The contamination likely came from dry cleaning businesses in the Peach Orchard Road area, according to Georgia's Environmental Protection Division. The chemical was found only in raw water and never in treated water pumped to municipal customers. The plume of impacted groundwater now covers about 350 acres and is the focus of a pending, $3.5 million cleanup scheduled to commence later this year.
The EPA's preferred cleanup method involves a technology called in-situ chemical oxidation, in which a material such as hydrogen peroxide is injected into the subterranean plume of contamination, causing the toxic solvent to oxidize into harmless materials. That program will be supplemented by monitoring and the use of chemical amendments to treat the contamination
Jackson said the EPA will issue new rules on the four chemical compounds within the next year.
Staff Writer Rob Pavey contributed to this report.
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