델라웨어 온라인 뉴스에 따르면 최근 뉴캐슬 근교의 새로운 공공 우물의 조사로 인해 당국 건강 안전 관계자들의 새로운 규제되지 않은 식음수 오염 요소의 효용 공개 규제안에 대한 관심이 높아졌다고 한다.

 

에드워드 G 할록, 식음수 프로그램 담당자는 제안의 새로운 내용을 공개할 예정이고 공개적으로 질의, 추가 제안을 받을 것이라고 말하였다. 해당기관은 이번 가을 안으로 제안을 최종적으로 마무리 지었으면 한다.

 

Delaware public health officials will propose new utility disclosure requirements for unregulated but potentially toxic drinking water contaminants next month, in a move prompted by the recent discovery an obscure chemical in a new public well near New Castle.

Edward G. Hallock, state Office of Drinking Water program administrator, said on Saturday that the agency will publish details on the proposal and seek public comment on July 1, with regulations to take effect statewide by fall.

Hallock said Delaware will require utilities to list in annual customer “confidence reports” detections of any chemical on theEnvironmental Protection Agency’s annual “Drinking Water Standards and Health Advisories” list, along with concentrations of the substances. Currently, utilities only have to report chemicals for which federal maximums exist, or a smaller set of unregulated contaminants and disinfection byproducts.

“We’re doing it for public notification,” Hallock said. “We’re not setting a standard” for maximum levels of unregulated pollutants, however.

 

Earlier this year, Artesian Water Co. was forced to shut down a newly developed, high-volume public supply well near Llangollen Boulevard south of New Castle after tests found high levels a likely cancer-causing compound, 1,4-dioxane entering the system. Officials quickly linked the substance to the nearby Delaware Sand & Gravel federal Superfund cleanup site.

EPA summaries identify 1,4 dioxane as likely carcinogen and an industrial solvent and stabilizer used in a variety of industries, including some cosmetics, as well as a breakdown product of trichloroethylene - one of the most common contaminants at superfund sites.

The highest detections in Artesian’s well were higher than the 35 parts per billion lifetime exposure concentrations that the EPA has reported as likely to produce an extra cancer death per 10,000 people. That threshhold in turn is far less protective than the 1-in-100,000 or 1-in-1 million threshhold used to determine risk levels for most toxic exposures.