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By Katharine Q. Seelye
The National Academy of Sciences has
concluded that arsenic is so dangerous in drinking water that
stringent levels set by the Clinton administration and later
suspended by the Bush White House were justified but perhaps
not strict enough.
Details of a report by the academy that
were made available by government officials, give the Bush
administration little latitude in which to maneuver on this
sensitive issue, one that even President Bush has acknowledged
was a public relations disaster
for his administration.
For decades, the Environmental Protection
Agency set an acceptable arsenic level of 50
parts per billion in drinking water. But recent
studies suggested that this
level was too high and increased the risk of bladder
and lung cancer.
A report by the National Academy of Sciences
in 1999 said the standard should be made stricter "as
promptly as possible." President Bill Clinton ordered
the limit to be lowered to 10
parts per billion in 2006.
The Bush administration suspended the
Clinton ruling on March 20, drawing a wave of protest that
it was more sympathetic to the chemical industry than to consumers.
Officials said they were reevaluating
the levels and would wait for the new report by the academy
before determining whether to set the level at 3 parts per
billion, or 5, 10 or 20.
A senior administration official said
tonight that the
report found an increased risk of cancer if the level was
above 10 parts per billion.
"We are not considering anything
higher than 20," this official asserted. And another
said: "We may be looking at something lower than 10,
but we have an awful lot to look at. It's not inconceivable."
The officials said that Christie Whitman,
the administrator of the E.P.A., would make a ruling by February
of next year.
By signaling that a prudent level might
be lower than 10, the report, which was based on a review
of 300 recent arsenic studies, will put enormous pressure
on the administration to stay at that level or below.
"It boxes them in," said Joan
Mulhern, legislative counsel for the Earthjustice Legal Defense
Fund. "With the public and the Hill, there is tremendous
political pressure already to adopt the standard of 10 or
something more strict. If this is what the National Academy
is saying, it pretty much closes the door on the administration
doing anything higher than 10."
The
House passed a bill earlier this year saying the limit should
be no higher than 10.
The Senate did not specify a number but
said that the administration needed to set a standard immediately
that protected sensitive populations like children and the
elderly.
The 10 parts per billion standard for
drinking water set by the Clinton administration was the same
as the one set by the World Health Organization and most European
countries.
Some 13 million people in the United
States routinely drink water with more than 10 ppb of arsenic.
Most of them are in small towns and rural areas but some in
cities as large as Albuquerque.
The arsenic decision by Ms. Whitman in
March was among the most explosive of the administration's
early days and one that even President Bush has acknowledged
was part of a chain of events that made the administration
appear tone-deaf on environmental issues.
"I think we could have handled the
environmental issue a little better," Mr. Bush said in
an interview last month with ABC News, pointing in particular
to the arsenic decision. But he
defended Ms. Whitman's suspension of the Clinton standard,
saying she had "pulled back a rushed piece of legislation
to look at it, to make sure the science was sound, and therefore
we got labeled for being for arsenic in water."
Ms. Whitman has said she regretted the
decision.
"Politically, if I'd been smart,
I would have never changed it," Ms. Whitman told USA
Today last month. "I never would have gone back. I would
have let the courts decide. We were going to be sued anyway
by the Western states and a bunch of water companies, and
I should have just left it there."
The Clinton decision to lower the level
to 10 parts per billion was challenged by several Western
states, utilities and the mining industry. Municipalities
that would have to correct their water systems have argued
that the cost to them would far outweigh the benefits to the
public in cleansing arsenic, which occurs naturally, out of
drinking water.
Arsenic is a common byproduct of mining
operations, so stricter standards for its content in drinking
water would translate into stricter standards for many mining
sites.
The wood products industry had supported the Bush administration's
ruling suspending the Clinton ruling because arsenic is used
to pressure-treat lumber.
The
report by the academy examined only the public health consequences
of arsenic and did not conduct a cost-benefit analysis for
water suppliers.
Abstracted
From New York Times September 11, 2001
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