The Arsenic Panic

Vermont television viewers were recently treated to a political ad where a cute little girl demands "More arsenic in my water, mommy!" Concurrently with this effort at public education, Rep. Bernie Sanders introduced a bill mandating that all public water systems meet an arsenic standard of 3 parts per billion (ppb). In both instances the villain was identified as President George W. Bush, who suspended President Clinton's last-minute rule mandating a reduction of arsenic in water supplies from 50 ppb to 10 ppb.

Arsenic is not dumped into our water by evil, greedy corporations. It is produced by the dear old Earth Mother, and finds its way into water from deep wells in a large part of the country. Since 1942 the federal government has maintained the 50 ppb drinking water standard, a level offering a large margin of safety against arsenic poisoning.

A 1999 National Academy of Sciences a report concluded that the 50 ppb standard ought to be lowered to reduce the risks of arsenic-caused cancer, but its panel was unwilling to say how far. In a passage largely ignored by enviros, the NAS report stated "No human studies of sufficient statistical power have examined whether consumption of drinking water at the current maximum contaminant level results in an increased incidence of cancer or noncancer effects." The EPA's own science advisory board concluded that the agency's assessment tended to exaggerate the risk considerably.

No matter. Recognizing that the public associates arsenic with rat poison, the enviros clamored for reducing the allowable level by 90%. Clinton obliged them by setting it at 10ppb, just a week before leaving office. This had the political effect of handing the incoming president a time bomb. Bush could either let it go, thus inflicting huge costs on hundreds of small rural water systems, or suspend it, making himself the target for "more arsenic, Mommy" TV spots.

The problem here is that getting from 50 ppb, easily managed by today's water system technology, down to 10 ppb (or worse yet, to Sanders' 3 ppb) costs money - a lot of money. The National Rural Water Association, representing 20,000 small town systems, estimates that meeting the 10ppb standard will cost every household from $20 to $50 per month, depending on the current arsenic level in a system. The town of Lidgerwood ND (400 homes) spent nearly $1 million to cut arsenic levels from 56 ppb to 17 - and it would have cost another $1.5 million to get the level down to 10 ppb. That doesn't include the cost of getting rid of the arsenic-rich filters or precipitate, which require special disposal.

Will lowering the arsenic standard be a good investment in terms of improved human health? The current EPA standard is this: if 10,000 people drank 2 liters a day of 50 ppb arsenic water for seventy years, one of those 10,000 people would have an arsenic-related health effect. Robert Cihak MD, president of the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons, says "there's no reasonable expectation of any benefit in reducing arsenic to the proposed level. It's likely that these proposals would kill more Americans than they might save." That's because the significant household monthly cost for reducing arsenic concentrations in the water from miniscule to infinitesimal diverts family resources that could be used for other purposes, among them paying for vitamins, vaccinations, and preventive health care generally. Of course, if the family gave up smoking to pay for its 3 ppb arsenic water, that would be an added health benefit.

Here in Vermont, a number of towns and village systems rely on deep ground water, the type likely to have arsenic levels subject to the new 10ppb rule. Depending on the hydrogeology, some of these systems may have arsenic concentrations above the 10ppb level. These include Arlington, Bradford, Derby Line, Enosburg Falls, Hartford, Lyndonville, Middlebury, Newport, Randolph, Springfield, and Waterbury.

Yes, it is possible to employ modern technology to reduce any dissolved mineral to 3 ppb. But the further down one goes, the more costly it gets to get the last few parts per billion reduction. Responsible policy makers have to arrive at some sort of common sense cost-benefit balance. Adopting an arsenic rule to prevent a health problem for one person over seventy years, by sending every household in town a bill of $20-50 a month to pay for the technology, would strike most people as way out of balance.

Maybe the little girl in the TV ad ought to be saying "Bernie wants to take away my college education, Mommy."

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May 2001