Can water systems reduce arsenic levels in drinking water?
Yes. Some systems may be able to reduce arsenic levels by cleaning up or changing the source of their water. For example, some arsenic contamination results from leaching from old waste dumps, mines or tailings, or from past use of arsenic-containing pesticides. In other cases, arsenic in drinking water is caused by continuing industrial pollution. Government officials, water system managers and citizens can join forces to ensure that polluters are held accountable for cleaning up contaminated sites and reducing or eliminating new arsenic pollution. In addition, readily available treatments can remove arsenic from tap water. But water systems won’t have the incentive to take these steps unless the Environmental Protection Agency requires them to do so by lowering the arsenic standard. Reducing the cancer risk to one in 10,000 would require changing the standard from 50 ppb to 0.5 ppb. Many testing laboratories, however, are unable to measure such a low level of arsenic in water. Theref
