Whats Coming Out of the Tap?
You expect the water that comes out of your tap to be clean and free from harmful materials. But drinking water disinfection is a double-edged sword: although disinfection gets rid of nasty bacteria that can make you sick, disinfection processes themselves can create unintended byproducts. These disinfection byproducts, or DBPs, may have health effects that scientists do not yet fully understand. EPA scientist Susan Richardson has spent 18 years studying the byproducts of drinking water disinfection. At the EPA, Richardson leads a drinking water research team within the EPA National Exposure Research Laboratory (NERL) Ecosystems Research Division in Athens, Ga. There, she routinely pushes established boundaries and challenges established ideas about exposure to DBPs. Her research has identified previously unknown DBPs from chlorination and other disinfection techniques, and she has partnered with toxicologists to identify the more toxic DBPs meriting further study. She also was the dri
