Millions drink toxic water in the USA, but it's EPA-approved!

(NaturalNews) It has been so long since the federal law regulating tap water has been updated that since 2004, more than one-fifth of the U.S. population has consumed tap water that the government classifies as toxic, but still approves for human consumption.

"People don't understand that just because water is technically legal, it can still present health risks," said Pankaj Parekh, director of water quality for the City of Los Angeles.

Even though more than 60,000 chemicals are used in the United States each year and most have never been tested for human safety, the Safe Water Drinking Act regulates only 91 different toxins. Many of these are regulations have not been updated since the 1980s or even since the law was first passed in 1974. The law does not take into account newer findings that certain chemicals can be more toxic in combination than separately. To top it off, not a single chemical has been added to the law since 2000.

Science has passed the law by, as researchers have identified hundreds of new chemicals that can cause cancer or other diseases if consumed in tap water. Many of these chemicals are even regulated by some federal agencies, yet are still allowed in tap water. An analysis by the New York Times of 19 million drinking-water tests found that since 2004, more than 62 million people have consumed fully legal tap water that contained contaminants at levels violating at least one federal health guideline. Likewise, numerous scientific studies suggest that millions of people a year become sick from toxins contained in drinking water.

Yet many of these diseases take a long time to appear, and can never be definitively linked to tap water.

"These chemicals accumulate in body tissue. They affect developmental and hormonal systems in ways we don't understand," said Linda S. Birnbaum, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. "There's growing evidence that numerous chemicals are more dangerous than previously thought, but the EPA still gives them a clean bill of health."

Sources for this story include: www.nytimes.com.

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Comment by john on April 27, 2010 at 9:59pm: Fracking- It is pretty simple. Basically a gas well only gets the gas in the pocket it is drilled into, so they shoot (?) it full of a toxic, explosive, disolving type agent..... lol, and the blow it up. The mixture fractures and dissolves the surrounding bedrock letting all the surrounding gas seep into the one well. Aparently they (gas company) have been practicing this for some time. One well is fracked over and over until it is used up. Letting the toxins and gas seep into the surrounding water table. They use some unfathomable amount of "fresh" water to aid in the fracking process that is just indescrimanately ruined and dumped. These people need brought to justice and tortured.... i think they deserve it. How could any decent person sleep at night knowing what they r doing? I couldn't.
1 thing that comes to mind now....... The old site had names of ppl and companies that are involved. When i looked into these companies there had been well sites that were sabatoged along w/ company equipment, and numerous threats. When i looked at the Gas companies site a warning popped up saying if i continued on the site my IP address would be logged! I don't remember what the name was. I ran across this about a year ago.

Comment by john on April 27, 2010 at 9:44pm: Yes, I live in PA. The old site had all of his short films and interviews. That new one just seems to be more of an add for his compiled film...... blah. I don't know if any of the old ones are out there to see for free, but they were very disturbing. As if the sink catching on fire isn't enough. The interviews from out west were horrible, dying live stock and people, a few water wells exploded . One interview in particular had a rancher that has no useable water on his property from a well not even on his property. The gas company denies that there is any problem at his property yet pays ?$ to filter his water....... the disolved polutants in his water eats right through the state of the art filter system that they gave him and so they installed another. Not just your average home filtration system or best ....... These things r like small water treatment plants that the gas company pays for and operates...... still it doesn't work well enough. One part that sticks out in my mind is the clouds of escaped fumes that lay over the land like a thick green smog. Another short clip has the same rancher dipping a jar into a watering trough, puts the lid on and shakes it around alittle, then hands it to one of the film crew, the guy opens it, takes a wiff and all but falls over. He then torches the top of the water and a film of polymer forms on the surface like latex, he then looks at the camera and says "And the gas company says nothings wrong here"
The situation is terrible, and only getting worse. Why doesn't the press report on this? I think it would grab alot of attention and raise some concern..... nahhhhh y bother.
I just met some guys staying in a local campground. They are working on a power plant project. They are from a little farther north in PA and said that there is alot of natural gas drilling going on up there. I stated that I was opposed to it, and they just sort of shrugged and said "yeah well when the gas company comes with that check for some of those ppl, they don't care" . Personally i think they should be lynched in the center of town...... brutally.
How the states are letting this happen right under our noses is criminal and sick. If my water goes bad I will personally take a gallon to the closest person responsible.