Unregulated Water contaminants

The Environmental Protection Agency sets water quality standards for our drinking water. However, there are many more potentially harmful contaminants that are not regulated or even monitored on a regular basis.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) presents the potential relevance of the water-quality findings in its National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program. It uses Health-Based Screening Levels (HBSL) to evaluate what the data may mean to human health issues. The EPA has not set water standards for about two thirds of the contaminants measured by the NAWQA Program and other USGS studies. The USGS set up the program to supplement the Federal drinking water guidelines.

Data for 436 unregulated compounds in the HBSL database:

158 Pesticides
81 Pesticide byproducts
66 VOCs 
60 SVOCs
11 Major ions 
15 Trace elements
7 Nutrient
7 PCB compounds
31 Emerging contaminants from manufacturing additives, domestic use products, and plant/animal biochemicals

Check it out for yourself at:      http://water.usgs.gov/nawqa/HBSL