Western towns stew over arsenic rules
ANTHONY, N.M. (AP) – Sam Warthen’s first water well, drilled in 1967, lasted six years before the shifting sand around his desert home plugged it. His second well needed chemical treatment that turned the water purple. Neighbors’ clothes turned orange from sediment in the water. People began hauling their drinking water from nearby stores and gas stations.
After well after well went awry, Warthen and his neighbors around Anthony, near El Paso, Texas, formed a water association more than two decades ago that finally provided clear water – “like a dream,” he said. Today, the wells serve 450 families.
Now, the problem is arsenic in the water.
The people who run the Desert Sands Mutual Domestic Water Consumers Association or rely on it are afraid they will not be able to afford the extra equipment, treatments and employees needed to cut arsenic levels and meet new federal clean-water standards.
In October, the Environmental Protection Agency cut arsenic limits for drinking water from 50 parts per billion to 10. Communities must comply by 2006.
“When low-income people have to pay for the new arsenic standards, it cuts into the basic needs of life – maybe you’re not going to fill a prescription or go to the doctor or buy food,” said Karen Nichols, secretary-treasurer of the Desert Sands water association.
She said she supports the Safe Drinking Water Act, “but when you carry it to this degree, it goes beyond health and safety.”
Nichols said preliminary estimates show customers’ monthly water bills would at least triple under the new standard. She said the average bill last July was $32.18 per household.
The EPA policy change came after the National Academy of Sciences reported that even at 3 ppb of arsenic in drinking water, there is a risk of four to 10 deaths from bladder or lung cancer per 10,000 people. The EPA estimates 4,100 water systems nationwide must treat their water to meet the new standard. About 97 percent of those are small systems serving fewer than 10,000 people.
The change particularly affects water systems in the West, where arsenic occurs naturally. In New Mexico, officials said 114 water systems, including Albuquerque’s, the largest, need upgrades.
Warthen, a retired Greyhound employee, rejects government claims that arsenic in drinking water could cause bladder, lung and skin cancer. “I’m 81. I think I’ve lived off of a non-municipal drinking system the majority of my life,” he said.
Pete Gomez, who operates the water association, said he, his wife and four children, ages 10 to 19, drink the water daily without health problems. “We worry more about the cost of the water,” he said. “Arsenic is natural.”
Paul Ritzma, deputy secretary of the state Environment Department, said department officials know of no New Mexico illnesses directly linked to arsenic in drinking water, and he expressed doubt that the new rules will lead to a drop in cancer.
Desert Sands’ two wells, which serve Warthen and his neighbors, contain arsenic at 19.3 ppb and 10.4 ppb. The wells were drilled in the Chihuahuan Desert.
Many Desert Sands customers are factory or farm workers who live in wind-beaten mobile homes or modest frame houses on small, sandy, treeless lots separated by rickety metal fences. The sand that blows across the flat desert is deep enough in some of the area’s unpaved roads for cars to get stuck.
Fearing the cost of arsenic remedies, Desert Sands has joined with other small water associations in Oberlin, Kan.; Lusby, Md.; and Stanwood, Wash., to oppose the new standards.
Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., and other lawmakers have introduced legislation to provide $1.9 billion in grants to help small community water systems comply.
Bruce Thomson, a University of New Mexico civil engineering professor, said several treatment options would not work in the 95 percent of New Mexico communities that rely on groundwater.
and lack treatment plants.
Treatment costs vary from a few dollars per household annually to more than $100, depending on the number of households, levels of arsenic, existing facilities and whether the treatment’s waste is considered hazardous, Thomson said.
He said water associations with 200 or fewer customers could install a faucet filter in each household at a cost of about $15 a month per family.
However, one New Mexico town that tried it failed to maintain the filters in 30 percent of the households.
Another option is ion exchange filtering: Water is filtered through a resin, which attracts the arsenic. However, the process produces wastewater that can be considered hazardous and can be costly to dispose of.
Nichols is researching possible treatments, too. “It’s a huge headache,” she said.
But regardless, Nichols said, the Desert Sands water association will survive. “We have to,” she said. “We can’t just turn off people’s water.”
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On the Net:
Arsenic in Drinking Water: 2001 Update report by the National Academy of Sciences: http://www.nap.edu/books/0309076293/tml/
Environmental Protection Agency: http://www.epa.gov