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the post-September 11 world, the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) is learning to cope with a new set of risks. Water supplies
are a "logical target," according to the FBI, and EPA
Administrator Christie Todd Whitman has focused on ensuring that
our nation's water supplies are safe from a potential terrorist
attack. Fortunately, the risk to water systems is small — it
would take a massive amount of poison to contaminate a major city's
water supply successfully. As an extra precaution, Whitman appointed
a task force to ensure that water systems are sufficiently protected.
For many smaller water systems, however, the EPA may be a greater
threat than the potential of a terrorist attack. By preventing local
authorities from setting their own public-safety priorities, the
EPA's decision could make some people less safe.
On October
31, Whitman announced that the EPA would ratify the Clinton administration's
decision to lower the national standard for arsenic in drinking
water from 50 parts per billion (ppb) to 10 ppb. The Clinton EPA
had announced the lowering of the standard in that administration's
closing hours. Upon taking office, the Bush administration said
it would suspend the arsenic rule, along with all of Clinton's last-minute
"midnight regulations," pending further review. Environmental
activists cried foul, and the DNC ran television spots suggesting
that the Bush decision would increase arsenic levels —
a patent falsehood. Stunned by the attacks, Whitman did little to
defend the decision, and promptly announced that the arsenic standard
would be lowered eventually, after her team could complete its own
evaluation. Whitman commissioned an updated study of recent scientific
research from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), and sought
additional comments from affected groups and the general public.
Yet before all the comments were received, Whitman had made her
decision to adopt the Clinton 10 ppb standard.
Most debate
over the arsenic standard has focused on the science. There is no
doubt that arsenic can be nasty stuff. It's poisonous at extremely
high doses; and small doses, such as those found in some drinking-water
systems, may increase the risk of lung or bladder cancer. How much
is a subject of much scientific debate. Studies from Chile and Taiwan
suggest that arsenic concentrations well above those found in the
United States could increase cancer risk substantially. If arsenic
in drinking water at low levels (below 50 ppb) is so dangerous,
critics of the new rule suggest, increased cancer rates would be
easy to find in domestic studies. A controversial Utah study, however,
found no increased risk of cancer among people exposed to 166 ppb
— over three times the existing standard, and an order of magnitude
greater than arsenic levels in most of the country. This later study
was ignored by the EPA, and excluded from the NAS review due to
methodological flaws.
But the debate
over arsenic science obscures the larger issue: whether the EPA
should be in the business of setting national contaminant standards
at all. While the new standard will apply uniformly nationwide,
its impacts will not be so even. As the EPA's own experts concluded,
the net benefits of the arsenic rule will "vary substantially"
from place to place. Smaller communities, in particular, will bear
substantial costs to comply with the new standard, and receive minimal
health benefits in return. By the EPA's own estimates, annual water
bills in some rural communities could increase by over $300 per
household, while some city residents would only pay a fraction of
that amount. Officials in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where natural
arsenic levels are high, expect local water bills to increase by
50 percent, or $130 to $240 per year.
Is $300 a reasonable
amount to spend to reduce a lifetime cancer risk at the margins?
It depends who you ask. For some families, the $300 would be a bargain.
For others, that $300 could be spent on preventative medical care,
an automobile child-safety seat, or some other life-enhancing expenditure.
In some cases, the added water costs are likely to drive some families
off of public water systems altogether, in favor of untreated —
and potentially less safe — well water. Even for those families
who continue using local water systems, the cost of the new standard
might far outweigh any benefit they receive. Drinking water accounts
for only a small portion of the average family's water usage. In
those areas where arsenic levels are a concern, it might be less
expensive for families to purchase bottled water than to pay for
system-wide arsenic controls. In an effort to make everyone "safer,"
the new arsenic standard could make some significantly less safe.
Rather than
wade into a debate over how much arsenic is acceptable in drinking
water, the Bush administration should have reframed the issue as
a debate over who is to make decisions for local communities: local
citizens or the Feds. Unlike with many environmental problems, there
is no compelling justification for federal control of local drinking-water
systems. Whatever standard is adopted, both the costs and the benefits
are local. And — as is not the case with air pollution —
if a local community adopts a law rule, there is no threat of interstate
spillovers. Because the costs of drinking-water standards are largely
borne by public water systems and the public at large, there is
no risk that communities will adopt lax standards to attract corporate
investment.
There's nothing
wrong with the EPA advising local communities about the risks of
different standards. The EPA has scientific expertise that many
community officials lack. Whether the risks of arsenic justify the
costs of added safety measures, however, is a determination local
officials are uniquely qualified to make. Nothing stands in the
way of state and local adoption of a 10 ppb standard. (Delaware
adopted a 10 ppb standard in just the last several weeks.)
President Bush
came into office promising to pay more attention to local communities,
and issue fewer dictates from Washington. The appointment of Whitman,
herself a former governor, suggested that the EPA would pay greater
attention to local concerns. With its decision on arsenic, however,
the EPA has reverted to the "Washington-knows-best" mindset
that has dominated environmental policy for far too long. Whitman
can claim she's protecting Americans from arsenic in their water,
but users of small water systems will be left holding the bill.
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