Agenda - 06-04-1981 - Laserfiche WebLink

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IT liferate right after World War IT They have been developed at an in- creasing rate since that time so that currently there are over 50,000 different varieties in use. New ones are being invented at the rate of over 1,000 per year. Almost 35,000 of those now in use in the United States are classified by the Environmental Protection Agency as being definitely or potentially hazardous to human health. We have recently become aware that many of the compounds have been dis- posed of carelessly and are now polluting land and water resources. The Love Canal incident in upstate New York received wide-spread pub- licity. People living near a chemical disposal site experienced major health problems which came to the attention of health authorities. The incident raised the question of how and where chemical wastes in other parts of the country had been disposed. Sane 700 potentially hazardous chemical waste disposal sites have been identified nation- wide to date. It has become clear that there has been very little regulation of where and how synthetic organic compounds have been disposed of in. the past. Same knowledgeable people feel. that im- properly disposed of chemical wastes will be the most important en- vironmental problem of the 1980rs. Many of these pollutants have found their way into streams that drain urban areas and industrial sites. One of the first pieces of evidence available that confirmed this was a water quality study done in New Orleans. Investigations there demonstrated that a number of pollut- ants were in the drinki.n& water supply (the Mississippi River) and persons drinking treated water fram this source had higher cancer rates than people in the same area drinking water fram private wells. Studies done since on major rivers in the United States demonstrate that serious water pollution is not confined to the lower Mississippi; but is widespread in the major rivers of the United States. The New Orleans study was responsible in large part for the passage of the Federal Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974 which called for the setting of drinking water standards. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has established maximum contaminant levels for treated drinking water for 25 pollutants including synthetic organic chemicals, heavy metals and radioactive elements. The potential health hazard fram synthetic organic chemicals is con- sidered so serious that EPA is considering requiring a costly new water treatment process called granulated activated carbon treatment for all public water systems serving 75,000 persons or more unless the raw water source was deep ground water or watersheds protected fram manmade pollution. It is not certain that even this special technique can remove all harmful pollutants and the EPA has recommended that,whenever possible public water suppliers develop new surface water supplies fram "upland watersheds"; that is, those watersheds that do not drain large areas containing towns, cities and industrial areas. Orange County is fortunate that its three public water suppliers draw water from upland protected supplies. University Lake watershed is 25