An Environmental Working Group analysis of tap water tests from 1998 through 2003 shows that customers of City of Santa Ana drank water containing up to 20 pollutants, including 5 unregulated contaminants. City of Santa Ana is one of 65,000 water suppliers across the country wrestling with treating water polluted by sprawl, sewage, factory farms, and industry.
Note: Some pollutants may be in more than one category.
NOTE: Health based limits included in this analysis include enforceable drinking water limits (called Maximum Contaminant Limits, or MCLs) as well as governmental, non-enforceable health guidelines, such as Maximum Contaminant Limit Goals (MCLGs), lifetime health advisory levels, one-day and ten-day advisory levels to protect children from non-cancer health endpoints, and other government-established health guidelines for tap water contaminants.
Health Summary
Contaminants found in your tap water (1998 - 2003): 20
Health effects or target organs of contaminants found: Cardiovascular or Blood Toxicity, Cancer, Developmental Toxicity, Endocrine Toxicity, Immunotoxicity, Kidney Toxicity, Gastrointestinal or Liver Toxicity, Neurotoxicity, Reproductive Toxicity, Respiratory Toxicity, and Skin Sensitivity.
Contaminants listed may not have exceeded legal limits, which are set to balance cost and benefits and are often higher than health-based limits - see note below.
natural (radioactive) breakdown product of uranium in soil, rock and water
NOTE: Health based limits included in this analysis include enforceable drinking water limits (called Maximum Contaminant Limits, or MCLs) as well as governmental, non-enforceable health guidelines, such as Maximum Contaminant Limit Goals (MCLGs), lifetime health advisory levels, one-day and ten-day advisory levels to protect children from non-cancer health endpoints, and other government-established health guidelines for tap water contaminants.
Testing Summary
Contaminants reported as tested by this water supplier:
185
Contaminants with federal legal limit in tapwater,
with testing required for most water systems:
73
Regulated contaminants tested (chemicals with federal legal limits in tapwater):
148
Unregulated contaminants tested (chemicals without federal legal limits in tapwater):
No violations were found for this system between 1998 and 2003.
Information on violations is drawn directly from EPA's national violations database in the Agency's Safe Drinking Water Information System. Analyses by others have raised questions about the quality of the information in EPA's database. For the purposes of this investigation, EWG is not showing below or including in our analyses, those violations for individual water suppliers that occurred on days for which the total number of violations assigned by EPA to that water supplier was greater than 20. This criteria was based on common characteristics of incorrect violations data as identified by water utilities, from a review of EPA's violations data by several hundred utilities prior to the release of EWG's investigation.
Originally Posted: May 27, 2008 at 8:37 AM Last Updated: May 27, 2008 at 8:37 AM
