Troubled Water

Among Americans, it is almost an article of faith that the water flowing from their faucets is fit to drink. Last week the Department of Health, Education and Welfare dealt that faith a shattering blow. In a survey of 969 of the country's 23,000 water-supply systems, HEW's Bureau of Water Hygiene found that some 900,000 persons in the tested areas were consuming water dangerously contaminated by such poisons as arsenic, lead, selenium and fecal bacteria. The water supply of another 2,000,000, though safe to drink, was held to be unacceptable in taste, odor or color. Since the bureau's survey sites were chosen as "reasonably representative," its report, projected to the entire population, could mean that millions of Americans are drinking water hazardous to their health. Some of the most troublesome spots:

-- Vermont, most of whose water-supply systems "generally exhibit the effects of long-term neglect." The bureau also found that there had been at least 300 cases of "waterborne" diseases in the past three years. After the HEW report was issued, Government health officials followed up by advising 35,555 Vermonters served by 69 "undesirable" systems to boil their water before drinking it.

-- Cincinnati, where a "continuous program to detect health hazards and sanitary defects . . . does not exist," and where infectious hepatitis, traced to the city's water supply, broke out in a new federal housing project.

-- Charleston, S.C., where the water falls below Public Health Service standards and procedures for handling chlorine used in purifying water are "unsafe."

-- The San Bernardino-Riverside-Ontario County region in Southern California, whose 1,000,000 residents are drinking water from systems with "generally minimal" treatment facilities.

-- College Park, S.C. This town is serviced by an "undesirable" water supply source. As a result, the bacterial and chemical quality of the water is poor and storage capacity is inadequate. Government officials also found no records of laboratory examinations to test for water purity.

-- Riverhead, N.Y. When residents complained of red and black water with a hydrogen sulfide odor, the town's new treatment plant manager blamed fluoridation. Later investigation by county health officials revealed that a single well was introducing bacteria into the system.

-- Long Island, N.Y., where launderettes are contaminating private wells with detergents. The county has brought suit against 78 launderettes which have no treatment facilities and which continue to pollute wells.

Overall, water systems serving 100,000 persons or more got favorable marks. Most of the contaminated water was found in small communities, where the water systems lack either the staff, the know-how or the will to assure consumers a safe drink.

This point is driven home by the report's statistics. Some 77% of the plant operators surveyed were inadequately trained; nearly half of them were deficient in chemistry related to plant operation. In 1968, the year prior to the study, 79% of the plants were not inspected, and 90% of the water-treatment systems failed to meet Government standards for frequency of inspections.

What remedial steps can be taken? In most cases, the Federal Government does not and cannot force communities to clean up their water supplies. That is a matter for local vigilance, and the typical reaction of defensiveness and disbelief to the bureau report has scarcely been comforting. Said Dave Simoncini, water superintendent for Harrison, N.Y., one of the communities whose water was pronounced potentially hazardous for human beings to drink: "We take daily samples and haven't come up with a bad report since I've been here, and that's been eleven years. I don't know where they got this." S.G. Kalichman, state health director for the San Bernardino-Riverside-Ontario area, called the Government report crazy and ridiculous.

This may explain the ominous note struck by Charles C. Johnson Jr., administrator of HEW's Environmental Health Service, in a foreword to the bureau's report. "As in so many other aspects of our environmental situation," he wrote, "the findings are not reassuring with regard to the future."

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