Water Already Meets Lower Arsenic Rules

Orange County drinking-water supplies will remain relatively unaffected by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s new and

stricter regulations for arsenic, officials said Thursday.

The new standards, announced by President Clinton on Wednesday, reduce the allowable amount of arsenic in water from 50 parts per billion to 10 parts per billion, or 10 micrograms in one liter of water. Orange County drinking-water wells overall fall well below the new standard, testing at an average of 2 or 3 parts per billion, according to officials with the Orange County Water District.

Of the slightly more than 100 drinking-water wells in the county, two have been found to contain arsenic levels between 10 and 15 parts per billion. Those two wells, in Stanton and Irvine, blend the ground water drawn from them with other water sources to achieve levels below the allowable limit, said water district spokeswoman Jenny Glasser.

Arsenic is a poisonous chemical element found naturally in rocks, soil and water. The EPA was required by the Safe Drinking Water Act amendments of 1996 to set a new drinking-water standard for arsenic in 2001.

Water districts throughout the nation are expected to spend about $6 billion in initial improvements to meet the stricter guidelines and an additional $600 million annually to maintain those standards, according to estimates by the American Water Works Assn.

Orange County Water District officials said that because of the low levels of arsenic already found locally, the new ruling will have a negligible effect on the cost of maintaining ground-water standards.