Chemical and Pathogenic Contaminant Exposure by Drinking Water

Safe drinking-water supplies are critical for protecting public health. Drinking water treatment and monitoring technologies are used by public water utilities to assure compliance with existing federal and state drinking water standards. However industrial, agricultural, medical, and other societal needs continuously require a balance of new chemical development as well as termination of older chemicals. Some of these new and legacy chemicals as well as some water-borne pathogens remain understudied and can inadvertently enter our environment and threaten the quality of our water supplies. Therefore the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) evaluates the efficacy of existing drinking water standards in light of emerging occurrence, toxicity, and other data while looking forward to the need for new standards and the possibility of raising or lowering existing standards .