Debate over arsenic levels.

In the waning days of the Clinton administration, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved a new standard for the level of arsenic allowed in drinking water. The old standard, which had stood for decades, allowed up to 50 parts per billion (ppb) in drinking water. The new standard arbitrarily reduced the permissible level of arsenic to 10 ppb.

The incoming Bush administration initially wanted to study the economic consequences of this new rule before implementing it. But demagoguery by Democrats and browbeating by the media caused the Bush administration to quickly knuckle under. As a result, U.S. cities are now required to be in compliance with this new policy by January 2006.

Arsenic levels exceeding 10 ppb are found in 3,000 water systems serving 13 million people nationwide, according to the EPA. Most of these systems are in arid and sparsely populated regions of the Western states.

The new rules require the EPA to establish a list of technologies that achieve compliance and are affordable and applicable to small drinking water systems, but it still has not done so. EPA estimates indicate that the annual cost of building, operating and maintaining arsenic treatment plants in smaller municipalities could run as high as $1,000 per household. In the case of Castleford, Idaho, Mayor Rita Ruffing says that would eat up more than half of the entire city budget.

If there is no federal funding for treatment plants, Castleford council members have said they might as well hand over the keys to the city. A possible solution might be to abandon the city water system, transfer water rights to residents, and allow them to drill domestic wells, which are not regulated by the EPA.

In the end, the new arsenic regulation could actually result in people drinking water that is more toxic than the water they are drinking now.