Uranium Detectable in Two-Thirds of US Community Water System (CWS) Monitoring Records

upstart writes:

Uranium detectable in two-thirds of US community water system monitoring records: Highest concentrations were found for Hispanic communities:

Even at low concentrations, uranium in particular represents an important risk factor for the development of chronic diseases. Until now little epidemiological research had been done on chronic water uranium exposures despite the potential health effects of uranium exposure from CWSs. Uranium in particular, has been underappreciated in the literature as a public drinking water contaminant of concern. The study results are published in the journal The Lancet Planetary Health.

"Previous studies have found associations between chronic uranium exposure and increased risk of hypertension, cardiovascular disease, kidney damage, and lung cancer at high levels of exposure," said Anne Nigra, PhD, assistant professor of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health. "Our objectives were to estimate CWS metal concentrations across the U.S, and identify socio-demographic subgroups served by these systems that either reported high metal concentration estimates or were more likely to report averages exceeding the US EPA's maximum contaminant level (MCL)."

Approximately 90 percent of U.S. residents rely on public drinking water systems, with most residents relying specifically on community water systems that serve the same population year-round. The researchers evaluated six-year EPA review records for antimony, arsenic, barium, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, mercury, selenium, thallium, and uranium to determine if average concentrations exceeded the maximum contaminant levels set by the EPA which regulates levels for six classes of contaminants. This included approximately 13 million records from 139,000 public water systems serving 290 million people annually. The researchers developed average metal concentrations for 37,915 CWSs across the country, and created an online interactive map of estimated metal concentrations at the CWS and county levels to use in future analyses.

Read more of this story at SoylentNews.