For Immediate Release: January 10, 2002

For More Information: Doug O'Malley, NJPIRG 609-394-8155 Ext. 316 Jeff Tittel, Sierra Club 609-558-9100

Report Says Tap Water Places 10,400 New Jersey Pregnancies At Risk Per Year

Download the full report | Download the New Jersey report

TRENTON, NJ -- State environmentalists gathered at the State House today to release a report, "Consider the Source," authored by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) and the New Jersey Public Interest Research Group (NJPIRG). The report documents that every year, an estimated 10,456 New Jersey women face an elevated risk of miscarriage and giving birth to babies with birth defects due to trihalomethanes (THMs) in chlorinated drinking water.

"This report documents that heavy chlorination and water treatments are not a substitute for protecting our drinking water sources. In fact, the report makes it clear that our heavy reliance on them without adequately protecting source water may be placing our health at risk," said Douglas O'Malley, NJPIRG's Clean Water Associate. During his campaign, Governor-elect Jim McGreevey directly addressed the need to increase protections for drinking water sources and recently said he will make it a priority of his administration.

Chlorine added to water interacts with organic matter, particularly the soil and plant material that comes from run-off from increased development and agriculture, to create toxic chlorination byproducts, including THMs. THM levels generally rise significantly in the summer months. Scientific studies have linked increased exposure to THMs to an elevated cancer risk and an increased risk of miscarriages and birth defects in pregnant women. (See attached fact sheet.)

Within New Jersey, twenty public water systems had elevated levels (over 80 parts per billion, the federal annual maximum average, for an entire trimester) that place pregnant women at risk. Newark was ranked first in the state, with 2,847 women at risk; Passaic Valley was second, with 2,191 women at risk; Monmouth County was third, with 1,796 women at risk; Trenton was 4th, with 1,527 women at risk and New Milford was fifth, with 793 women at risk. (A complete listing of the New Jersey public water systems with elevated THM levels is attached.)

The report represents the most comprehensive collection of data about the level of chlorination byproducts in water systems nationwide and within states like New Jersey where data was readily available. The researchers obtained the New Jersey data from the Bureau of Safe Drinking Water at the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and from quarterly drinking water reports compiled by water suppliers for consumers. The data from 526 New Jersey systems serving a total of 7,256,528 New Jersey consumers from the years 1995 through 2001 was collected, representing 86.5% of all small systems and 87.9% of large systems in New Jersey. (Small systems are defined as serving less than 10,000 people.) Not all systems provided data for all years.

"Individual water suppliers can take action to attempt to reduce the amount of THMs by employing high-technology water filtration systems. But these solutions can be prohibitively expensive for most municipalities. Since the full extent of the problem lies with the poor water quality that water purveyors attempt to purify, the solution to addressing the THM problem lies with better source water protections," continued O'Malley.

The Clean Water Agenda proposed by NJPIRG and the Sierra Club hopes to address these long-term water quality concerns by strengthening protections for our drinking water sources, cleaning up the state's most polluted waterways and forcing sewer plants to reduce pollution. More specifically, the groups advocate that:

• All drinking water sources in environmentally sensitive areas receive Priority Status and the state's highest level of protection.
• Under state regulation, waterways with Priority Status (technically called Category One) may not be measurably degraded.
• The state is required to limit permits to discharge into these waterways and to protect land areas around them from development to reduce attendant run-off pollution.
• The state rigorously enforce its program of protecting Priority Waterways by conducting environmental impact reviews before granting permits to dischargers that wish to discharge waste water into them.
• The state implement a clean up of all waterways on its Impaired List (303 (d)list) as required by the Clean Water Act. Such clean-up plans must include a "Budget" or maximum level for each pollutant that impaired waterways have in excess of the state water quality standard.
• The state must then set permit levels for all polluters based on that budget and rigorously enforce that permit.

"If we want to protect New Jersey's drinking water for the long term, we have to follow-through on some common sense measures," said Jeff Tittel, the Executive Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. "We need to ensure the future of our drinking water sources by granting them higher protections and we have to set limits on industrial and sewage discharge into impaired waterways."

Fact Sheet: Scientific Research Linking THMs and Health Risks in New Jersey

The health risk of high levels of chlorination byproducts is well documented. A compelling body of scientific evidence—nearly 30 peer-reviewed epidemiological studies—links chlorination byproducts to increased risks of cancer. The EPA currently estimates that exposure to high trihalomethane levels causes an estimated 9,300 cases of bladder cancer a year. (With the new 80 ppb standard, they estimate this will drop to 7,000 annual cases of bladder cancer). However, the EPA notes that the bladder cancer risk captures only a portion of the potential risk associated with CBPs in drinking water and other studies have linked chlorination byproducts to a dozen other internal cancers, including brain and breast cancer.

At least 10 major epidemiological studies of more than 287,000 pregnant women show elevated risks for neural tube defects, reduced growth rates in the womb and miscarriages. Two major studies linking high levels of THMs to increased birth defects and miscarriages were conducted in New Jersey.

In a 1995 study published by Dr. Frank Bove of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) titled "Public Drinking Water Contamination and Birth Outcomes," Dr. Bove surveyed the health of 81,602 babies born in 75 New Jersey towns between 1985 and 1995. His results showed a direct correlation between high THM levels and birth defects. Specifically, his study exposed increased risk of low weight, central nervous system defects, neural tube defects, major cardiac defects and oral cleft defects when mothers drank tap water with high levels of THMs (greater than 100 parts per billion based on quarterly measurements).

Even with THM levels that are half the current federal mandate, studies in New Jersey have shown a definitive health risk. In a 1999 study published by Dr. J.B. Klotz and Dr. L.A. Pyrch titled "Neural Tube Defects and Drinking Water Disinfection By-Products," they found that among 360 pregnant women, babies were twice as likely to have neural tube defects if their mothers drank tap water with greater than 40 parts per billion of THMs than for mothers drinking water with less than 5 parts per billion of THMs.