Marty Schladen

El Paso Times

AUSTIN — Environmental groups are calling on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to force Texas to more clearly warn of the hazards of arsenic in drinking water.

The six groups, led by the Environmental Integrity Project, this week sent a letter to EPA Commissioner Gina McCarthy asking her to issue guidance ordering the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to stop telling people it’s OK to consume water with high arsenic levels for extended periods.

In a report released last month, the Environmental Integrity Project said three El Paso County communities — Tornillo and two mobile-home parks — had had more than 10 parts per billion of arsenic in their drinking water for most of the past decade.

That’s the limit that the EPA considers to be safe for human health. Elevated levels of arsenic have been linked to lung and bladder cancer, heart disease and slowed neurological development in children.

Asked about the report, a spokeswoman for TCEQ downplayed the health risks of long-term exposure to arsenic at levels above the federal standard. She also said that the notices her agency tells utilities to send are dictated by the EPA.

That’s inaccurate, said the Environmental Integrity Project’s executive director, Eric Schaeffer, who is a former director of the EPA’s Office of Civil Enforcement. He pointed to guidance from other states, such as Wisconsin, that warn residents not to drink or cook with water that has arsenic at levels above 10 parts per billion.

Since Texas has 34 communities in which 51,000 people have been chronically exposed to high arsenic levels, it’s especially wrong that state regulators haven’t warned of the danger, the environmental groups said in this week’s letter to the EPA.

“Despite these chronic violations of the arsenic limit, the language in Texas state health advisories continue to suggest that the water is still safe to drink,” the letter says. “Year after year, the water-quality-violation notices that the state requires local water utilities to send continue to state: ‘This is not an emergency… You do not have to use an alternative water supply.’ Because of the chronic health risks posed by arsenic, this message is inappropriate when violations persist for years.”

For Tornillo, which has by far the largest number of customers among El Paso County utilities with high arsenic levels, improvement should come soon. An official there said last month that it has received a $3.2 million EPA grant for a filtration system that would remove arsenic. The system should be online by the end of the year.

Marty Schladen may be reached at 512-479-6606; mschladen@elpasotimes.com; @martyschladen on Twitter.