气候变化领域集成服务门户

In 2015, Congress put the EPA in charge of developing informational drinking water health advisories for cyanotoxins. Exposure to even low doses of the toxins over a long period of time can encourage liver tumors and other disease. But the report notes that the agency still hasn’t developed those advisories. Experts say the EPA should go a step further and set maximum contaminant limits, a legal threshold on the amount of a substance that is allowed in public water systems under the Safe Drinking Water Act, for cyanotoxins, which would require states to meet those standards for their drinking water supplies. Only two states, Oregon and Ohio, have forged ahead without the EPA and regulated cyanotoxins in drinking water. Until the EPA releases a set of federal standards, most states won’t monitor their drinking water supplies for these toxins. “If you think about how people respond to regulations in general, they typically step up to the plate to meet what regulations are on the books,” Christine Kirchoff, associate professor of water policy and management at the University of Connecticut, told Grist. “And there aren’t regulations for cyanotoxins except in those two states.”