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94–596 PDF 2004

PUBLIC CONFIDENCE, DOWN THE DRAIN: THE

FEDERAL ROLE IN ENSURING SAFE DRINKING

WATER IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

MARCH 5, 2004

Serial No. 108–161

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

DAN BURTON, Indiana

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

DOUG OSE, California

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

NATHAN DEAL, Georgia

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas

MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee

——— ———

——— ———

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. ‘‘DUTCH’’ RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

JIM COOPER, Tennessee

——— ———

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

MELISSA WOJCIAK, Staff Director

DAVID MARIN, Deputy Staff Director/Communications Director

ROB BORDEN, Parliamentarian

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHIL BARNETT, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on March 5, 2004 .............................................................................. 1

Statement of:

Grumbles, Benjamin, Acting Assistant Administrator, Office of Water,

Environmental Protection Agency; Donald S. Welsh, Regional Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency Region III; Thomas P. Jacobus, P.E., General Manager, Washington Aqueduct, Environmental

Protection Agency; Glenn S. Gerstell, chairman, District of Columbia

Water and Sewer Authority, accompanied by Jerry N. Johnson, general

manager, and Michael S. Marcotte, P.E., DEE, chief engineer/deputy

manager ......................................................................................................... 17

Olson, Erik, senior attorney, Natural Resources Defense Council; Professor Ellen Silbergeld, John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health;

and Professor Marc Edwards, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State

University ...................................................................................................... 172

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Davis, Chairman Tom, a Representative in Congress from the State of

Virginia:

Followup questions and responses ........................................................... 102

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 5

Edwards, Professor Marc, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, prepared statement of ..................................................................... 212

Gerstell, Glenn S., chairman, District of Columbia Water and Sewer

Authority:

Chart on monthly plant effluent and finished reservoir lead monitoring ........................................................................................................... 67

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 70

Grumbles, Benjamin, Acting Assistant Administrator, Office of Water,

Environmental Protection Agency, prepared statement of ........................ 20

Jacobus, Thomas P., P.E., General Manager, Washington Aqueduct, Environmental Protection Agency, prepared statement of ............................... 59

Norton, Hon. Eleanor Holmes, a Delegate in Congress from the District

of Columbia:

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 12

Public service announcements .................................................................. 91

Olson, Erik, senior attorney, Natural Resources Defense Council, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 174

Silbergeld, Professor Ellen, John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public

Health, prepared statement of ..................................................................... 197

(1)

PUBLIC CONFIDENCE, DOWN THE DRAIN:

THE FEDERAL ROLE IN ENSURING SAFE

DRINKING WATER IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

FRIDAY, MARCH 5, 2004

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Tom Davis (chairman

of the committee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Davis of Virginia; Tierney, Van Hollen,

and Norton.

Also present: Mr. Moran of Virginia.

Staff present: Melissa Wojciak, staff director; David Marin, deputy staff director/director of communications; Keith Ausbrook, chief

counsel; John Hunter, counsel; Robert Borden, senior counsel/parliamentarian; Drew Crockett, deputy director of communications;

Teresa Austin, chief clerk; Brien Beattie, deputy clerk; Shalley

Kim, professional staff member; Corinne Zaccagnini, chief information officer; Krista Boyd and Alexandra Teitz, minority counsels;

Karen Lightfoot, minority communications director/senior policy advisor; Anna Laitin, minority communications and policy assistant;

Earley Green, minority chief clerk; Jean Gosa, minority assistant

clerk; and Cecelia Morton, minority office manager.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Good morning. The Committee on Government Reform will come to order. And welcome to today’s hearing

entitled, ‘‘Public Confidence, Down the Drain: The Federal Role in

Ensuring Safe Drinking Water in the District of Columbia.’’

As chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform

with jurisdiction over the District of Columbia, I was deeply troubled by reports that thousands of District homes tested above the

Federal action limit for lead contamination. In testing done last

summer, water in two-thirds of the 6,118 homes tested exceeded

the lead limit established by the Environmental Protection Agency

and many had lead levels that far exceed that limit. As you know

lead exposure can have serious, even deadly, health ramifications,

especially for young children and pregnant women.

I am also concerned that the public has not been properly informed of the situation. When the District of Columbia Water and

Sewer Authority [WASA], first learned of high lead test results,

homeowners who were part of the samplings were notified of the

initial findings, but the vast majority of homeowners who were not

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sampled were not notified of potential risk. Clearly residents have

not been receiving timely and complete information. This is unacceptable.

Residents are also getting mixed messages from inconsistent

statements released by WASA. At the end of January, WASA recommended that residents whose water is contaminated flush cold

water lines for 30 seconds to 1 minute before using water for drinking or cooking. By February 19th, District residents were told to

flush their water for 10 minutes. Then on February 25th the D.C.

Department of Health issued an advisory warning residents that

all pregnant women and children under 6 years old should immediately stop drinking District water. People need to know if their

water is safe, and if not, what is being done to make it safe and

exactly what they should do in the interim.

The Safe Drinking Water Act established a mechanism to monitor and regulate the levels of contaminants in public water systems so that drinking water is safe for the consuming public.

Under the act, EPA is charged with setting levels of specific contaminants and implementing a monitoring and remediation program.

Each public water system is also required to implement optimal

corrosion control treatment measures, a requirement that is separate from the requirements relating to the level of contaminants.

If a water system exceeds specific contaminant levels, the action

level, it must engage in additional corrective measures. States generally have the responsibility for ensuring that water systems don’t

exceed the action levels and that water systems take corrective actions when appropriate. But in the District of Columbia, EPA has

this responsibility.

Congress also gave EPA emergency authority to take action if a

contaminant in drinking water may present an imminent and substantial endangerment to the health of persons. Under this authority EPA may order a water system to take such actions as may be

necessary to protect the health of persons using the water system,

including, as the statute expressly states, ordering that alternative

water supplies be provided. EPA should not hesitate to exercise its

authority if the facts warrant action.

Lead is a primary contaminant in drinking water. It can come

from source water, water in the distribution system lines, and

water in a customer’s plumbing systems. In 1991 EPA set the action level for lead at 15 parts per billion. Lead remediation measures include additional and more frequent testing, public education, and even line replacement. But these measures may not reduce lead levels in the District of Columbia drinking water in the

near future.

And there are many questions that remain to be answered: What

took so long to inform District residents of the potential health

risks? How can residents best protect themselves? What relief will

residents expect to receive? Did the Federal Government exercise

proper oversight over the District’s drinking water? Is the current

safe water drinking program adequate to ensure that the public actually has safe drinking water or does it need to be reformed?

I have to wonder if EPA was effective in its oversight of the District drinking water quality. One concern is that EPA allowed

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WASA to use ‘‘flushed water’’ and not ‘‘first draw’’ water for testing

in schools. First draw samples are taken as soon as the water is

turned on. Flushed samples are taken after running for 10 minutes. Lead levels will usually be quite high in water that has sat

overnight in a lead line from a street main to a house.

Out of 752 samples, taken only 8 samples tested above the 15

parts per billion threshold. But I can’t help wonder if more schools

are at risk because testing protocols that EPA requires for private

homes were not followed by WASA while they tested the schools.

I am concerned about the potential magnitude of this public

health crisis. It is worrisome that there is no comprehensive list of

properties that exceed limits. The fact that we can’t pinpoint the

affected areas is also worrisome. This has an effect on whether people buy homes in the District. In addition, many people commute

to work and visit the District.

We’re on the verge of the tourist season in the Nation’s Capital.

What message are we sending to potential visitors from around the

world if the water is unsafe to drink, and what impact will it have

on our tourism industry here? What are Members of Congress supposed to tell the American people? Come to Washington but don’t

drink the water?

The U.S. Government is the biggest user of D.C. water. Even the

White House and Pentagon tested their water. The problem of lead

contamination is not only a concern for District residents. Just this

week, Arlington County reported that it had found high levels of

lead. Were these levels detected as a result of special testing? If so,

why did these levels not show up in the routine testing required

by EPA under the Safe Drinking Water Act?

Yesterday it was announced that Fairfax County would sample

for lead exposure in 345 schools. I am concerned about the regional

impact of the recent spike level of lead in water. We have to find

out how widespread this problem is and we need to fix it.

Arlington, which gets its water from the Dalecarlia Water Treatment Plant in the District, first stated that the water was safe because the county didn’t have lead pipes. Now officials are saying

that the problem may be that the chemicals used to kill bacteria

in the water may have a corrosive effect on pipes. We need to find

out whether the root of the problem is the lead service lines or

some other condition. If it’s not the lead service lines alone, we

have to ask whether replacing lead service lines is enough.

What we know for certain is that somewhere between the source

and the spigot, something’s going wrong. Arlington’s results suggest that corrosion control may be more important than infrastructure. What we’re seeing is that little changes in chemistry have a

big impact. That’s where the Federal role really comes under the

spotlight. WASA doesn’t make the water, per se, they just deliver

it. Water chemistry is the responsibility of the EPA and the Army

Corps, not WASA. And if it’s water chemistry and not just lead

pipes that are to blame, then we have to be concerned for all

WASA customers, in D.C., Arlington, Falls Church and Fairfax

County. Indeed as one of our witnesses will testify today, the spike

in lead levels we’ve seen in our region is probably a signal that

similar problems may exist in many other water systems nationwide. EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers need to determine

4

whether new chemicals used to treat water for bacteria have a corrosive effect on service lines.

I hope our witnesses will share with us their study findings.

WASA, EPA, and the U.S. Corps of Engineers should promptly resolve this issue and introduce a lead buffering agent to reduce the

reactivity of drinking water with lead in pipes, joints, and plumbing. We need to make sure that the treatment operations are working to protect the consumer and that we’re not trading one bad

thing for another. After all, that’s why EPA and the Corps moved

to chloramines in the first place, to avoid potentially harmful

chemicals.

The purpose of this oversight hearing is to provide a forum for

the committee to assess the coordinated actions of EPA which is responsible for public water supervision programs for the District,

the Washington aqueduct of the Washington Corps of Engineers

which treats the water supply by the District, and WASA which

purchases the water from the aqueduct and distributes it to District residents. We also intend to explore whether the current safe

drinking water program is adequate to assure safe drinking water

for the consuming public or whether it needs to be changed.

We have a distinguished panel of witnesses before us. I look forward to hearing testimony from our witnesses. I thank them for

being with us. I hope they will shed some light on this issue so we

can move forward to ensure that all residents in the capital region

have safe drinking water. We will hear from the Environmental

Protection Agency, the Washington Aqueduct of the U.S. Army

Corps of Engineers, the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and professors

from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

I might add, we are holding this hearing today at the request of

the city of Washington which has called us and expressed their

concern about the Federal role as well.

[The prepared statement of Chairman Tom Davis follows:]

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6

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8

9

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I will now recognize Ms. Norton for any

opening statement she may wish to make. Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for holding

today’s hearing which became clear to me that we needed the moment I was briefed by the EPA on this, the condition of our water.

This hearing on lead and the region’s water is the most important

hearing we’ve had this entire session. The stakes for 1 million residents in the District of Columbia and Virginia could not be higher.

However, the direct implications for jurisdictions throughout the

country are already apparent even in what we have learned thus

far about the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority crisis, about the Environmental Protection Agency regulations and monitoring, and

about the Corps of Engineers’ practices in purifying the water here.

Although Washington is the political capital in the midst of a political season, people here wake up looking not for the latest poll

or primary results first, but for the day’s tally on lead in the water.

What is most troubling about what has occurred is that, one, mistakes in judgment and procedure were apparently made at every

important juncture, as those involved now concede; and, two, any

one of the three agencies could have caught the problem much earlier. All deferred to one another, creating an appearance of collusion or suppression of information.

The response that there was no intention may well be true, but

it may not be sufficient to restore the confidence of the public and

the Congress in the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority, EPA, and the

Corps of Engineers’ aqueduct operation. Therefore, this hearing

must be primarily concerned with the measures all three must take

to restore the needed confidence so that residents, commuters, and

visitors will not need to ask the question they typically ask when

they visit a developing country; namely, is it safe to drink the

water here?

Beginning in 1996, WASA recreated itself from top to bottom. I

have witnessed a vast improvement in the agency and have been

pleased with what can only be called its complete transformation,

even resurrection. I truly regret that WASA has allowed its new

reputation to be severely tarnished. Far more important to the public than WASA’s structural changes, and even its new good investment bond rating, is whether the end product, our water, is safe.

However, I am even more concerned about the actions of the responsible Federal agencies. The EPA plays a more important role

in safeguarding drinking water here than in any jurisdiction except

Wyoming, because EPA is in effect both the State and the Federal

environmental monitor. Thus, when EPA fails here, it fails twice.

There is no further watchdog, as when a State fails in its environmental policing, because here EPA is charged with total responsibility for our water. With the Nation’s official lead environmental

agency giving unique, direct oversight of our local water, one would

suppose that ours would be the safest water in the country. Who

can believe that now?

The Washington aqueduct was built more than 100 years ago by

the Army Corps of Engineers to provide our water and has been

run by the Corps ever since. We are totally dependent on the

Corps’ judgment concerning what goes into our water, subject, of

course, to EPA regulations. Here is where the plot thickens. Were

10

each of the three agencies playing their statutory roles, tantamount

to a check and balances system, or was the WASA-EPA aqueduct

connection a closed circle where each simply reinforced one another

or acted as enablers?

Of the many issues raised by today’s hearing, three appear to be

overarching: First, are EPA’s science and regulations simply

wrong? For example, how can the public know that its water is safe

when the EPA allows WASA and other water systems to keep sampling once they discover high lead water levels until they dilute the

harmful findings? Even then, how can EPA justify the most significant remediation it requires, namely, the replacement of lead service lines in homes, when now lead has been found in homes with

lead, copper, and brass lines? Has the EPA ignored the best science

available to the Agency?

Second, has the main focus thus far on service lines in older

homes been wrong? At the EPA briefing I had, it was not long before I wondered whether the switch from chlorine to chloramines

had caused lead to leach from the pipes. When sometimes even

more lead appeared in some homes after service lines were replaced and lead was found in the water in newer homes, this hypothesis became even stronger. If so, we have two problems: dangerous lead lines, and corrosivity of lead from chloramines that

could be affecting all of us. What was the Washington Aqueduct

thinking when it switched purifying chemicals; and did the Corps

know what it was doing?

Third, what is the appropriate public health response when lead

is found in water? From the failure to follow regulations requiring

public notification until today, all three agencies have seemed to be

making it up or devising remedies as they go along. The result is

a dangerously confused public. If nothing else comes from this

hearing, I believe the public must know what to do until the problem is fixed. For example, filters that screen only up to 20,000

parts per million could hardly work when much higher levels have

already been found.

In 1993 I remember clearly, in the first of a less serious water

scare, EPA used its emergency authority under section 1431 of the

Safe Drinking Water Act. This authority gives EPA broad power to

take whatever actions are necessary to protect public health. When

EPA used its emergency powers in 1993, it knew what to order.

Today, however, EPA itself has become part of the problem, calling

into question whether it can also be part of the solution.

Nevertheless, the Agency cannot ignore its mandated statutory

charge. Given the obvious confusion, the three agencies appear yet

to have defined the problem and its causes, much less the solution.

At the very least, however, the public must get valid, coherent instructions concerning what to do while the three agencies are figuring it out. Particularly those in vulnerable populations or of low or

modest income must get the assistance required to ensure their

drinking water is safe. If something less than the use of EPA’s

emergency powers is in order in a crisis of this magnitude, I will

need to hear the alternatives spelled out this morning.

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I thank today’s witnesses for their testimony and look forward to

hearing from them. And I thank you again, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Eleanor Holmes Norton follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. I ask unanimous consent that representative Jim Moran, a former member of this committee, be allowed to

sit as part of the full committee today. Mr. Moran, your district is

impacted on this. Would you like to make an opening statement?

Mr. MORAN. Thank you. My constituents thank you for having

this hearing in such a timely and forthright manner with exactly

the people that we need to be talking with. We’re not here, obviously, to point any finger of personal blame at any of you. In fact,

I know that the head of the water responsibilities at the Environmental Protection Agency lives in Arlington. The last thing he’d

want is to endanger his children because of the poor quality of

water.

All of you we understand are as empathetic as we are in getting

to the bottom of this. But we have a very serious problem. Something is seriously wrong. And I assume the public knows why we

are attaching as much importance to this as we are. But just to reiterate what all of the witnesses know, lead is a very serious toxic

element when it gets into the body. It interferes with our red blood

cell chemistry. Depending upon the length and level of exposure, it

can delay the physical and mental development of children. It

causes deficits in the attention span, in hearing and the learning

abilities of children. And in adults it can lead to strokes, kidney

disease, and cancer.

We know that we have to keep lead as much as possible out of

the human body and certainly in the quantities that it has been

entering through our water supply. We have a level of 15 parts per

billion that is allowable. And we found in the District of Columbia

that 157 just of the homes that were tested have lead levels in excess of 300 parts per billion, which is rare. So we need to know how

did it get in, how we can get it out, and how we can alert the public

much sooner than they have been alerted.

As Eleanor said, she has the most people impacted. I have several hundred thousand in northern Virginia, Arlington County,

Falls Church, parts of Fairfax County that I share with Chairman

Davis, drink this water. We thought, as Chairman Davis said, it

wasn’t a problem in Arlington because it was coming from lead

service lines. Not so. They tested eight random samples and, of the

eight, five were substantially in excess of the allowable amount of

lead in water.

Now they’re having to test all 22 elementary schools. Arlington

County is taking this very seriously. This is a full court press in

Arlington County. I have talked with the Arlington County Board

and they’re applying every possible resource to addressing this. I

know the Chair of the Arlington County Board is here. Likewise in

Falls Church.

Our local governments are doing everything they can. We may

find that part of this is inadequate investment in the water infrastructure, particularly within our capital city, and that’s not something that I think the D.C. residents should have to pay for. But

certainly we have some Federal responsibility, particularly given

the unique situation where the Federal Government is responsible

for the capital city’s water supply.

16

We’re going to get into the specifics of what happened and hopefully find out why, and then lead to some, hopefully, consensus on

what we can do about it now. We appreciate all of the witnesses.

And, Chairman Davis, let me conclude where I began by thanking you for having this very important and timely hearing.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Any other members wish to make opening statements? The gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Tierney.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for having

this timely hearing. I want to say, I appreciate the witnesses for

being here to help us work through this. I won’t repeat what the

previous people have said but I will put an emphasis on what I

think is a concern here. When did people learn that this was an

issue of the magnitude that we now confront and why wasn’t the

public told about it sooner? That is a concern for me. It seems to

me to be a part of a path that is seen here sometimes with the

EPA, whether it’s the World Trade Towers, that the public doesn’t

get the information it should. Even if you don’t know what the

remedy is at a given time, why hasn’t the public been allowed to

know there is a problem so they can at least act on their own behalf?

Second, why wasn’t there more aggressive EPA action? Is the

EPA going to use its emergency powers and, if not, why not? What

is being done on that? We have a lot of people that are obviously

impacted by this and some serious concerns. Mr. Chairman, we

look forward to getting to the bottom of this and working with the

witnesses to do that.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Van Hollen.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ll be brief because

much has already been said. I want to thank you for holding this

timely and important hearing. What I would like to do is to get to

the bottom of the question of exactly what agencies are responsible

for what, to start with. Because reading the press and other coverage of this, there seems to be a bit of—and talking to people involved, there is a little bit of fingerpointing going on, saying it’s the

other guy’s responsibility and not ours. And the results have been

a failure for the consumer and the public as things fall through the

cracks.

The second is, given whatever responsibility an agency has, what

information did they have and when did they have it and, more importantly, what actions did they take or did they not take in response to that information.

And, finally, in addition to trying to figure out what happened

and what went wrong in this case, obviously we are trying to figure

out lessons to be learned both for the District of Columbia and the

surrounding region, possibly for the entire Nation. I want to explore the question of whether or not D.C. is a canary in the coal

mine, whether or not this could be the first indication of a much

larger problem across the Nation.

So thank you, Mr. Chairman for holding this hearing and look

forward to the testimony.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

I appreciate our panel being with us through the opening statements. We’re going to move to our first panel now. Testifying on

17

the first panel we have the Honorable Benjamin H. Grumbles, the

Acting Assistant Administrator for the Environmental Protection

Agency Office of Water; Mr. Donald Welsh, the Regional Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency Region III; Mr. Thomas P.

Jacobus, the general manager of the Washington Aqueduct, U.S.

Army Corps of Engineers. We have Glenn Gerstell, the chairman

of the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority. I understand you’re accompanied by Jerry Johnson and Michael Marcotte.

Is that right? We’ll swear them in, too. It’s our policy we swear witnesses in before their testimony so if you would rise with me and

raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Grumbles, why don’t we start with

you? We have your entire testimony as part of the record. We’ve

read that, presumably, and we have questions off the entire testimony, which is part of the record, but we have a light in front of

you. We try to give you 5 minutes to sum that up and make your

points. When it turns orange, 4 minutes are up. When it turns red,

5 minutes are up. If you could move to summarize, then, try to

keep us within time. But why don’t we start with you? Thank you

very much for being here.

STATEMENTS OF BENJAMIN GRUMBLES, ACTING ASSISTANT

ADMINISTRATOR, OFFICE OF WATER, ENVIRONMENTAL

PROTECTION AGENCY; DONALD S. WELSH, REGIONAL ADMINISTRATOR, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY REGION III; THOMAS P. JACOBUS, P.E., GENERAL MANAGER,

WASHINGTON AQUEDUCT, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

AGENCY; GLENN S. GERSTELL, CHAIRMAN, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA WATER AND SEWER AUTHORITY, ACCOMPANIED BY

JERRY N. JOHNSON, GENERAL MANAGER, AND MICHAEL S.

MARCOTTE, P.E., DEE, CHIEF ENGINEER/DEPUTY MANAGER

Mr. GRUMBLES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Delegate Norton

and members of the subcommittee and full committee. I’m Ben

Grumbles, Acting Assistant Administrator for the Office of Water

in EPA.

Mr. Chairman, you and others have a lot of tough questions, and

so do we. We all want answers and we want action, and for EPA

a top priority is to restore the quality of the drinking water and

the confidence of the consumers in the region and the District.

I’m going to talk about lead as a health hazard, and lead in

drinking water generally, talk a little bit about the regulatory

framework, and then talk about what we’re doing nationally as

well as locally. And Donald Welsh, the Regional Administrator, will

focus on specific actions and oversight and enforcement here in the

District.

As has been stated by everyone so far, we all know that lead is

an extremely serious public health concern. Too much in the body

can cause brain damage, it can cause damage to the kidneys, liver,

developmental systems. It’s a real problem and EPA fully recognizes that.

Lead exposure in young children has been dramatically reduced

over the last two decades. The decrease is largely due to the 1973

EPA regulation to phaseout lead in gasoline between 1973 and

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1995 and to the reduction in the number of homes with lead-based

paint from 64 million in 1990 to 38 million in 2000.

I just want to emphasize that as important as lead in drinking

water is, as a public health threat, lead paint, the dust from leadbased paint is a higher and a very important concern. That’s where

most of the exposure is. But today, what this hearing is all about

and what EPA is focused on is making sure that the lead in drinking water is not a problem and is not a national crisis. We’re going

to work as hard as we can with members of the committee and everyone else to ensure that.

Lead in drinking water amounts to approximately 20 percent of

a person’s exposure. In other words, the lead in a person, 20 percent comes from drinking water. EPA and Congress have taken a

lot of steps over the last 20 years to reduce the lead in drinking

water. The 1986 amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act

banned the use of lead solder, took other measures and steps as

well. Specifically there is legislation, the Lead Contamination Control Act of 1988, which also focused on lead in schools and the leadlined water reservoir tanks. In 1988 EPA proposed revisions to the

existing standard of 50 parts per billion for lead in drinking water,

and we issued a final lead and copper rule in 1991. That’s the primary regulatory framework for the issues we’re addressing today.

Unlike most contaminants, lead is not generally introduced to

drinking water supplies from the source water. So while one of the

EPA priorities is source water protection, when it comes to lead in

drinking water, a key focus is beyond just source water protection;

it’s focusing on the lead pipes and it’s focusing on the other aspects

of the infrastructure. And, as has been stated by the panel, it’s focusing on the corrosivity, the chemicals, the combination of chemicals in the water.

The rule basically requires systems to optimize corrosion control

to prevent lead and copper from leaching into drinking water. The

rule established an action level of 15 parts per billion for lead in

drinking water. Systems must monitor a specific number of taps.

If lead concentrations exceed that number in more than 10 percent

of the taps sampled, then the system must undertake a number of

additional actions to control corrosion and to inform the public

about the steps they’re taking.

Now, although we are currently seeing problems, serious problems in the District, the lead and copper rule has proven to be successful in reducing levels of lead in drinking water. In 100 large

systems serving more than 25 million people across the Nation,

there has been progress noted. Information reported by the States

to EPA indicate that only four of the large systems, one of which

is the District of Columbia, has exceeded the action level within the

past 3 years. That’s three—or four large systems.

The point is that while this is not a national crisis, it is a—it can

be a local and regional crisis. It can be a manageable crisis. And

it’s one that we’re very much focused on. And we’re going to continue to investigate the matter in the weeks ahead as to how we

responded.

I just want to summarize the things that EPA National Headquarters Office is doing. This is a reminder of things that we all

as a Nation take for granted when we turn on the tap and are exVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:15 Aug 30, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\94596.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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pecting a glass of clean safe water. I am instructing my staff to do

several things, and this is a national guidance throughout the

country. One of them is to work with enforcement and regional

drinking water program managers to engage in a thorough review

of compliance with the 1991 lead and copper rule, particularly focusing on large systems. The second thing that we’re doing is focusing on lead in schools.

Now, based on the way the Safe Drinking Water Act is written,

there is only so much the EPA can do in the regulatory role it has.

But one thing we can do is to check throughout the country for

what are the protocols and the guidance and what are the States

and the local authorities doing with respect to lead. And we are

doing that. And that’s going to be a priority of the Office of Water.

I know that my time has run out. I want to mention two other

things, Mr. Chairman, if I might. Then I will conclude.

We are currently planning to set up an independent review of the

technical working group that is responding to the corrosivity

issues. I know several citizens have said it would be good to have

an independent panel to review what the technical working group

is doing. And we are working on that. We think—we agree there

needs to be some independent review of what the technical work

group is doing.

The last thing, and perhaps one of the most important, is that

EPA from a national perspective, is reviewing the lead and copper

rule and we are reviewing the guidance to see whether or not the

rule needs to be strengthened or modified. The important thing is

to learn lessons from this experience and to work with everyone to

make sure that the water quality is restored and the confidence in

the drinking water quality is also restored.

I would like to now turn to Don Welsh who is the Regional Administrator, coming from the regional office of EPA.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Grumbles follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thanks for being with us.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I’m Don Welsh. I

am the Regional Administrator for EPA’s Region III. Thank you

very much for this opportunity to testify.

I provided detailed responses to your committee’s questions in

the written testimony, and what I’d like to do now is to outline the

actions we’ve taken to move forward to assist the District in protecting the health of its residents.

It’s unacceptable to us that many families in the District, particularly those with young children and pregnant women, continue

to live with fear and uncertainty over the quality of the water they

drink. The citizens of Washington, DC, demand and deserve much

better. I know that these issues are important to the committee

and the chairman as well, and I think that your calling this hearing will help advance the effort to find a solution.

It’s clear that the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority [WASA], was

highly ineffective in informing the public about the magnitude of

the problem of lead in drinking water and in conveying the steps

that families and individuals should take to protect themselves.

Both the region and headquarters offices of EPA are taking a critical look back at how the region could have done a better job in its

oversight of WASA. There will be lessons learned from our reviews

which will benefit the agency in the future.

We’re completing a thorough assessment of WASA’s and the

Aqueduct’s activities to determine what violations of environmental

law may have occurred and to ensure public health is protected.

Our primary focus is on taking strong action with other agencies

to help bring about solutions as quickly as possible to the current

situation, both short term in ensuring a safe water supply for families and improving outreach efforts, and longer term in finding and

fixing the root cause of the problem.

The first priority is to ensure that citizens have safe water to

drink. EPA has published consumer guidelines that should be followed by all residents to reduce their risk of exposure. These guidelines prescribe longer tap water flushing periods for those with lead

service lines. Additionally, as an extra level of safety the District’s

Department of Health recently recommended that pregnant women

and children under 6, those most susceptible to health effects from

lead, not consume unfiltered tap water. We believe that this is a

prudent and cautionary step to take at this time.

I met this week with city officials to discuss the city’s plans for

providing safe water to residents. We discussed a number of actions that we consider advisable and necessary and will closely

monitor the steps being taken in this area. If affected residents are

not promptly supplied with safe drinking water, we stand ready

and are fully prepared to exercise our authority to compel action.

Technical issues regarding the corrosivity of the water need to be

resolved. We are working with WASA, the Washington Aqueduct,

and other outside technical experts to help determine the correct

balance of treatment needed to both reduce corrosivity and maintain the optimum protection against other harmful contaminants

that can be found in drinking water. The expert technical team has

been researching these issues and will report preliminary recommendations to me by next Wednesday. We will ensure that

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measures recommended are implemented as quickly and effectively

as possible.

Mr. Chairman, I also appreciate the importance to you and to

Mr. Moran of the recent reports of some elevated lead levels in

drinking water above the EPA action level in Arlington, VA. We

share that concern for the health and welfare of the residents in

that area and in Falls Church. We’re working with the Virginia Department of Health and the Arlington County and Falls Church

water systems, and we know that they’re planning additional sampling.

Data from Arlington will be important in helping the technical

team determine the cause of the problem and the appropriate solution. We will continue to keep the committee updated as we learn

more.

In D.C., the lead service lines themselves, which are the major

source of the high lead levels, need to be replaced. We expect to

award funding beginning in April in the form of $8 million in fiscal

year 2004 grant funds and $3.7 million in prior year funds to accelerate the replacement of these lines.

In its outreach efforts, WASA failed in its responsibility to effectively inform all impacted parties about a problem with their

water. Notifications to individual residents were often not timely

and did not achieve the goal of getting information to those who

needed to know. While WASA had EPA guidance that, among other

things, advised that one of the most effective ways to get the message out is through direct contact with news media representatives,

mass media tools were not used as effectively as they could have

been.

In hindsight, EPA should have more quickly assessed the effectiveness and impact of WASA’s public notification program and

promptly directed WASA to correct its deficiencies.

We are auditing WASA’s public information efforts to identify

specific elements that failed, and we have revised our own oversight procedures to ensure that shortcomings in public outreach are

identified earlier and corrected.

Let me reiterate EPA’s commitment to protect public health by

identifying solutions to serious issues raised with respect to lead in

D.C. drinking water. We must learn from the past, but I am focused on working on strategies that will help us move ahead in a

positive way. To that end, I am directing WASA to test all lead

service lines in 2004, to expedite notification to customers of the results of water sampling at their residences, to convey the necessary

sense of urgency in all of its communications with the public, and

to accelerate the physical replacement of lead service lines to the

maximum extent possible.

Working closely with our public service partners and concerned

citizens, we will continue to aggressively investigate this matter in

the weeks ahead, to provide needed technical assistance, determine

the exact nature of the problem we are facing, and find an appropriate balanced solution. EPA will not be satisfied until all aspects

of this problem are resolved and the citizens of D.C. can once again

be confident in the safety of their drinking water.

Thank you for this opportunity to testify and I look forward to

answering your questions.

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Jacobus, thanks for being with us.

Mr. JACOBUS. Good morning, Chairman Davis and members of

the committee. I am Tom Jacobus, the general manager of the

Washington Aqueduct. The chart to your left shows in yellow the

area served by Washington Aqueduct. The water we produce at two

treatment plants in the District of Columbia goes to all of the residents of the District of Columbia, all of Arlington County, and to

the city of Falls Church, which then operates a distribution system

in that portion of Fairfax County, and water is further sold to Vienna. So the million customers of the three wholesale customers we

sell to are represented on that chart.

Our water is taken from the Potomac River and treated in a conventional treatment process using sedimentation——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Let me just ask if the staff could bring

that chart a little closer over so the Members can see it a little better. Hold it flat out so maybe the audience can see it, too. There,

is that better? Can everybody see that? Thanks.

Mr. JACOBUS. So to repeat, then, the area in yellow is the area

served by water produced at the Washington Aqueduct from either

the Dalecarlia or the McMillan treatment plants. We use conventional treatment which is a combination of sedimentation, filtration, and disinfection. The water that is sent to the customers from

the Washington Aqueduct’s treatment plant meets all EPA regulations and standards in terms of microbial activity and the chemical

constituents of the water that are regulated in some way by EPA

and other agencies.

In addition to the water’s chemical and biological property constituents, there is also the issue of the corrosivity of the water.

Under the lead and copper rule of 1994, the Washington Aqueduct

conducted optimal corrosion treatment techniques. And from that

we adopted a practice of using pH control as the optimal technique.

When we converted to chloramines in 2000, the reason we did that

was to meet the new disinfection byproducts rule, which was regulating chemicals that would be produced as a result of this disinfection, a class of chemicals known as trihalomethones. The disinfection byproduct rule has been very successfully met through the use

of chloramines.

When we converted to chloramines we were aware there was a

potential biological to chemical reaction that could increase the

corrosivity of the water through nitrification in the distribution system. We monitored the system continuously for 6 months, found no

evidence of nitrification and have continued to monitor. The nitrification could change the pH of the water, which could make the

water more corrosive. We found no evidence of that. As of right

now we do not see a direct link between the change to chloramines

and increased lead leaching.

However, as part of our solution to this problem we’re going to

investigate that link and that information will be available to EPA,

to the water industry, and to the public at large. We are dealing

here with a problem of increased corrosivity of the water. We can

handle that problem through the use of chemical treatment. We

can reduce the corrosivity of the water, reduce the lead leaching

from lead service lines, lead solder that might be still in homes,

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and lead in brass or bronze fixtures. We will be able to do that and

still remain with chloramine treatment which is essential for the

protection of the public for the disinfection byproduct rule.

So in summary, I would like to say that we are committed to

move quickly and safely to correct what appears to be a problem

of corrosivity. We have a technical working group established,

working very closely with the Environmental Protection Agency,

the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority, the D.C. Department of Health. We have engaged clearly the best national and

international consultants in corrosivity, and we’re very confident

that we can very quickly come to a decision on a revised chemistry

and begin to introduce that into the distribution system in a way

that will reduce what we’re seeing in these lead concentrations. I

look forward to your questions. Thank you very much for asking

me here today.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Jacobus follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Gerstell, thanks for being with us.

Mr. GERSTELL. Thank you very much and good morning, Chairman Davis and members of the committee. I am Glenn Gerstell,

the chairman of the Board of Directors of the District of Columbia

Water and Sewer Authority. I am joined behind me by our general

manager, Jerry Jphnson, and our deputy general manager, Michael

Marcotte. I’m very pleased to be here to provide testimony about

WASA’s past, current, and future endeavors regarding elevated

lead levels in the homes of some of our District residents.

First, I want to assure you that providing safe and clean drinking water to our community is our absolutely highest priority. Before responding to the chairman’s questions, I would like to reiterate one point that Chairman Davis has already made and Mr. Jacobus just said, but because the point has been a little fuzzy in the

news media, I’d like to underscore the fact that WASA provides the

water, we do not produce it. WASA is responsible for distributing

drinking water safely through our 1,300 miles of water mains

under the streets of the District to individual homes and buildings,

as well as to several Federal facilities directly across the Potomac

in Virginia.

As we’ve just heard, it’s the Army Corps of Engineers, through

the Washington Aqueduct, that draws the water from the Potomac,

filters and chemically treats it to meet EPA specifications. While

WASA, of course, works cooperatively and closely with the Washington Aqueduct, treatment issues are ultimately their responsibility.

I’d like to respond to the chairman’s questions by first briefly

noting the history of this issue and, second, detailing what we are

doing about it. Let’s look at the history. The issue of lead in Washington’s water supply isn’t new. We’ve known for many years that

we have lead service pipes in thousands of homes. But for many

years tests showed that those pipes were not leaching lead. And

year after year, our EPA-approved tests showed acceptable trace

levels of lead.

The situation changed in the fall of 2002 after results came in

from samples taken in compliance with EPA rules during the 2001

and 2002 testing period. During that time, 53 homes were tested

and 26 exceeded the EPA action level of 15 parts per billion of lead.

WASA then notified the EPA and the D.C. Department of Health

about the situation as well as directly informing the affected customers. In its publications and notices, WASA used the prescribed

language set forth in the EPA regulations.

I’d like to underscore that point: WASA believes it has complied

with all Federal regulations on this matter.

And to dispel another erroneous impression left by some news reports, WASA does not deliberately sit on any information. Through

early 2003 the informed judgments of WASA management were

based on data from just those 53 homes. In 2002 and 2003 the regulation sample sizes were also small, and there had been many

years of testing without an exceedance. At the time, our management had no reason to question the steps it was taking under EPA

regulations. It was just this past December—December 2003 and

early January 2004—when significant amounts of new data became

available after being analyzed and aggregated which told us the

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scope of the increased concentrations. While those results were certainly significant, we also need to put this issue in context.

The problem appears to affect primarily single family homes with

lead service lines. As far as we know, apartment buildings and

commercial office buildings are generally not affected, since they do

not have lead service lines. So the problem appears to be concentrated in about 23,000 homes out of 130,000 service lines

throughout the District. We recognize it could be more.

The records WASA inherited from the District Government are

old and not complete and based in many cases on individual

plumbers’ reports made when a house was constructed in the last

century. I have here and will give copies to the committee staff of

the plumber’s report. This one happens to be from, looks like June

27, 1909. And these are individual plumbers’ reports. We have put

all these on a computer, but the fact that they’re computerized

doesn’t change the fact that the underlying data of which houses

have lead service lines and which don’t is literally something from

the last century. In many cases we have no information about

whether those pipes were ever replaced.

Until recently there was no reason to update this information,

especially given all the other capital improvements WASA needs to

do. As part of the EPA compliance, we launched a number of public

education activities and began replacing lead service lines. The

opinion at the time of our management, given the small pool of

samples and the history of years of not having a problem in this

regard, was that it would have been irresponsible to raise great

alarm because of the small number exceeding the action level at

that point. We did communicate directly with customers, and that

was the responsible thing to do.

There has been criticism that the public campaign in 2002 and

2003 in accordance with EPA rules didn’t raise the alarm loudly

enough. I recognize that. That may be the correct judgment in

hindsight, especially now that we know that lead levels were apparently even higher than were known at the time. But I think at

the time, a reasonable person would have concluded that the approach then reflected a fair balance of the relevant factors and evidence. I have said, and will repeat here again, that I believe in retrospect there was clearly room for improvement in our public education campaign.

Our other outreach efforts, included preparing comprehensive

brochures in 2002—I have copies of this and will be pleased to provide it to the staff—public service announcements, ads in the

Washington Post in 2002 and 2003. We created a lead services hotline and publicized that over a year ago, in January 2003. We sent

letters to various local government officials, had meetings of advisory neighborhood commissions. And then in 2003—this past summer, we started taking more samples, ultimately reaching over

6,000 samples. By January 2004 the final results showing significant increases were known. At that point, WASA management had

planned to make an announcement. However, information was

shared with the press by a citizen before WASA was able to do so.

Let me now turn to what we are doing about the problem. I’ll

briefly outline six steps that we’re taking. First, getting to the root

of the problem. As we have already heard, we are conducting reVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:15 Aug 30, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00069 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\94596.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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search in collaboration with our partners on why there has been

such an increase in lead levels. We know that lead is not present

in our water mains. We’re working with the EPA, the Washington

Aqueduct, the D.C. Department of Health and respected scientists

and experts, and we expect to have a preliminary report later this

month.

Second, we will increase the number——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. We want to make sure that you send that

report to the committee.

Mr. GERSTELL. I will be delighted to, and will certainly do so.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. GERSTELL. Second, we will increase the number of lead service pipes replaced this year by 50 percent. The Board has decided,

in conjunction with management’s recommendation, to increase

that and to allocate an incremental $7 million to that program. We

will be focusing in particular on those lead pipes with the highest

lead readings, where pregnant women or where children under the

age of 6 live. If we do that, we then will be increasing the replacements from 800 to over 1,300 this year. And we expect to replace

an additional 300 service pipes in connection with other activities

that WASA is already undertaking.

Since lead pipes are in both the public and private space, we’ll

work with homeowners when they ask us, as we will suggest to

them, that they replace the portion in private space at cost if they

ask us to do so. We’re currently having discussions with the District Government about obtaining financial assistance and providing financial assistance to individual homeowners who might have

difficulty in paying for their portion of the replacement. We continue to send test kits upon request to homes with known lead

service pipes, and WASA pays for the testing.

Third, the Board of Directors, which consists of a number of government officials and non-salaried private citizens such as myself,

is taking this matter very seriously. We are devoting an extraordinary amount of attention to this issue. We have had a special

Board meeting solely on this issue. We have heard from experts at

our regular February and March board meetings. We have conducted various committee meetings and conducted several press

briefings to get current information out to the public. Just yesterday at our monthly meeting, the WASA Board of Directors adopted

a resolution to begin a formal investigation into this matter. We

are retaining the services of the firm Covington and Burling, and

heading that review will be former Deputy Attorney General of the

United States, Eric Holder, who is a partner of that firm and also,

as you know, is a former U.S. Attorney for Washington. He will be

able to draw upon the expertise of two distinguished experts, the

director of the School of Public Policy and Public Administration of

the George Washington University and a distinguished professor at

the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Fourth, we’re seeking to verify whether the problem can be ameliorated simply by flushing water through a home’s plumbing system. Obviously, this isn’t an ideal or permanent solution. But if it

turns out that lead service pipe replacement is the only answer, we

will need interim steps.

Fifth, at the initiative of WASA management, the Brita Product

Co. generously donated 10,000 water filtration pitchers to the District. We’ve distributed some of those to home day care centers, and

we will be distributing those to homes that have children under the

age 6 or women who are pregnant and breast-feeding, if those

homes have lead service lines.

Finally, it’s critically important to let residents know about all of

these activities underway. We have stepped up our communications

with our customers through regular press briefings. We have

mailed letters to all of our residents in English and Spanish, with

accompanying literature on this subject. The March issue of our

customer newsletter highlights lead in drinking water and preVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:15 Aug 30, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00072 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\94596.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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cautions residents can take. We’ve updated our Web site almost

daily. That’s www.DCWASA.com. Indeed, we just arranged on the

Web site to put information about the lead service lines and connect it directly with information about a homeowner’s account. So

it’s now possible to log on to our Web site, type in your name and

password, and determine whether your home has a lead service

line.

I’d like to conclude by noting that we at WASA are very clear

about our goal in this area, which is to provide safe and clean

drinking water to the community. We welcome the collaboration

formed with our partners, some of whom are here today, who share

our immediate objective: identify the cause of the problem, find a

solution that works, and tell the public about it at every step along

the way.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for this

opportunity to inform the committee and thus the public. I would

be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Gerstell follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. My first question is, what do you say to

someone who is in the District of Columbia, or even in Arlington,

or maybe out in Fairfax, who gets their water from Dalecarlia or

has a lead pipe delivery system? What do you tell them to do today

while we’re waiting on everybody to fix it?

Mr. GERSTELL. The advice we’re giving is twofold at the moment.

One is in conjunction with the Department of Health, which has

issued an advisory. Certainly if someone has a home that has a

lead service pipe and there are pregnant women and children

under the age of 6 or women breast-feeding, we recommend that

they do not drink the water or the——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. How about me? I’m neither one of those.

Mr. GERSTELL. For anyone else, we are continuing to suggest a

program of flushing for up to 10 minutes if you have a home that

has a lead service line. And we believe that 10 minutes is the appropriate time to get the water out of the system.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Does EPA agree with that?

Mr. WELSH. That’s the same advice we would give and we have

up on our Web site as well, that everyone should know and follow

the flushing protocol, whether or not you have a lead service line.

If you believe you may have a lead service line, follow the more extensive flushing protocol.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. It’s going to mean a lot more water usage,

isn’t it?

Mr. WELSH. Unfortunately, that’s correct. If you are in the sensitive population, as Mr. Gerstell said, that we recommend that

you—we concur with the recommendation by D.C. Health that you

not drink the unfiltered tap water.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Grumbles, let me ask you, what are

the emergency options that you would have right now? I am just

asking, and not necessarily saying what we should do, but what

authority do you have under the law to act in an emergency situation like this right now.

Mr. GRUMBLES. The Safe Drinking Water Act says that—there is

a section, section 1431, that does provide an authority when there

is an imminent and substantial endangerment, and when the State

and local authorities are not acting properly in response to that.

Then the agency does have an authority under that section of the

Safe Drinking Water Act to issue an imminent and substantial

endangerment. And we have done that, and we are, I would say,

aggressively pursuing that option, looking at it.

I would just like to refer to Don to add any more——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. If you could be a little more specific. Also,

we still don’t have our hands around the problem, do we, in terms

of exactly where the problem is, if it is the distribution or the production, do we?

Mr. GRUMBLES. I would say that you are correct. There are a lot

of questions, corrosivity, what is causing the corrosivitiy, should we

focus just on the lead service lines, and clearly the answer to that

is no. I mean, from other jurisdictions we are learning it is much

more than that. There are technical, factual questions. We feel

that—we fully support the effort to have a technical working group

that everyone is part of.

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We think it is also important to have some independent review

of that as well, to try to get maximum approach, because we all

know that as important as action, immediate action, in response to

this situation is, we need to make sure that it is based on the scientific—the best scientific approach, and it does involve a lot of

analysis of the chemistry, and the various factors that are involved.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. So before you spend millions in one direction, you want to make sure that you are doing the right thing to

correct the problem?

Mr. GRUMBLES. That is correct.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Welsh, do you want to elaborate on

that?

Mr. WELSH. Yes, sir. The mayor of D.C. named the city administrator as his point person on this issue. And on Tuesday I met with

the city administrator and did review with him the fact that we

have the authority that Ben mentioned in 1431 of the Safe Drinking Water Act. We discussed a number of things that we think are

of primary importance that need to happen, principally that the

folks who have been advised not to drink the unfiltered tap water

be provided with an alternative source of water through filters or

some other means.

Several other actions that we think are advisable or that we

think are necessary to address the situation, principally making

sure that folks have safe water to drink while we do that technical

work to get the answers to the corrosivity. And we have been in

contact since then repeatedly with the D.C. Emergency Management Agency and with other representatives of D.C. government to

get fully informed about the steps that they are taking to address

those needs. And we are fully prepared to act with the authority

that we mentioned under 1431 if we determine that is the best way

to get a solution.

But we have been in close contact with D.C. and continue to be

as to the plans that they are making and the implementation of

those plans to meet those immediate needs, and we stand ready to

act and are quite prepared to do so whenever we determine that

is the best way to get a solution.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Let me ask this. How does EPA or any

water system balance the comparative risks? In this case you use

chloramines to reduce disinfection byproducts. It appears to have

reduced the benefits of the corrosion control program. At the time

the District switched to using chloramines in 2000, would that

switch have been required by EPA if the District had not switched

on its own? And at that time, did EPA have any evidence that

chloramines would increase corrosion and lead to more lead in the

water?

Mr. GRUMBLES. Mr. Chairman, you are raising one of the most

fundamental issues and challenges for those who are on the front

lines in providing safe drinking water to the American public, and

that is the issue of simultaneous compliance with the various regulations. The regulations are based on sound science, but this is a

perfect example that Tom Jacobus is pointing out, that whereas the

science tells us that we need to take more steps and be more concerned about disinfection byproducts, trihalomethanes, based upon

the important work that chlorine does as a disinfectant, that leads

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to taking various steps and procedures. Then the question is, as

well, will that have some effect on corrosivity, and will you be risking noncompliance with the lead and copper rule if are you going

forward on that step?

I can tell you that as a Federal agency and as national program

managers, we are very much focusing in on that simultaneous compliance conundrum.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. In fact, this could be a national issue, not

just here, in terms of——

Mr. GRUMBLES. It is a national issue. It is one that utilities live

with and work with and that we recognize as part of the challenge

and the difficult nature of meeting all of the requirements in providing safe water.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. When the science isn’t perfect, and it often isn’t

perfect, at the very least what the regulations seem to require is

that people be informed.

So the first problem I have has to do with the action WASA took

in informing people. Now, I am showing you a posterboard that

says that within 60 days, when you know that the part per billion

level has been exceeded, this language has to appear in water bills.

Now, this language has to appear in large print the way it is on

that posterboard, and that language says, some homes in this community have elevated lead levels in their drinking water. Lead can

cause a significant risk to your health. Please read the enclosed notice for further information.

Why did WASA not do this?

Mr. GERSTELL. My understanding is that we did; that was put

in our bills. And I have a copy here in front of me of the notice,

the two-page notice that was referred to. That is——

Ms. NORTON. My understanding is——

Mr. GERSTELL. The date on it is 2003. I am sorry.

Ms. NORTON. I am talking about in the water bills.

Mr. GERSTELL. There was a statement in each water bill.

Ms. NORTON. This is just the kind of response—you know good

and well I am talking about 2002, and you are talking about 2003.

Mr. GERSTELL. I apologize, I am sorry. I was not——

Ms. NORTON. We are talking about when this problem began.

Your answer should have been, we didn’t do it in 2002, we did it

in 2003. And this is the kind of thing—we want to get some candor

now from WASA.

Mr. GERSTELL. I misunderstood your question. I thought you

were referring to 2003.

Ms. NORTON. If you read the question before the answer, you

would have a clear view of any problem. We want to know why you

didn’t do it in 2002, within 60 days after you discovered more than

15 parts—more than above 15 parts per billion.

Mr. GERSTELL. Would it be acceptable if I asked Mr. Johnson,

our general manager, who is more familiar with the operations?

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Gerstell, I don’t know why you are the one testifying. If he has been the one who has been closest to it, we should

have been hearing from him. We want to know what actually happened.

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. He is sworn in. We will let him answer

it.

Mr. Johnson.

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Ms. Norton.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Let me ask that staff maybe move another

chair up there.

Go ahead.

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Ms. Norton and Chairman Davis. At

that time we were doing quarterly billing, and so in order to comply with the regulation, after conferring with EPA we sent notices

to every household in the District of Columbia through a special

mailing that did contain that special language.

Ms. NORTON. You are telling me that in 2002, in quarterly bills,

you sent this notice in these capital letters?

Mr. JOHNSON. It was sent in a special mailing to all of the customers.

Ms. NORTON. All right. First of all, that is not my understanding.

Mr. JOHNSON. OK.

Ms. NORTON. My understanding is that you did that in 2003 and

not in 2002, and I am talking about 2002. Now, this is what my

understanding is: That instead of doing that in 2002, you instead

issued this brochure. This brochure is entitled, District of Columbia

Water and Sewer Authority and the District of Colombia Department of Health National Lead Awareness Week. Living Lead-Free

in the District. And buried on page 3 is the following language:

However, in the annual monitoring period ending June 30, 2002,

the lead results indicate that although most homes have very low

levels of lead in their drinking water, some homes in the community have lead levels above the EPA level of 15 parts per billion.

If you think anybody goes through these things and reads down

to page 3 in small print, then you know more about the way—how

busy people are than I do. But, more than that, that is what is required.

In 2002, our information is that was not done in water bills. Are

you contradicting that? You are saying in water bills right after

this, as language was required, you, in fact, in the next water bill

put that language in those capital letters, and that EPA can verify

that happened?

Mr. JOHNSON. No, ma’am, Ms. Norton. I am not verifying that.

I know that we did send this brochure, as you did point out, to

every household in the District of Columbia in order to meet the

requirement to get the notice to persons within that timeframe that

is required in the law, because we were not doing monthly billing

at the time.

Ms. NORTON. Well, I can understand that if you didn’t—first of

all, I want to ask EPA, why—you gave them a way out, which they

should not have taken, because they could have done it in the next

monthly water bill, and they could have done it in capital letters,

as your regulations require. But why did you let them do this?

What kind of watchdog are you? Why don’t you say, hey, if you are

going to do it in this brochure, then certainly you have to comply

with our regulations and do it in capital letters so everybody is on

notice that there is lead in their water, or may be lead in their

water?

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Mr. WELSH. It is my understanding that because they did not

have a monthly billing cycle, that this special mailing did meet the

requirements, that the timing of that mailing met the requirements. It is clear that there are many parts of the notification to

the public that suffered from what you noted, that they were—it

was difficult, even though the information was made available to

the public, for people to quickly and readily recognize that is something that should be important to them and they should take notice

of.

So we hope to be able to do a better job controlling that in the

future to make sure that we not just look for whether the requirement was met, but that it was effective.

Ms. NORTON. I just want to say that this was clearly done deliberately. There was a way to do it that was written in the regulations in capital letters. You chose to do it a way that was least likely for the public to be on notice that there was lead in the water.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Before I recognize Mr. Moran, I would just ask, just to followup

with EPA, and even WASA, wouldn’t you agree that the way this

notice was delivered is probably not going to get a very heightened

awareness on the part of the recipient, in retrospect?

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. Chairman, in hindsight I would certainly

agree with that. At the time that we were preparing the notice to

go out, we felt that it was appropriate to meet the requirement, especially given the very small sample that we were dealing with at

the time, which was only 50 homes in the District of Columbia.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. OK. Mr. Moran.

Mr. MORAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I know Mr.

Johnson, and I know him to be a very fine person and an excellent

manager. So, again, I don’t see this as trying to point personal

blame, but we all have to work together to figure out what took

place and how we are going to deal with this.

The first that you were aware that we had a problem, the first

date, must have been this lead and copper report for the monitoring period that ended June 30th. That is the first time you knew

that there was a serious lead problem?

Mr. JOHNSON. We had some indication of elevated lead levels in

the previous year where we saw a trend where the numbers were

increasing, but we had passed the requirements in the prior year,

and we were monitoring that more closely at that point.

Mr. MORAN. Well, but so you knew that there was a problem,

though, prior to that. At some point during this period, it seems as

though EPA extended the period of time that you could have before

having to submit reports. At one point they were 6-month reports,

and then EPA said that it is OK to just submit annual reports;

isn’t that accurate? When did that occur, 2000?

Mr. WELSH. I think you might be referring to originally when the

rule went into place, jurisdictions had to do 100 samples annually

if they were not over the exceedance level.

Mr. MORAN. You let them drop to 50 samples, and instead of reporting every 6 months, you let them take a year to report.

Mr. WELSH. The rule allows reduced monitoring if you have been

meeting—if you have not been exceeding the action level. And D.C.

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originally in the early 1990’s had some problems, had some numbers above the action level. Steps were taken to address the

corrosivity, and those steps worked at that time. Their sampling returned to being under the action level, and then they were allowed

to do reduced monitoring of 50 samples annually.

Mr. MORAN. They requested that, and then you granted it immediately. And so then they only had to report on a yearly basis. It

appears that we would have at least picked up 6 months of awareness if we hadn’t extended that. But then as soon as you got this

report, you then went back to say, well, you have to monitor it

every 6 months, and you have to give us—do at least 100 samples.

But, beyond that, you also knew that this was extraordinary, where

about half of the samples showed they exceeded their 15 parts per

billion.

So I guess I do want to followup with Ms. Norton’s and Chairman Davis’ questions. At what point did you say, look, we have to

get serious, we have to make the public aware of this, you have to

let them know that they fully understand the warning that you are

giving them? Were you working in close contact with WASA to

make sure that was being done?

Mr. WELSH. As you mentioned, the numbers that were received

by EPA on August 27, 2002 indicated that there were exceedances.

The requirements that you mentioned are triggered automatically,

so we don’t have to tell them that you need to do this. They know

that triggers the increased monitoring, increased sampling, as well

as continued work on lead service line replacement and the public

outreach and education requirements. So those things kick in automatically.

WASA began carrying them out. EPA believed that those steps

were being carried out. It is clear in hindsight that even though the

steps were being taken, that the message wasn’t being clearly received by the public. But the requirements are triggered automatically by the data that was——

Mr. MORAN. So if you had to do it over again, you would have

said, you are going to make sure that the public fully understands

what we are doing here, and the notification has to be more—has

to be clearer. And the public needs to know the seriousness of this,

which they clearly didn’t at this point.

We have now gone for 3 years where the water has contained serious amounts of lead. We know the seriousness that lead can have

in the body. Is there any way where we are going to know what

adverse impact this has had on the community? I mean, are we

going to followup with those homes, for example, that we know

that had way in excess of 300 parts per billion, some had thousands? I read one report that one couple had extraordinarily rare

high amounts. That must be damaging if they have been using tap

water. Are you going to monitor their health? Do we know what

kind of an impact that this could have had to go for 3 years with

their drinking this high lead content in their water?

Mr. WELSH. It is my understanding that the D.C. Department of

Health is following up with the individual families that had the

very high levels. The way to know whether there was—the first indication of whether there could be a health impact is to get a bloodlead level from the people drinking the water in that home.

81

Mr. MORAN. Well, let me go beyond. We are just talking about

the samples, like in an audit you find some problems. These are

people who, by happenstance, happened to be sampled. There could

be other families, could there not? Well, there have to be statistically. There have to be a lot of families who are also exposed to

that, but we don’t know what families have—that didn’t happen to

have been sampled have also had extraordinarily rare but dangerous levels of lead in the water. Is that accurate?

Mr. WELSH. As Ben mentioned earlier, lead in drinking water is

only one avenue of exposure to lead. So we think it is important

that folks who are exposed to lead through any avenue could

be——

Mr. MORAN. Well, I appreciate that. We are talking specifically

now. I don’t want to take up too much time, but I want to get some

answers. How serious is this? If somebody has these high, elevated

levels of lead coming into their system over a 3-year period, do we

have any analysis of what kind of adverse health effect this is likely to have?

Mr. WELSH. Well, the exposure does vary by how much water

was being drunk and whether it was being used to cook and dilute

juices and things like that. So the only way to really know—and

the health professionals advise that people who have been exposed

get blood lead levels tested.

We had an opportunity in Philadelphia to pilot an outreach with

the health community to have nurses go into homes and educate

families about reducing their lead exposure from things—all

sources of lead. And we are looking at trying to replicate that in

D.C. to augment the efforts of the D.C. Department of Health to

get out into the community and make sure that people understand

about lead, and to recommend that people who may have been exposed get their blood-lead level tested. So the only way to know the

health impact is to measure the blood-lead.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. We will get another round.

Mr. Tierney.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I direct my questions initially to the two witnesses from the EPA.

The Safe Drinking Water Act, as you mentioned, gives the EPA authority, and emergency authority when you want, to address

threats that are substantial in nature. In 1993, the EPA exercised

that authority.

You stated in your testimony that you are going to take whatever

action is appropriate here. Now, we knew since the summer of

2002—there have been samples showing extremely high levels on

this. Isn’t it time that authority be exercised in this instance, and

are you intending to do that? And exactly what are you going to

do under that emergency authority?

Mr. WELSH. Well, we think the thing that is immediately to hand

that we want to make sure of is that folks who have been advised

not to drink the unfiltered tap water have provision for water, and

we have talked to the city about that. We have told them we have

this authority. We told them that we are ready to use that authority, and we are monitoring very closely their provision of filters. I

believe the mayor announced some filters yesterday. And we want

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to make sure that the folks who need to have that provision have

it. We have——

Mr. TIERNEY. You have not exercised the emergency authority

yet, you are just——

Mr. WELSH. That is correct, sir. We have not.

Mr. TIERNEY. When do you think it would become appropriate for

you to exercise that emergency authority, given the history that we

have here?

Mr. WELSH. Well, at any moment that we think that would be

the best way of getting a solution. The city is acting, and we are

monitoring very closely their actions. And if we think that their actions aren’t adequate to address the needs of the people to have

safe water, we are ready to invoke those authorities immediately.

Mr. TIERNEY. Now, Mr. Grumbles, I think we should all be a little concerned about the EPA’s drinking water lead rules. The rules

themselves, and EPA’s oversight of those rules, simply don’t appear

to have been adequate in this situation.

Now, I understand, looking at a little history of this, back in

1991 when the rules were being promulgated under the first Bush

administration, Mr. Waxman on this committee raised a lot of the

issues and loopholes that appeared to be in there, and now it is

sort of eerie that here we sit in 2004 watching this all come to fruition.

In 1991, EPA sort of retreated from setting a standard for lead

that was definite. As I note, the act itself requires you to set enforceable maximum contaminant levels for each contaminant in

drinking water. If the water exceeds the amount that is allowed,

then it is a violation of the law, and EPA and everybody, and a citizen even, could bring enforcement action.

But in 1991, with respect to lead, there was no definite contaminant level that was set. In fact, this is called an action level. If you

exceeded that, then you just—would trigger only additional regulatory requirements.

Given the information that we have now, don’t you think it is

time to revise that rule, take a look at it and change it?

Mr. GRUMBLES. Congressman, I honestly can’t begin to even

think of it as a partisan rule and implementation of the rule as

being a partisan issue.

Mr. TIERNEY. Well, address the question that I asked you then,

which is that in 1991, Mr. Waxman, you know, for whatever party

he is in, I think raised some very salient issues that this was a

rather weak way to go about doing it, and that when we had contaminant levels for every other contaminant, in this case we only

had an action level. Given the history then, ought we to have more,

should we change that, and why do we look at it strictly for procedure?

Mr. GRUMBLES. I think you are asking some very good questions,

and my answer is as follows. In the 1991 rule that was finalized,

it did ultimately take an important approach. It made the decision

that, because what we are talking about is the quality of the drinking water at the tap, more so than the quality of the drinking

water as it leaves the treatment plant, you need to take that into

account so that the rule is workable and really does result in clean

and safe drinking water. And so, based on that, the decision was

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that this is a unique situation. It requires an action level. An action level triggers a lot of actions.

I can tell you right here that we are not comfortable with the

way the situation has played out in the District of Columbia under

the lead and copper rule. When you look at reporting, or public

education, as Delegate Norton was mentioning, the spirit of robust

public communication, whether or not the public was getting what

they really needed to get in real time, we are more than willing to

look at that rule over the last 13 years. It has been a while since

it has been revised.

It was revised slightly back in 2000 during the previous administration, adding some more flexibility in some of the monitoring and

reporting provisions. We are fully prepared, and I am instructing

the staff to look very seriously at it, to learn the lessons of today

and see whether there needs to be a more specific focus; should

there be more actions that are triggered, not just at a 15 part per

billion level, but at a different level.

So I welcome the line of inquiry. I think it is very much a part

of the important debate that follows on this. But I do want to emphasize that the lead and copper rule has been successful in this

to the extent of reducing the problems that we have seen.

Now, a lot of this is from data that we get from the States, and

we need to work with them to ensure that there is more data that

is being provided to us, but since finalization of the rule, there has

been progress made in the lead and drinking water situation. And

we want to work with everyone to really have a thorough review

to see what we can learn from this situation, to see if more revisions ought to be made, more emphasis on right to know, communication. That is a priority for us, as this situation plays out full

well, is the more that the consumers and the citizens know about

the quality of the drinking water, the better it is for everyone, and

to prompt more action if it is called for.

Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know my time is up,

but the point on that was that had we had a better rule, as in line

with other contaminants on that, then citizens would not have had

to wait for all of this to unfold or whatever. Citizens could have

taken some action and protected themselves.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. Van Hollen.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Obviously there is

a lot of territory to cover here.

I would just like to go back to the issue of when you first learned

of the problem and what notices were provided, because we have

been focusing on 2002 and 2003. And the Washington Post had an

article, and let me direct this first to Mr. Welsh, if I could. But the

Washington Post had an article that said from July 2000 to June

2001, 50 houses were tested, and 7 houses were found to have lead

levels that exceeded the EPA action level, the 15 parts per billion.

According to the Post story, by invalidating some of those results

and retesting some of the houses, WASA brought the number of

houses with exceedances down from seven to four and, therefore,

avoided the EPA trigger of the 10 percent trigger.

I want to know what you know about this particular issue. Does

WASA have the authority to invalidate test results? And if you

84

could just provide the committee with all of the information that

you have about this Washington Post story and the allegations

made there.

Mr. WELSH. When I heard about the story, I asked the same

questions about when and how samples could or couldn’t be invalidated. And I understand that we were not requested to invalidate

any samples. And we, in fact, went and looked at the actual raw

data and the data that was reported to us and saw no evidence

that samples had been invalidated.

So my information is that we did not approve the invalidation of

samples, and we don’t see any evidence that samples were invalidated.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Let me then ask WASA, whichever of the two

gentlemen would like to answer the question. But, again, there is

the Washington Post article that made these statements. I would

be interested in your response to that, because the allegation is

that much earlier than we are talking about, a year earlier than

we are talking about, there were tests that indicated that lead levels exceeded the EPA requirements, and that by manipulating the

results or retesting, you escaped the trigger. Could you please comment on that?

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, sir. I would like to rather refer to what actually occurred during that period rather than trying to validate

what was in—reported in the Washington Post. And as I understand the lead and copper rule, it provides that there are two ways

to meet—once you have hit the trigger, you have to eliminate 7

percent of the lead service lines in the system in that year. We

were—and there are two ways to accomplish that. One way is to

physically remove the lead service lines, and another way is to

retest. And if you retest, and the lead levels are below the action

level, then you can literally take them off that list in order to meet

the 7 percent.

We did about 580 some actual physical removals during that period and through testing got the number down from the 7 percent

within the period that we had to get this done.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Let me make sure I understand you, because

that was not my understanding of how it works.

Mr. WELSH. Mr. Van Hollen, I believe that there are two—perhaps it wasn’t clear what the question was. Mr. Johnson is talking

about the sampling—the lead service line replacement work that

they needed to do. The article in the Post was not about that, but

about the actual routine monitoring standards.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Exactly. If I can just go back.

Mr. JOHNSON. I misunderstood.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. The assertion was this has to do with the test.

I am not talking about the replacement of the pipes. I am talking

about the water sampling, the testing. And the assertion is, and I

want to get to the bottom of this, that in this period July 2000 to

June 2001, there was water sampling that went on; that the water

sampling—that the results indicated that you—that there was exceeding—we exceeded the EPA levels, but because of essentially retesting in order to get different results, WASA was able to not trigger that requirement. Are you not——

Mr. JOHNSON. I misunderstood the question.

85

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Are you aware of that Washington Post article?

Mr. MARCOTTE. My name is Mike Marcotte. I am chief engineer/

deputy general manager of the Authority, and, yes, I am aware of

the article. Yes, I am aware of the sequence of events.

In the summer of 2001, there were, I believe, a total of seven

samples that had exceeded the action level. I was advised by our

then-water quality manager that she was reexamining, from a

quality control standpoint, the conditions under which those samples had been taken, and had worked closely with the EPA staff

contact to assure that her actions were appropriate, that they were

aware of that. I can’t say at high levels of EPA, but our EPA staff

contact.

And that time three samples had been invalidated based on—in

full compliance with the EPA rules.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Let me make sure I understand it, because my

understanding from responses that we received from the EPA was

that EPA did not invalidate.

Mr. MARCOTTE. The invalidation would have taken place by our

water quality manager based on the quality control review that she

carried out.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I am trying to understand, because you got a

result.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. The gentleman’s time is up. I will let you

ask this last question.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Well, I am going to continue to pursue this in

the next round, because it seems to me—what it looks like is you

got a result that you didn’t like because it took you over the trigger, and instead of living with the results and providing notices,

and it would have triggered all of the requirements that we are

talking about in terms of notices to people, instead of doing that,

you decided to take a test again, and then you got the—all of the

original tests showed one thing, you got another test that showed

another.

Anyway I don’t hear really consistent responses here. And my

understanding is EPA cannot invalidate the tests, and yet it

sounds like some of the tests were invalidated with the concurrence

of the EPA. If you could just respond to that, and I will leave it

at that, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. WELSH. And I just confirmed with my staff the information

that I had before that we did not invalidate any samples. So if

there is discrepancy there, we would be happy to look into it and

give you further answers. But my answer is only EPA can invalidate the samples, and that we did not invalidate any samples.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. So what happened then?

Mr. MARCOTTE. My understanding is that our water quality manager invalidated those samples in a quality control mode after looking at the information and consulting with EPA.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. What I would like to find out is who they

consulted with at EPA. I don’t think you are alleging that EPA

gave permission. I think this is important because there is still a

lot of suspicion. You have Ms. Norton’s questions going to this, that

somehow we could have been a year ahead of this, solving this

86

problem, had we had appropriate notification a year earlier. It

didn’t happen.

With the questioning that is going on, we would like to get that

information. Can you get that information?

Mr. MARCOTTE. We will endeavor to get that for you.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Who was your water quality personnel

that was talking to EPA?

Mr. MARCOTTE. At that time it was Seema Bhat.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Is he still with you?

Mr. MARCOTTE. She is not.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. She is not with you now? She was terminated, as I understand it, for talking to EPA?

Mr. MARCOTTE. No, that is incorrect, but she was terminated

from our employment in early 2003.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. OK. We are going to probably want to get

into this a little bit later. I don’t know that this is an appropriate

forum for that, but I would like to get some answers to that, because there is a discrepancy here that really goes to the heart of

WASA’s role in notification. I think that is what——

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, I understand that under the

procedure, in order to invalidate a test, it has to be done by the

EPA, and it has to be done in writing. So there would have to be

some record.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I think what he said in response to your

question is that EPA didn’t invalidate it, but they consulted, and

they did it on their own. Is my understanding correct?

Mr. MARCOTTE. Yes.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Which may or may not be legal, but we

want to see if, in fact, Ms. Bhat, who is no longer there, did consult

with anyone and who she consulted with and what actually transpired—I don’t know the answer to that. But you can understand

the concern here, and I think it goes to the heart of the whole issue

in terms of how the notifications were conducted.

Let me ask Mr. Jacobus, you testified that you didn’t consider

chloramines to have an adverse impact on corrosivity. But at the

time that you began to use them, there just wasn’t a lot of scientific

knowledge on that. On what basis did you decide to use

chloramines?

Mr. JACOBUS. When we converted to chloramine, we, of course—

any treatment change has to be taken very carefully and in compliance with other EPA regulations and in consultation with our customers so that we know what the probable effects would be on the

distribution system.

Chloramine is a very commonly used disinfectant throughout the

United States. Some places like Denver have used it since 1917.

Philadelphia has used it over 50 years. So it is a proven technique

for reducing disinfection byproducts.

Our chlorine-only treatment system could not meet the new 80

parts per billion of total trihalomethanes rule that was coming into

effect, so after an engineering analysis, we worked with consultants

looking at the various alternatives. We started to design the chloramine facilities that would change the process.

We were aware at that time of the science that indicated that the

bacteriological activity could increase in the distribution system as

87

a result of a chloramine change through a process called nitrification of—the chloramine molecule has nitrogen in it. Nitrogen is a

food. So if you saw increased bacteriological activity, nitrification,

and ammonia occurring in the distribution system, that could then

lower the pH of the water.

If I could just go back a moment and say that our corrosion control strategy was based, and is based still, on the pH of the water.

We want the pH of the water to be as high as possible to reduce

the corrosivity. So we knew if through the nitrification process it

could occur, convert it to chloramines, the pH of the water went

down, that could show—we could infer from that there could be increased corrosivity.

So that was well known, and we prepared for that. We prepared

for that by flushing the distribution system to get all of the debris

and any biofilm out prior to conversion. I say ‘‘we;’’ we collectively

with our customers in Arlington, Falls Church and the District of

Columbia.

And then when the conversion occurred on November 1, 2000, we

had a contractor in place. And he looked specifically for—on a consistent interval, over a 6-month period for evidence of nitrification.

Since then we continue in our laboratory analysis to look for evidence of nitrification in the distribution system, and there has been

no evidence of that. That was good news.

The other good news was that as we looked at the pH throughout

the distribution system, it did not depress for any reason, and so

our conclusion from that was that the possible corrosive effects of

the chloramine conversion did not occur through a nitrification

mechanism.

Any direct effect of chloramine on lead was not known to us. We

were aware of scientific papers that had been written that looked

at the corrosive effect on elastomers, plastic parts where your toilet

may have some kind of effect as this newer water went through the

plastic or the rubber pieces in your toilet. We knew that had been

anecdotally reported and reported in the science, but we saw no

evidence of that.

So I think the answer to your question is that we made the decision based on the disinfection byproduct rule. That has worked

very, very well. And we looked for and did not find a change in the

pH, and therefore the corrosivity did not appear to change. We still

don’t know if it did change as a result of the conversion that has

now increased the leeching that we are seeing in the lead services

and in the fixtures, in solder joints and any fixtures in the homes.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Has the science changed on this over

time?

Mr. JACOBUS. I think as in all cases, sir, the science is responding to issues, and we learn more and more as we go along. And

while I cannot definitively say that there is a connection, if there

is a connection, I think—I don’t think, I know—we will contribute

to that evolution of science through EPA. Our consultants, one of

the panel members you have today is an expert in that area, and

we are going to all work together.

But I would like to repeat what I said in my opening remarks

that we very strongly believe, based on our scientific consultants,

that the chloramine can remain in place as the disinfectant to proVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:15 Aug 30, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00091 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\94596.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tect the public from the disinfection byproducts, and we can add

additional corrosion inhibitors, change the chemistry of the water

a little bit to overcome its current corrosivity, and as a result lower

the lead concentrations that we are seeing in some of those samples being taken.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Let me just ask the Region Administrator,

EPA Region III asked the D.C. Public Schools to comply with the

Lead Contamination Control Act of 1988 to mandate—to test school

water for lead, replace coolers that had lead-contaminated waste.

Haven’t you?

Mr. WELSH. Yes.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. You have done that. You are doing it now?

Mr. WELSH. I understand the compliance with that rule was

prior to this. That was a rule that required that they discontinue

the use of those types of fixtures. So that is not specifically part

of the lead and copper rule, it is a separate rule and was complied

at a different point in time.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Are they in compliance now as far as you

know?

Mr. WELSH. It is not a compliance issue, sir.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. OK. Has WASA violated any EPA national primary drinking water regulations for lead since its inception in 1996?

Mr. WELSH. We are looking closely at the—complying with the

public education issues. In our review, we have seen elements

where they did, in fact, do parts of the public education that were

required as stated. There were others that—where it was not exactly right or maybe not timely. But we are continuing to look at

that issue.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Would the withdrawal of samples along

Mr. Van Hollen’s questioning potentially be a violation?

Mr. WELSH. The invalidation of samples?

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Yes.

Mr. WELSH. Yes. My understanding is that only EPA can invalidate samples, and that we were not requested to invalidate.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. So that could potentially be another violation?

Mr. WELSH. Yes. That would be part of the review that we are

doing. And given the interest and what I have heard, we will take

a close look at that.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. I do have some substance of questions, but I will

tell you, while you are fixing the science, assuming you can, what

we have to be assured of is that the public will always have prompt

notification.

Now, I have already indicated that I have severe problems with

how you notified people in their water bills. OK. EPA had yet another way to—for WASA to notify the public. And here is something very serious, I think. 40 CFR 141.85(b), it is entitled, Contents of Broadcast Materials. It concerns the public announcement

that the water distributor is supposed to make in the event that

we have higher lead levels than allowed, and it says: A water system shall include—shall include—the following information. Now,

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I am not going to read—I am going to just read the information

that it says to include. It says, why should everyone want to know

the facts about lead in drinking water? Then it says: Because

unhealthy amounts of lead can enter the drinking water through

da, da, da, da. Then it goes on to say in the second paragraph: To

have your water tested for lead or to get, ‘‘more information about

this public health concern.’’

Now, let me tell you what WASA did. First of all, it rewrote the

words entirely. Do you know why we put words in regulations? Because that is the best way to inform the public and to comply with

the law is to use the words that are right in the regulations. There

are a few regulations that say, do this. This says ‘‘information’’ this

time. It doesn’t say the exact words, and WASA apparently took

advantage of that. But in taking advantage of it, WASA included

the words ‘‘unhealthy amounts of lead’’ in the first paragraph, and

in the second paragraph excluded the words ‘‘more information

about this public health concern.’’

Now, why should I believe that was not deliberate, taking out the

very words in a public service announcement that give the best information to the public that you ought to do something because

your health may be at risk? Why were those taken out, and why

did EPA allow those words to be taken out?

First WASA.

Mr. JOHNSON. Ms. Norton, certainly as general manager of the

Water and Sewer Authority, I have to assume full responsibility for

anything—any activities that are undertaken by the Authority. I do

not recall having personally read the notice when it went out, and

I really cannot explain why that language was not included in that

notice, assuming that was what went out.

Ms. NORTON. Well, EPA, that is why we have you watching—I

hope we don’t have the fox watching the chicken coop, but we have

you watching to see whether WASA messes up. This is a clear

mess-up. When you take out the words about health concerns,

unhealthy, take out those words, it is hard for me to avoid the conclusion that you are doing so on purpose, because you left most of

the other language, and when you rewrite it in the first place, I

wonder what you are doing. But why didn’t EPA catch it and call

them on it?

Mr. WELSH. It is consistent with my information that the PSA

did omit some of the words, so that is one of the areas that has

been identified where the action of WASA wasn’t fully consistent

with the regulation, and we do need to do a more aggressive job

of following up on those. We are doing the full review of all of the

elements to see and identify all of the areas where there may have

been deficiencies. But that is consistent with the information I

have that there were words omitted from the PSAs.

Ms. NORTON. Will you be looking at any notices in any water

bills beforehand in the future so that we can be assured that at

least this problem of notice to the public is cleared up?

Mr. WELSH. Yes. We have already changed our oversight procedures. It is set up for us to review after the fact the report on the

public education requirements, but certainly we are going to be

more aggressive in trying to work up front and to have some

more—not just the technical review—it is, of course, important that

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we do a technical review to see the words that are required are

there—but in addition to that to make sure that we give the technical folks the help to be able to figure out whether not only are

all of the words included, but whether this announcement is something that someone is likely to read or throw away.

So we do want to do a much better job of earlier in the process

identifying where there are deficiencies, so we can earlier require

that those deficiencies be addressed.

Ms. NORTON. That is the least we are entitled to, we, the public,

while you are trying to find out what the causes are.

Mr. WELSH. I agree.

Ms. NORTON. Do you have something further to say, Mr. Johnson?

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, ma’am, Ms. Norton. It has just been called to

my attention that one of the things that happens with public service announcements is typically we don’t get very much response

from the media in terms of running them.

We did take it upon ourselves in October 2003—August 2003—

to send out a notice that does describe health effects, lead in water,

how lead enters the drinking water, and steps to reduce exposure

to lead in water, in addition to providing some general information

in a mailing that was included with all of our customer bills.

Ms. NORTON. The operative words, Mr. Johnson, are unhealthy,

unhealthy amounts of lead. The operative words are, more information, public health concern. And even in what you have read back

to me, I don’t hear the operative words. That is why only the commitment I have just had from Mr. Welsh that they will look at any

notice you send out ahead of time can possibly satisfy our concern

at this time.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you.

Mr. Moran.

Mr. MORAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to followup, I guess, a little bit with Ms. Norton’s line of questioning, because this may be our best opportunity to alert the public through

the media on what the real health concerns are. I want do get a

handle on that.

Why do we say that 15 parts per billion is an actionable level?

And also the pragmatics there, the practical effects of what you are

telling people to do, I am almost—if I were a cynic, I would think

that you all have stock in bottled water companies, because if you

are telling people to run water for 10 minutes, they are not going

to do that. I am not going to do that. You are not going to do that.

None of you are going to run your water for 10 minutes. Not only

are you paying for it, but if you want to use the—if you want a

drink of water, you are not going to wait for 10 minutes. Everyone

is going to flock out and clear the shelves of bottled water if what

you are telling us is that you are not supposed to use the water

until you have run it through the faucet for 10 minutes. I thought

it was for a few minutes—you know, a few seconds or something.

God sakes, 10 minutes is a long time. And we are also told, at least

in Arlington, that some of the water tested higher for lead after

they had been running it through the faucet. So I am not sure that

flushing out your system necessarily helps.

I don’t think we really have a handle on what we want to tell

the public. And I don’t fully understand, and I would like to—

maybe we are going to get this from the next panel, but EPA must

understand, while all of you are experts, how serious is this at this

level? How dangerous is it to people’s health? And you are telling—

the guidelines say that once you have been beyond the level, you

have 10 years, is what I read; you have 10 years to fix the situation. Seems to me that the damage is going to be far more severe

in the process of fixing it.

Here, I am going to ask this question, because I was asked to ask

it by Arlington County. Could you provide this committee with an

answer with regard to a commitment by the administration that

someone from the Centers for Disease Control is going to be available this afternoon to begin coordination with Virginia and the Arlington County Public Health Department to review the latest test

results beginning early next week?

In other words, we—what they want, Arlington County wants—

is to get somebody from CDC in to tell us how bad this is, how serious this is, how should our people be reacting, and what could almost be called a paranoid way that they are reacting now.

Mr. WELSH. On the CDC matter, I do know that we have had

the assistance of personnel from CDC in dealing with the situation

in the District. So we are certainly happy to request that they provide the same assistance to Arlington. They are not folks who report to me, so I would have to make the call to CDC and see if we

can get that, but I don’t see why that should be a problem.

Mr. MORAN. I think we need CDC in, and we need to know from

the EPA what does it mean that if you got—what is 300 as a multiple of 15? 20 times. And many of them were 200 times higher,

apparently, from newspaper articles. What does that mean to the

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health? I mean, how serious is that? Are you really going to give

them 10 years to fix this, or how—what are you telling them in

terms of timeframe and urgency?

Mr. WELSH. There is extreme urgency.

Mr. MORAN. Extreme urgency?

Mr. WELSH. In two areas. To make sure that the folks who

can’t—who have been advised not to drink the water are provided

with alternate water or filters, then to work on the work that Mr.

Jacobus was talking about as quickly as possible, to be able to

identify the best way of handling the corrosivity, so that we see

this problem discontinued.

Mr. MORAN. Is it serious enough that the government should be

providing filter—the stores, I understand, have been bought out of

filters. I mean, people are rushing to buy the filters from the

stores, not to mention bottled water. Filters are expensive. Many

people can’t afford them.

What role do we have? I mean, if this is as serious as it could

be, maybe we have some responsibility to act in a more direct manner with these homes that we know are drinking what must be

toxic levels of lead in the water.

Mr. WELSH. We do have the authority—in a situation where we

had to order alternate water to be provided, we have the authority

to order that under the 1431. The obligation rests with the person

that we are ordering, so that doesn’t bring money with it. So in a

situation where we have determined that we did need to require

that, that is an authority that we have to do. It doesn’t solve the

issue of how they get paid for. So if that situation here or elsewhere was deemed to be necessary, we have the authority to order

that.

Mr. MORAN. Has anything like this happened anyplace else in

the country to this degree? I mean, is there any precedent for this?

Mr. GRUMBLES. There is precedence; not to this degree, though,

Congressman. There are instances——

Mr. MORAN. So this is the worst case that has ever happened in

the country in terms of the level and length of exposure to lead

through the drinking water; is that a fair statement?

Mr. GRUMBLES. Staff is informing me that at Superfund sites

there are lead contamination problems.

Mr. MORAN. Hazardous material sites? Well, yeah.

Mr. GRUMBLES. From the perspective of the lead in the drinking

water in the system, there are cities in the country that have exceeded action levels under the lead and——

Mr. MORAN. Sure. But an action level is 15 parts per billion.

Mr. GRUMBLES. I personally am not aware. I don’t know that

staff is aware of a situation of this degree.

Mr. MORAN. So this is the worst that has ever happened in the

country?

Mr. GRUMBLES. Well, worst in terms of—from my perspective.

Mr. MORAN. Well, the level and length of exposure.

Mr. GRUMBLES. In terms of the loss of confidence in the quality

of the drinking water.

Mr. MORAN. I am wondering if we need to look at other precedents, or whether this sets a precedent and we need to take some

innovative or original action.

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Moran, let me just ask. The time is

up, but if I can just dovetail onto that. Just focusing on EPA’s

emergency powers, are you actively considering invoking them in

this situation?

Mr. WELSH. I would say yes. We are working with the city to

make sure that the things that we think are necessary to provide

safe water to the residents are done, and we are fully prepared and

ready to act if those things aren’t happening.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Well, we’ve seen that the lead levels are

potentially exceeding the—that they are exceedingly high and

widespread, and this is obviously a very serious situation. So EPA

is considering invoking its emergency powers?

Mr. WELSH. Yes, based on our conversations with the city about

the steps that are being taken to provide for the——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Any idea how quickly this could occur?

Mr. WELSH. We would be ready immediately if we determined

that the measures weren’t being taken to provide safe water for the

public health.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Are you close to determining that?

Mr. WELSH. We’ve been working all week with the city to get

that information and working—we are—those conversations have

continued. So if we had information that we could feel assured that

the—all the necessary steps are being taken, we might determine

that we don’t need to do it. If we were still uncertain that the necessary steps were being taken, we would be ready to do that immediately.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. So it could—I mean, the conversation is,

you’re obviously not going to commit to it but it could happen any

time basically?

Mr. WELSH. Yes, sir.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. OK. That’s what I’m wondering.

Mr. Van Hollen.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’d just

like to pursue a little further the issue of corrosion control, and the

role it may have played here and the role it could play elsewhere

in the country. My understanding is, the Safe Drinking Water Act

regulations put a premium, they put an emphasis on the question

of providing corrosion control. Is that right?

Mr. GRUMBLES. That’s correct.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. And I further understand that the corrosion

control plan that EPA approved in February 2002 for the District

of Columbia and its role of acting as a State essentially assumed

the use of chlorine. Is that right?

Mr. WELSH. I know that we approved the chlorine control plan.

I’m not sure which plan—is it the——

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I’m sorry. In February 2000, it assumed the

use of chlorine. Is that right?

Mr. WELSH. Yes. That’s correct, sir.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Even though EPA, as I understand it, had

been informed by the Corps shortly before that they did not intend

to use chlorine, but intended to use chloramines in the water. Is

that right?

Mr. WELSH. It was in 2000 that the plan said that they would

use chloramines rather than chlorine. So the chlorine had been apVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:15 Aug 30, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00100 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\94596.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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proved, and then a plan to use chloramine was also—did we approve that? OK. We didn’t have to approve that, but we consulted

closely with them and agreed that seemed to be an appropriate

treatment.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. That’s what I want to get at.

As I understand it, the plan that you approved in 2000, February

2000, was based on the assumption that the Corps was using chlorine. Is that right?

Mr. WELSH. Correct.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. But in the end, the Corps changed its plan and

decided that it was going to use chloramines, right?

Mr. WELSH. Correct, and they did that in consultation with us

and others.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. So my question is, what additional studies, if

any, did EPA do? What literature did it consult to determine

whether or not the use of chloramines would not create a greater

corrosion problem than the chlorine?

Mr. WELSH. I know that there is a whole body of scientific knowledge that treats that question, and that body of knowledge was

consulted.

We also wanted to make sure that the Washington Aqueduct—

and they did—put in place a sampling plan to pick up indications

that there would be a change in the corrosivity of the water and

that those samples—they put in place a plan to do those samples

and took those samples, and it did not indicate anything that

caused us to take alarm.

So we consulted the bodies of knowledge that there were about

whether that would be effective, went through the complicated

chemistry of trying to balance the—not trading one thing off for another. And in order to try to monitor for whether something—a

tradeoff happened that turned out to be less than beneficial, we

asked them to do sampling, and they were happy to do that sampling. So we put the steps in place that we thought would be able

to indicate whether this was causing a problem. In fact, those samples for changes in corrosivity did not presage the problem that ultimately showed up, the lead in the tap.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. OK. Let me ask you, one of the measures

that’s being taken now is the partial replacement of pipes, where

WASA has been replacing the lead pipes up to the—I guess the

part of the pipe that is under the owner’s control.

There has been some indication that, in fact, that could actually

exacerbate the problem. Could you comment on that? I mean,

there’s some suggestion that when you take a copper pipe and you

link it up with a lead pipe, although WASA can say, ‘‘we’ve done

our part,’’ in fact you could have left the homeowner in a worse situation. Could you respond to that?

Mr. MARCOTTE. That is a very, very good question, Mr. Van

Hollen, and we have a requirement, once we have cut that pipe and

have done the reconnection on the public side, to test the water

after 72 hours of service. And when you disturb that pipe and have

done a number of things to it, it’s possible that you can get elevated lead levels that are higher than what it was before you actually made the change. And certainly the person is left with as bad

a problem as they had before you changed it, because they still

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have a section of lead pipe the water will rest in when it’s not

being used and then will pass into their household system.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Right. I’m concerned about this, because I

know the regulations require that you either do this testing or replace the pipes, but it’s kind of silly to go through the motions of

partial replacement of pipe if it doesn’t, No. 1, cure the whole problem or, in fact, may make it even worse.

On a related issue, my understanding is that there has been

raised the question of how EPA tests for water and the whole idea

that the water that is first out of the tap may be more contaminated than later waters. There have been suggestions, in fact, and

in DC apparently is the case, that after the water has been allowed

to run a little more, it actually shows higher lead content.

And so my question, I guess, for the EPA officials is, is that right

and what are the implications for the testing protocols around the

country with respect to lead?

Mr. WELSH. We certainly—the best information is to get the

whole profile of the first draw and throughout the subsequent periods, additional liters as you test through and get a whole profile

of what is happening at the tap.

Do you have specific information on protocol?

Mr. GRUMBLES. No. I just want to say to the Congressman that

the question is a good one. It’s one that we’re looking—you know,

from a national perspective, if we do have a testing protocol, does

it need to be revised? We’re more than willing and we’ve been talking over the last several hours about the benefits of getting some

scientific groups, research foundations, to look at specifically, you

know, has the science changed, what are the results, let’s look at

the testing protocols; and that’s something that, from a national

perspective, we’re continuing to pursue.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. OK. Thank you very much.

I want to let the panel go, but I think Ms. Norton has a couple

of questions for the record she wants to put in. Then I’ll dismiss

the panel. I appreciate your being here. We do have some followup

to some of the questions that we’ve asked to try to get at.

Ms. Norton.

Ms. NORTON. I would like to be clear, Mr. Jacobus. You did a

complete corrosion control study when chlorine was in the water,

but not a complete corrosion control study when chloramines were

added to the water. Is that true?

Mr. JACOBUS. That is correct, ma’am.

Ms. NORTON. So this is real important, because the best hypothesis we have is that chloramines—you say no, you don’t think

chloramines are the problem, or at least you have testified that you

didn’t think there was corrosivity from chloramines. But we do

have this before-and-after evidence that simply needs to be cleared

up.

And one way to have—when you’re putting—you were trying to

get rid of chlorine which may cause cancer in some circumstances.

We may have had an indication that we were making the problem

worse by trying to make it better, and one of the things we do to

keep that from happening is simply to do the proper studies. And

it seems to me, in hindsight, which should have been foresight,

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that if you’re going to add an entirely new substance to the water

people are going to drink, you ought to do a complete study, the

corrosion control study. And I must ask you, are you doing such a

study now, a complete corrosion control study so that we can know

whether chloramines leach lead from pipes?

Mr. JACOBUS. Yes, ma’am. Just a second and I can tell you what

we are doing.

Ms. NORTON. I just want to know, because the chairman wants

me to move on. Are you doing the complete study that has not,

until now, been done? You’ve been doing sampling. I want to know

if you’re doing the complete study.

Mr. JACOBUS. We have engaged the team and we’ve engaged consultants, and we have two sets of science experiments. One is

working now under the control of the District of Columbia Water

and Sewer Authority. The other is coming together through our

consultants, and we will have both desktop, bench-type scale and

full-scale analyses of the effects of the corrosion.

And in addition, though, we anticipate incorporating into that

analysis the addition of more chemicals that are currently not

being used, corrosion inhibitors, which would be more strong, to reverse the effects of the corrosivity that we’re seeing. So I can——

Ms. NORTON. At the very least, that should be done. We need to

know, though, what is causing this problem so we can get rid of

it.

But, Mr. Welsh, we’re going to ask you to make sure that this

complete study is done. You say you consulted. Obviously, consultation was not enough.

But very quickly, we talked about these filters. I understand that

these filters, which first of all are only good up to 20,000 parts per

billion, are only good for 2 months. Somebody is giving you the filters to distribute. Who is going to pay for the filters, particularly

for people who can’t afford filters, which are a whole lot of people

in the District of Columbia, after you run out of donated filters?

And are these filters good enough if they filter only up to 20,000

parts per billion?

Mr. WELSH. I’m sorry. I was just going to say that part of the

subject of our discussion with D.C. is to make sure that the filters

that are provided are ones that will adequately do the job. So we’re

carefully looking at that from the EPA’s standpoint to see if we’re

satisfied that’s the appropriate filter. Sorry to interrupt.

Ms. NORTON. Please don’t come back here with filters that then

we see lead levels far above what filters could have screened.

Go ahead, Mr. Johnson.

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Ms. Norton. We have consulted with

the Health Department and, I understand, EPA, in ensuring that

we had NSF-certified filters that will remove lead, and the ones

that we have acquired will remove lead from 180 parts per billion

down to something below—or at the level of detectability, nondetectability.

Ms. NORTON. If it goes up to 180 parts per billion, that would be

very good.

Let me ask you this. In the testimony—this is a town, even with

all the single-family homes, people rent. This is a renter’s town.

Now, Mr. Gerstell said in his testimony with all the qualifiers that

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we’ve gotten used to from all of you, as far as we know, apartment

buildings and commercial office buildings are not generally affected

since they do not usually have lead service lines; and until recently

there were no—there was no imminent reason to update even the

information about the 23,000.

Most of the people in the District of Columbia live in apartment

buildings. By the way, they don’t get their water bills. The water

bills sometimes go to the owner of the building. Shouldn’t they be

informed some way or the other if you’re in an apartment building

about this problem, since there’s nothing to make the owner go forward and inform people so that they can be on notice maybe to use

bottled water or filters or something?

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, ma’am, and we have sent notices to all 300

and some household—300,000-and-some households in the District

of Columbia through a mass mailing which indicated literature

through the District of Columbia Health Department, the Water

and Sewer Authority and from EPA advising and providing those

directions.

Ms. NORTON. One last notion. I can understand, Mr. Welsh, your

reluctance to invoke your emergency powers. The District was

under emergency powers beginning in 1993. It took them 100—a

couple of years, I’m sorry, to get off of it. And the reason I think

that they were invoked against the District then was that WASA

was on its knees. The District was so out of compliance that the

only way you could make sure that the District would do what it

was supposed to do was to invoke those powers. And I take it that

one of the reasons that you don’t want to invoke them now is because you see the District cooperating.

Let me tell you what I think. If you’re not going to use your

emergency powers, it should be required—at the very least, given

all the confusion that abounds, it seems to me that the District, all

of the parties involved, the Health Department, WASA, all the parties involved—should be required to submit a coherent, written

plan which would include the measures that are being taken to correct the problem, the measures that are being taken for notification

of residents of the problem and the measures that are being taken

to provide the necessary protection for residents, particularly those

who cannot afford or are least likely to have notice that they

should take measures themselves. I have in mind low-income, modest-income people, especially renters, the elderly and other vulnerable populations.

I mean, that is just what occurs to me off the top of my head is

the absence of something in writing that I think puts us all—that

is coherent, that involves everyone, that makes us all uneasy.

Mr. Welsh.

Mr. WELSH. I would say we’re not reluctant to use those authorities. We want to make sure we use those appropriately, and we’re

looking closely at the actions that are being taken by others and

we——

Ms. NORTON. If you’re not reluctant to use them, why haven’t

you used them? We can’t imagine a worse crisis than this.

Mr. WELSH. I understand, and we are working to make sure that

the steps, much like are being described, are taking place—are

being taken; and that we can see the actual plans and that those

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plans are being implemented. So those are the things that we have

been working with the city on in the past several days.

And in addition, on the issue of corrosivity, we do have a plan

that sounds like what you describe that will be released Wednesday. The technical working group is going to give its first recommendations as to how best to move forward on addressing the

issue of corrosivity. So I understand your advice, and we will certainly use that as we look very closely at the situation to determine

what the appropriate step is.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Welsh.

Mr. Chairman, could I ask for certain records to be submitted for

the record.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Yes.

Ms. NORTON. Could I ask all three of you to commit to submit

for our records all of the records of lead results that EPA received

for the District, beginning with 1991, all the records documenting

EPA’s review of the Corps’ control—corrosion control plan, the

records evaluating D.C.’s distribution system survey?

I’d like to have that commitment from all of you. Do I have that

commitment from all of you?

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Do you have a problem with that, Mr.

Welsh?

Mr. WELSH. No, I have no problem.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

I want to thank this panel. I know it has been a long morning

for you. The committee will take a 2-minute break while we bring

the next panel up to the front and change the name tags.

[Followup questions and responses follow:]

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[Recess.]

Chairman TOM DAVIS. The committee will come back into order.

We have our second panel now, some of our science experts.

We have Erik Olson, senior attorney, the Natural Resources Defense Council; Professor Ellen Silbergeld, who is from the Johns

Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; and Professor Marc

Edwards, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

If you’ll rise with me and raise your hands, I’ll swear you in.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you. I think the questioning here

will be a little easier than it was on the last panel, but we really

are excited about your testimony here. I’ve read it coming in here

today. I think it adds a lot to the scientific basis on this, and I just

appreciate your bearing with us through the first panel.

Mr. Olson, why don’t we start with you and move straight down.

You know the rules of trying to keep it within 5 minutes. Your entire statement is in the record. Thanks for being with us.

STATEMENTS OF ERIK OLSON, SENIOR ATTORNEY, NATURAL

RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL; PROFESSOR ELLEN

SILBERGELD, JOHN HOPKINS BLOOMBERG SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH; AND PROFESSOR MARC EDWARDS, VIRGINIA

POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE AND STATE UNIVERSITY

Mr. OLSON. Can you hear me? I am Erik Olson. I’m a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. I’m glad that

the committee is holding this hearing and thank the chairman for

scheduling this important discussion.

First, I want to say that the lead crisis in D.C. really is a wakeup call nationally. We don’t think that this is just a problem in

Washington. We believe that although we know about the extent

of the problem only in D.C., there are probably other locations

where there are serious issues.

We ought to have the best water quality, the best drinking water

system in the world here in the Nation’s Capital, and instead we

have one of the worst in the Nation, as we just heard from previous

witnesses. This is a serious public health issue, which Dr.

Silbergeld, I believe, will discuss, but I think what I want to focus

on are the serious flaws that this whole process lays bare with

EPA, with WASA and with the Army Corps.

First of all, there are clear holes in EPA’s rules, as have been

identified in the previous questioning. What wasn’t discussed in detail is the fact that the rules that govern what can go into our faucets and fixtures seem to have a problem. We are still, it appears,

installing some fixtures, faucets and so on that still leach lead.

That is an issue that needs to be addressed and discussed. In addition, the lack of knowledge, testing and enforcement of the school

testing requirements of the Lead Contamination Control Act are

very troubling, and we are extremely troubled by the lack of enforcement of that.

The EPA oversight obviously, as the previous panel has shown,

was inadequate, and I don’t think it’s worth going into a lot of detail, but we think it is absolutely incumbent upon EPA to use its

enforcement authority, its 1431 emergency authority in this case.

If you can’t do it in this case, where EPA witnesses admitted that

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this is the worst they know about in the country, when in the

world are you going to use this authority? This is why the authority was written into the law by Congress.

In addition, we think it’s important to note that—take a look at

the trend in EPA enforcement in this program over the last 3

years; it has been steadily declining over the last 3 years. We attached to our testimony every measurement of enforcement of this

drinking water act over the last 3 years. It’s been dropping stepwise. It’s very concerning, and we think, again, this tells of a national problem.

With respect to the D.C. WASA, it’s absolutely critical that this

invalidation of samples issue be evaluated. And also, with respect

to these filters, the filters that are being offered are simply pitchers

that people can put on their kitchen counter, but these filters are

not going to be a long-term solution. First of all, they expire after

a month or two. EPA has regulations for a point-of-use device like

this. Is EPA going to insist that those regulations be tracked?

For example, what happens after 2 months in a day care center

that has high levels of lead? Are there going to be automatic maintenance and followup on these? Are they going to wait until Brita

donates additional filters? We think it’s incumbent upon EPA to

mandate in its enforcement orders that WASA install these filters

professionally instead of using these pitchers and also that there

be followup.

In addition, with respect to the school testing in the District, it

was completely bogus. They tested 150 schools, 750 taps, but they

ran the water for 10 minutes before they tested them. It’s clear

that was intended not to find a problem, and they are refusing to

retest. Why is that? We think they are not retesting the schools

and day care centers because they suspect there might be a problem.

I think it’s important for this body to insist upon WASA retesting

the schools in the District, and we think that ought to be expanded

to everywhere that the Corps of Engineers water goes.

Finally, with respect to the Corps of Engineers, it’s important

that the corrosion control and the old-fashioned treatment that the

Corps still uses—which is World War I-era treatment, I want to

emphasize; they are not using modern treatment. If you got to

modern treatment, we could largely solve this problem.

It’s key that this body fund response in D.C., as necessary, that

there be aggressive oversight of EPA, that there be water infrastructure funding and that this entire process be opened up.

We are very concerned that all of these discussions that we’ve

heard about this morning are all cutting the public out in violation

of open government laws in the District. None of these meetings

that are being held are—of the advisory groups that are discussing

this are being opened to the public. So we are very concerned about

the lack of openness.

And finally, with regard to the emergency enforcement action,

it’s just absolutely key that action be aggressive and across the

board and not just a short-term fix. Thank you.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Olson follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Doctor, thank you for being here.

Dr. SILBERGELD. Thank you very much. I’m Ellen Silbergeld and

I’m pleased to respond to your invitation to participate in this hearing. I’m testifying at your invitation as a private citizen. For identification purposes only, I’m professor of environmental health

sciences and of epidemiology at the Bloomberg School of Public

Health of Johns Hopkins University. I also served as a member of

EPA’s Science Advisory Board Committee several years ago, evaluating the scientific basis for EPA’s current regulations concerning

lead in drinking water.

As I noted, I live in a city that last year had its own problems

with lead in drinking water, although I hesitate to mention them

in the context of what we’ve heard today. But I would like to endorse the statement by several members of this committee and

other witnesses that this is a problem unlikely to be confined to

this setting and that a national investigation, perhaps with the research resources of the Congress, should be undertaken.

In my testimony, I’d like to provide answers to your questions

concerning the health risks of lead poisoning on which I can claim

expertise and make some comments in response to your other questions.

As has been noted in response to your first question, lead is an

entirely toxic metal and its hazards have been described in medical

writings for over 2,000 years. As long ago as 250 years ago, questions were raised about the potential contribution of lead in drinking water to health, both in England and in colonial America.

It’s now the overwhelming consensus of both medical and public

health experts that lead is highly toxic to multiple organ systems,

including the central and peripheral nervous systems, the cardiovascular system, blood-forming system, the kidney and the reproductive systems of both males and females.

We understand that at the molecular level, lead can substitute

for calcium and other essential elements to interfere with molecular biology of the cell at the level of DNA integrity, intra- and

intercellular signaling, differentiation and development of complex

systems like the nervous and reproductive systems, synaptic formation and memory storage in the brain, and vascular endothelial

function.

Lead is toxic to the fetus, and it is carcinogenic. In public health

policy, we do correctly focus upon preventing exposures of the developing child pre- and postnatally because of its effects on the developing brain, which have now been shown to persist through at

least early adulthood. But I do want to stress, because of some of

the comments earlier, that lead exposures are also highly toxic to

adults, increasing risks of stroke and hypertension, as well as the

risks of early mortality due to cardiovascular disease and cancer.

I have annotated my testimony for you.

These risks, in fact, are particularly important for women, since

there is evidence that later in life bone lead stores may be mobilized back into blood, particularly over the menopause, with associated increase in risk of clinical hypertension and elevated blood

pressure. I, therefore, find it particularly disturbing to have heard

that there were some attempts made to inform pregnant women

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and families with young children while allowing others in the population to continue to be exposed without warning.

The toxic effects of lead, finally, can only be prevented by preventing exposure. We know this because a large multisite study

was funded by NIH, including some of my colleagues, and it reported conclusively that treating children after exposure does not

reverse lead toxic effects on neurocognitive function.

I also want to note that more recent studies suggest that our

work and concerns over lead are not over, that the toxic effects on

children and adults may occur even at the blood lead levels that

are currently accepted in regulation and public health. It’s therefore in this context that we should consider the current issues of

lead in drinking water. This source adds on to all other sources of

lead in the environment, and it is really very confusing to try and

cite other sources as a means of deflecting concern over any one

source. It is true that it’s currently estimated by EPA that 20 percent of total daily exposures to most U.S. populations come from

drinking water, but that’s assuming that the current drinking

water standards are, in fact, being met.

Lead exposure via drinking water alone can by itself be sufficient

to induce toxicity, especially in young infants. In a landmark paper

in 1967 it was determined that a cluster of mentally retarded children in Glasgow had been poisoned by lead in drinking water due

to its storage in lead-lined tanks. Cases of individual infants

poisoned by drinking water with lead concentrations well within

the range reported for the District of Columbia, that is 50 to 150

parts per billion, have also been repeatedly reported.

This is the basis of my concern, members of this panel, that the

WASA data are still not revealing sufficient information of great

importance to consumers and probably also to the D.C. Health Department. That is, by providing its survey data, which was the last

I saw reported, in only three categories, below 15 parts per billion,

15 up to 300 parts per billion and greater than 300 parts per billion, consumers are not receiving the information they need to

know, nor are public health authorities.

You’ve heard that the Safe Drinking Water Act was amended to

cover the national problem of lead in drinking water as it was increasingly recognized in the 1980’s. I’d like to respond to your

query to me as to whether the current lead program is effective as

a public health measure. My answer is no. There are, within regulation, bans on lead solder and lead adulterated brass fixtures,

among other elements, which have been largely effective at keeping

new lead sources out of our water systems, but I think that further

investigation is needed.

I myself have seen lead solder still on sale this year in hardware

stores in Baltimore, and you may know that the city of Los Angeles

has brought a major lawsuit against a supplier for using banned

products in the municipal water system. I cite the study conducted

by Berkowitz in 1995 showing that a large number of schools and

day care centers in New Jersey were found to be continuing to use

lead solder in their plumbing after EPA’s promulgation of the ban

on new use.

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The effectiveness of water treatment as a means of dealing with

lead in water, as I believe Dr. Edwards will speak to, and the public notification programs have a much less encouraging record.

The Safe Drinking Water Act and its regulations of the 1980’s

and 1990’s have required actions to be taken when the lead guidance was exceeded, but in my opinion and in the opinion of my colleagues on the SAB panel, too much reliance was placed upon controlling simply by adjusting the parameters of water treatment. We

were under a tremendous amount of pressure from both EPA and

the water industry not to take a firmer stand upon identifying and

removing lead elements within drinking water systems.

I’d also like to note that the sampling systems that are currently

regulated under these provisions are wholly inadequate to characterize the nature and distribution of the risks of a problem that is

location-dependent. The possibility of missing even widespread socalled ‘‘hot spots’’ is exemplified by the data that are beginning to

be revealed in Washington, DC. For that reason, I am reluctant to

conclude as to the association between temporal trends in water

treatment and apparent spikes in lead content of drinking water.

I’m not certain these are spikes.

Let me speak to the other tool in the Safe Drinking Water Act

lead regulation of public notification and risk communication. Does

this work? Well, obviously it cannot work if communication is insufficient, but consumer information can only work if consumers

can actually and feasibly reduce their risks by individual actions,

and I do not think that is the case.

As you’ve heard, even extensive flushing for over 15 minutes—

and I share the opinion of Congressman Moran on that—does not

always reduce the contribution of lead from lead pipes, but of even

greater concern, the lowering effects of flushing are only temporary. Lead levels rise again, it’s been shown in studies, after as

little as 15 to 30 minutes of no use.

Therefore, the notion that you can wake up in the morning, let

the water run for 10 minutes, assuming that you can, and that will

then protect all water users for the rest of the day is erroneous.

In fact, one study concluded that relying upon this could result in

unacceptable exposures to both young children and pregnant

women when water lead concentrations are in the range of 35 to

50 parts per billion.

For the D.C. Health Department to go even further to recommend no consumption of tap water to thousands of D.C. residents is unconscionable. I have to say it reminds me that Marie

Antoinette must be running public health here, ‘‘Let them drink

Evian.’’ Given the general socioeconomics of lead risks, it’s likely

that most of those at greatest risk will have the least means to

purchase their own water, and of course, not all bottled water is

devoid of lead risks as well.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, in my opinion, the issue of lead in

the D.C. water supply is a serious and immediate public health

problem for adults and children who consume, reside or work in

D.C. Moreover, it is probably a signal of similar problems that exist

in many other water systems nationwide.

And finally, elements of the Safe Drinking Water Act are demonstrably ineffective in protecting our drinking water from lead. Lack

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of full enforcement on product bans appears to be widespread.

Local testing and notification programs, even in the letter of the

regulation, are inadequate, and they are clearly not being monitored by EPA. And reliance upon even perfect information transmission and consumer action such as flushing is not sufficient to

protect the public’s health.

I’m happy to answer your questions on this testimony or other

topics that I may be able to discuss.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Silbergeld follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. Dr. Edwards.

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you. I chose to support my verbal comments with a presentation.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. That would be fine. Make sure your button is on. I don’t hear it.

Mr. EDWARDS. Yeah. I’ve chosen to support my verbal comments

with a picture presentation that will be viewed on the monitor

here, and it’s been given to you in this handout form.

While it’s being cued up, I’d like to acknowledge the work of my

graduate student who has been working on this problem as it exists in the D.C. WASA system full-time almost for a year now.

It’s my unfortunate duty to tell you that there’s not just one serious corrosion problem here that is impacting public health, there

are actually two. We can look at the first slide here. You can see

the picture of a copper pipe, what was once a copper pipe before

it was exposed to D.C. WASA water. The clamps on that pipe are

each covering a leak that was being eaten from the pipe inside out.

Can I have the next slide, please?

I just want to point out that not only does this cost a lot of

money, as you can see in this slide, it causes extensive property

damage. I know some people in the Washington area who lost their

homes over the costs associated with pinhole leaks, but pinhole

leaks also create the toxic mold growth in homes. So this is a public health issue.

Next slide, please.

This background is important because it tells you how I first got

involved in this problem. I actually met Seema Bhat, who was the

water quality engineer who was subsequently fired by D.C. WASA,

at a pinhole leaks meeting held at Washington Suburban Sanitation Commission in September 2002.

Next slide, please.

At that time, she alerted me to a problem with ‘‘first draw’’ samples, and so when I went out and sampled on my own initiative on

March 16, 2003 in the homes of D.C. WASA customers. I made a

special effort to try to take samples for lead based on what Seema

had told me, and it was at that time I first became aware of a very

unusual and, frankly, terrifying problem.

Next slide, please.

I drew a little cartoon here to kind of explain what had been

going on in terms of sampling prior to March 2003. You can see on

the upper left the first draw sample, and you’ll hear a lot about

that. That’s the first liter of water to come out of people’s plumbing. And the presumption was, if you read EPA guidelines, was

that this was the worst sample. Another sample was taken after

5 minutes of flushing, and if you look over to the far right of the

graphic, you can see that in all likelihood after 5 minutes, the

water you collect in your sample has been sitting in the main. It

never had time to contact the lead-bearing materials that are of

greatest interest in this work.

So if we just make a plot of what you’d expect to see as you turn

on the faucet on the lower graph, you have your first draw sample,

which everyone thought was the worst sample. Five minutes later,

the other samples they took were purported to show the benefits

of flushing. But I’ll point out we really don’t have a clue what was

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coming out at any time in between, including the 1-minute flush

time that was being recommended. The people flushed for a minute

and collected a sample.

So I resolved when I went into these homes to go in and collect

a profile. And what you see is on this next graph here, what I discovered, on the Y axis you have the amount of lead that was collected in each sample, and on the X axis, the bottom, you have the

flushing time of the sample. And I ask you to just look at one point,

which is the sample that came out which I collected after 1 minute

of flushing. This sample had lead over 1,250 parts per billion,

which is more than 87 times the action limit. I noted in my written

testimony that the actual lead in that sample was probably higher

than that, because even after a 1 to 10 dilution, it was still off the

ability of my field instrument to detect it.

I’ll note also that this is the very sample that would be consumed

after you followed the 1-minute flushing recommendation. In other

words, of the samples I collected, if you followed guidance, you

would be getting the worst amount of lead possible in this home.

I’ll tell you two other things that should be of concern to you at

this time. This home did not have a lead service lateral. It was an

apartment.

The next slide, please.

So from April 2003 to present, I have been working with my students on this very intensively, conducting unfunded research to get

at the causes of this problem.

Next slide, please.

This is the sort of result that we obtained back in September of

last year. On the Y axis you have the amount of lead leached to

our laboratory solutions in milligrams per liter. And I have two

bars here. The first is the before bar—and this is from brass, by

the way. This is not from pure lead pipe. The before bar represents

the amount leached to a synthesized version of WASA water with

free chlorine. You can see that bar is quite low, and when we used

the exact same WASA water, but with chloramine, the amount of

lead leach went up by a factor of 33, up to 15 milligrams per liter

leached to the water from brass.

We have other data, which is not on that presentation but which

is the next slide here—so don’t go ahead on the slide—that shows

chloramines have the same direct problem with pure lead as well.

So we have proven this in the laboratory and those experiments

were finished about 6 months ago, as a matter of fact.

From November 2003 to the present, I have been working and

working and working to get that 1-minute flushing recommendation changed. I strongly believe that 1-minute flushing recommendation was not sufficiently protective of public health.

Next slide.

So, having been given a background, I thought—I went to the

questions that were posed to me directly. What did I find?

First, I found in terms of WASA and EPA, the intent of a lead

and cooper regulation is not always being satisfied due to regulatory gaps, as explained in my written testimony. The reality is

WASA and EPA are myopically focusing on the letter of the recommendation, and that is an important distinction here. The intent

of this regulation is not being achieved.

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I’ve also noted that other regulations at EPA are being given priority over the lead regulation. Specifically, regulations concerning

disinfection byproducts are forcing utilities to make changes to

their water quality, and many times they don’t want to switch to

chloramines. And EPA has ignored years of warnings that these

changes are going to cause a problem with home plumbing.

Next slide.

So this is just an example of a presentation that I gave to EPA

National Headquarters, April 18, 2003. This presentation was held

at the direct behest of Christine Todd Whitman. And Washington

Suburban Sanitation Commission had been seeing serious problems

with home plumbing that had resulted from treatment changes.

And if you just go to the slide that you see up here—which you

have to skip ahead one—I’ll just read a quote from that presentation explaining the cost of doing nothing: ‘‘if nothing is done,

there’s a likelihood of a major plumbing catastrophe costing homeowners tens of billions of dollars each year. It could be a serious

miscalculation to assume a day of reckoning is not already approaching.’’

I’ve been told by students that I’m an effective communicator.

I’ve been told by consumers that I’m an effective communicator, but

I can tell you this message got nowhere with the U.S. EPA.

Next slide.

Do you think that the use of chloramines has a highly corrosive

effect on service lines and allows lead to dissolve from the pipelines? Absolutely yes. Our laboratory experiments prove that convincingly. Chloramines are part of the problem, a part of the problem as it occurs here at D.C. WASA.

What, if anything, should be done? First off, EPA should reconsider rules that are, as we speak, pushing utilities to use chloramine. Utilities should be allowed to stick with chlorine. It is possible that by lowering the pH here in dosing of orthophosphate that

the lead problem will go away. But I’m here to tell you, and in my

written testimony I make it very clear, EPA does not have the answers to this problem as it exists before us. And we urgently need

some research on this so that consumers get the answers to the

questions that they have.

And so I’ll just acknowledge the D.C. WASA customers, the customers who have let me into their homes to uncover these problems, the National Science Foundation, my graduate students, and

my family who have been through one very, very long year. Thank

you.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Edwards follows:]

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Chairman TOM DAVIS. We’re trying to figure what it would cost

to do a reasonable study because we need defined science on this,

right? And so I think you’ve identified some problems, and nobody

has any answers. Will $200,000, that get you started on something

like this?

Mr. EDWARDS. Yeah. If you wanted answers to this one issue,

chloramines and lead——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. It’s a national issue, right?

Mr. EDWARDS. Absolutely. $350,000. The program that I proposed to EPA back in April 2003 addressed the most urgent issues

that were currently confronting us, and the total price tag for that

was $7 million. And if you want a copy of that presentation, I can

show you the——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Can share that with us?

Mr. EDWARDS. The costs of this are billions and billions of dollars

a year to consumers.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I can take a look at what it’s just going

to cost the city of Washington now and everybody to go through

this. I guess the old saying is, ‘‘You can pay me now, you can pay

me later.’’

Mr. EDWARDS. Absolutely.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Why is it worse after 1 minute? That’s

what I want to know.

Mr. EDWARDS. It has to do with the fact that is where the water

is sitting in the lead pipes that are—plumbing materials that have

the worst lead. So out by the service main, you have your lead

service lines. You also have a type of brass known as NSF Section

8 Tested Brass, and this brass can contain up to 8 percent lead by

weight, even though it’s listed as lead-free in the Safe Drinking

Water Act.

So at this 1-minute time, what you’re really getting is the water

that’s been contacting the plumbing materials that have the worst

lead in the D.C. system.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. OK. That’s very revealing.

Mr. Olson, let me ask you. EPA needs additional authority to

plug these loopholes, don’t they? Or do they have them now?

Mr. OLSON. I think EPA has the authority they need to plug

these loopholes. It’s a question of whether they’re willing to use the

authority they have. For the emergency order, they could issue it

today. For the change in the regulations, they would need to do

that themselves.

The only problem with their current authority I think is the Lead

Contamination Control Act, which goes to the schools-testing issue.

Part of it was overturned by a court in the Acorn decision. It was

ruled as unconstitutional, because it directly imposed requirements

on States. Rather than saying, ‘‘We’re going to withdraw your funding if you don’t do this testing,’’ it directly imposed the requirements on States. So that provision probably needs to be changed.

It clearly needs to be changed.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. If you could pinpoint, though, for a national water infrastructure problem that you’ve highlighted, what

legislative measures would you propose that you think make sense

that don’t go off the charts in costs? I mean, there is a cost-benefit

factor.

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Mr. OLSON. Well, the first step is clearly there is a need to address what I just mentioned, the schools issue. Second, we think

that there is a need for water infrastructure funding. The funding

that—there have been repeated studies by EPA and cities showing

that the amount of funding that’s available is inadequate to deal

with the problem. So I think either appropriations or water infrastructure legislation would be necessary.

And finally, the whole issue of lead-free plumbing. We just heard

that things defined as lead-free under Federal law are far from

lead-free, and that needs to be changed as well.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. You were critical of the Corps of Engineers’ decision to switch to chloramines to combat disinfection by

products. How are these decisions by water suppliers regulated by

EPA? Are there additional mechanisms and technical standards

that you’d——

Mr. OLSON. Let me clarify. We do not oppose the use of

chloramines. We think it’s a Band-Aid, though. It doesn’t go to the

underlying problem, which is old-fashioned treatment. So there are

EPA regulations that do regulate how much of these disinfection

byproducts there are.

Our concern is that we have D.C. and a lot of other cities across

the country that continue to use this outdated, really antiquated

treatment technology that needs to be upgraded.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Dr. Silbergeld, let me ask you, do you

think that the lead action level of 15 parts per billion is appropriate?

Ms. SILBERGELD. Probably basically it is not, but certainly those

of us in public health would rest a lot easier if we actually achieved

that.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. How can we identify and treat those that

are affected by lead exposure?

Ms. SILBERGELD. Well, since it seems very difficult to get a comprehensive and accurate assessment of drinking water supplies,

and, as Dr. Edwards has pointed out, even the way in which we

measure the actual exposures of residents over a day is not a simple matter, probably our best bet is to combine an emergency blood

lead surveillance program similar to what EPA has done, for example, in smaller communities; but not necessarily to stay at that

point, because blood lead only reflects relatively recent exposures.

And, thus, for a family that perhaps may have stopped drinking

water 6 months ago, this would not necessarily indicate that they

had no risks. So, a very intensive surveillance.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. I’m trying to understand, does one glass

of water go to affect you in a situation like this, or is it over a

month, 2 months? I guess it all depends on what the levels are. I

mean, what’s been your experience in looking at that?

Ms. SILBERGELD. Well, it can be a very short period of time. For

example, in the reports from the Harvard Medical School, for example, of cases of infants poisoned by lead from drinking water

when the parents were mixing formula with drinking water, their

actual toxic symptoms were induced after only a few months of exposure.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much.

Ms. Norton.

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Ms. NORTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Could I ask, many people are switching to bottled water. Is bottled water any better?

Does it not have these problems?

Ms. SILBERGELD. Well, certainly in general there have been problems identified with bottled water, because the regulation of bottled

water by FDA is certainly not complete. I would find it hard to believe that bottled water would have levels of lead as high as what’s

been reported in the newspaper.

Mr. EDWARDS. I’ll second that.

Mr. MORAN. Would the gentlelady yield for just a moment? I

heard this week that Dasani, which Coca-Cola bottling puts out, is

actually London tap water. Is that true? There was a report in the

London papers.

Mr. OLSON. I can report we did a report a couple of years ago

looking at bottled water quality. We tested over 1,000 bottles. We

also tested over 100 brands. Much of the bottled water in the U.S.

is tap water. Some of it has been treated. So much of it has not.

About 20 percent, was our estimate, is tap water.

In addition, we found no lead in all the tests that we did, no significant lead. We did find arsenic. We found bacteria. We found a

variety of organic chemicals. Most of it was not a violation of the

weak Federal rules, but there really isn’t much of a Federal regulatory program for bottled water. FDA told us they had a single

person regulating bottled water for the country at the time.

Ms. SILBERGELD. I would also like to speak to this issue of the

filters. The filters, as has been noted, have a relatively short period

of efficacy, but they also have a limited efficacy. When you have

concentrations of lead in water above 200–300 parts per billion and

much higher, no filter is going to remove that much lead so that

I also find it rather disturbing to have the Health Department distributing these filters as some kind of suggestion that then all the

water in the District would be safe to drink.

Ms. NORTON. Dr. Silbergeld, the problem I have is that while

these agencies are figuring it out, something has to be done. And

there are probably a limited number of options. Ever since the

water scare in 1993, I’ve simply been buying water. I mean, they

lost my confidence. Obviously, that’s a very middle-class thing to

do. What is it that the average person should be doing now?

Mr. EDWARDS. There’s no doubt that the filters would dramatically reduce the amount of lead in water. In those two samples that

were reported in the Post yesterday, over 40,000 micrograms per

liter of lead, it is true that filter would not produce a water currently classified as safe under EPA regulations. That sample is a—

it’s very much the exception and not the rule.

For the vast majority of the samples that I have seen and that

I have taken myself, Brita filters, other kinds of filters, would do

a very satisfactory job in getting the lead out, but it’s not, as she

said, fool-proof.

Ms. NORTON. Well, would one thing to do, then, be with respect

to adults where, according to Dr. Silbergeld’s testimony there are

significant risks, one might advise the filters—with respect to pregnant women and children under 6, would bottled water be more advisable than using filters? I mean, there’s at least two or three

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classes of people that we have to deal with in the meantime while

we’re trying to figure out what to do.

Ms. SILBERGELD. Well, the public health perspective on drinking

water in this country from the very beginning has been that all

water should be safe and healthful to drink, and that is why we

have never permitted a dual system of water supply which, of

course, has been in use in other countries where there’s potable

and nonpotable water. I’m very reluctant to endorse as a public

health matter the idea of multiple sources of drinking water and

have any assurance that would protect the public.

I must also say that I am not enthusiastic about the idea that

one can eliminate the lead risks for nonpregnant women and other

adults. Our paper, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found significant risks of clinical hypertension

when blood lead levels went from 10 to 15 in adult women, not

pregnant women, and this was the blood pressure of the women

themselves.

I could not in good conscience tell you that it would be appropriate to allow anyone in the District of Columbia to be exposed to

some of these levels.

I’d also like to point out that if these filters——

Ms. NORTON. But I have to stop you here. I really do have to stop

you here, because we live in this world at this time and we have

a population of 600,000 people that we have to deal with. And people look to public health experts not to give them the perfect solution, particularly when there is no perfect solution in sight, but to

help us find at least—give some advice to the people who live here.

So I’m not asking people to guarantee or warrant a solution here,

but in the meantime we would appreciate your best advice.

I think the advice of Dr. Edwards on filters was practical, and

that’s what we—that’s all we can do. We cannot create a perfect

system overnight. We can’t say to folks, well, we don’t have any

perfect system, so you’re on your own.

Ms. SILBERGELD. I’m sorry if I left that impression. Please excuse

me. I can only tell you that my own ethics tell me that I cannot

tell someone that if they have 300 parts per billion in their drinking water, that putting it through a Brita filter is acceptable. And

I believe when we have national emergencies in this country, like

hurricanes and floods that affect thousands of people, we take the

steps necessary to protect public health. And it goes against all my

training as a public health professional to say anything less to the

District of Columbia. I’m sorry.

Ms. NORTON. Dr. Edwards.

Mr. EDWARDS. I will say my own experiments in the lab have

shown that even up to 1,000 parts per billion lead, if you use the

simplest filters that are NSF-certified, that you will produce water

usually below the 15 parts per billion.

Ms. NORTON. Again, we’re going to look to see what kind of written plan they come up with. It does seem to me, because we have

to live in the here and now, that the filter notion, assuming they

are good filters on the one hand, might be advisable. I myself,

again in this imperfect world, realizing that with pregnant women

and children—it seems to me that the District of Columbia may

have an obligation to distribute bottled water that is completely

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lead free, since you’re telling me that is the case in most bottled

water.

Mr. Chairman, if you’ll just let me ask two more questions, I’ll

be through for the day.

One is, Dr. Edwards, I noticed that you said that the—your

slides were not taken in private homes, were not from private

homes or from apartments. I asked the prior panel about apartments, because that’s where most people in the District of Columbia live, not in private homes. And of course the testimony of—the

WASA testimony, I believe, was that we don’t think this is a problem in apartments.

I’d like your advice on that and whether what you saw—what

you in fact derived was, in fact, in your view, typical for apartment

homes.

Mr. EDWARDS. If you pressed them, I think they would admit

that they haven’t tested new homes and apartments.

Ms. NORTON. And apartments?

Mr. EDWARDS. Yeah. I think they have focused on the old homes

with lead service lines, and they have simply not done effective

testing of new homes or apartments. And in a letter I wrote to the

U.S. EPA February 8th, and then another letter on February 10th,

I warned them that it was wrong to assume this problem was confined to older homes. The worst problems with brass, the worst

case for brass is newer homes.

And so if you assume that the brass is not a problem, you don’t

sample newer homes. And so I believe if you push the issue, you

would discover that they haven’t done a whole lot of sampling in

new homes, much less done the type of sampling that’s necessary

to detect the problem, which is to get this profile as a function of

time.

And if they have that data I would love to see it. But the fact

of the matter is the data in Arlington concerns me because the

worst lead in Arlington was from newer homes and it came out

after first draw, according to what someone up there said today,

and that confirms my worst fear about brass.

Ms. NORTON. All right. Finally clear this up for me, if you would,

the brass, copper, lead issue. Is this just a lead issue or does any

substance that we’ve been using tend to corrode and produce problems?

Mr. EDWARDS. Yes. There is not a perfect plumbing material out

there. We learned long ago that lead was a good plumbing material

in terms of how long it lasted but a bad plumbing material because

it caused serious health problems. It was actually used in Roman

times. But the fact of the matter is we have homes out there,

brand-new homes with brass in it, that contains up to 8 percent

lead. Lead pipes are obviously pure lead, there is no lead coming

from copper.

Ms. NORTON. Brass and copper therefore don’t have the same effects on public health, on the health of the individual?

Mr. EDWARDS. It’s been assumed that the brass is not a significant problem and that’s why they’re not sampling these new

homes. I am of the opinion that some of these brass devices that

are out there are causing a serious problem.

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Ms. NORTON. If they also have lead in them. But does the brass

by itself cause a problem? Does copper by itself cause a problem?

Mr. EDWARDS. Most brass that you buy in the hardware store

today has lead in it, even, ‘‘leadfree brass.’’

Ms. NORTON. What about copper?

Mr. EDWARDS. Copper does not have significant amounts of lead

in it.

Ms. NORTON. Finally, Dr. Silbergeld, would that be your view

about the risks from brass and copper?

Ms. SILBERGELD. Well, there can be some effects of copper, primarily on the aesthetic qualities of water but EPA does regulate

copper concentrations. Brass has been shown, many types of brass

and many fittings, to in fact leach lead into a system. So it’s clearly

a source of lead.

The other point I would like to note is the continued use or the

continued availability of lead solders which are used to connect all

kinds of metal piping. Those were banned by EPA, but not very effectively because of the known fact that those solders at the joints

can come into contact with water.

Ms. NORTON. The chairman and I were discussing what may be

necessary, the science itself seems to be insufficient to yield protection, the kind of protection that the public has a right to expect.

One of the things we’re discussing is whether or not we should go

to a VA-HUD and try to get some significant research done here.

In your view has the research been ongoing and done? Is anybody

doing the basic scientific research to get at some of these problems

you say exist even in the best of circumstances?

Mr. EDWARDS. I’ve been doing the research, unfunded, sometimes

in my own house, for the last several years. I’ve pleaded with the

EPA and other agencies to provide funding so that we can get answers to the questions that consumers have. And the reality is this

is an area that has been ignored. I’ll tell you why: It’s a problem

no one wants. No one wants the responsibility for what happens in

people’s homes. The utilities have traditionally said, ‘‘our responsibility ends at the property line.’’ The EPA has quite frankly

loathed to cross that line as well. And while I support the efforts

that are being made to get EPA to study water infrastructure in

this country, all of that money is directed at the mains. No one is

talking about funding research or helping the consumers with their

water infrastructure, no one is.

Ms. NORTON. Dr. Silbergeld.

Ms. SILBERGELD. I’d like to respond to your question in a different context. I think that one of the lessons from this event is

that we have a tendency to look at water problems one at a time.

So at one point in time we’re concerned about lead levels in water

and rules are promulgated that have impacts on the quality and

nature of water, etc., to deal with that problem. Then we have a

tremendous problem with pathogens in that water and we promulgate additional rules that have impacts on the quality of water and

the manner in which we handle it. Then we have some concerns

about disinfection byproducts and those elicit still other assessments and rules and regulations. All of these concerns are valid

and important, but the problem is there is no ethos or perhaps directive that is clear and compelling under the Safe Drinking Water

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Act or elsewhere to compel a holistic assessment of these problems.

Because what we want is safe and healthful drinking water. And

therefore we think we are optimizing a solution for one problem

when it comes to the surface and we neglect the impacts on other

problems to say nothing of the impacts on the infrastructure itself.

So I would urge reconsideration of EPA’s drinking water research

program at least insofar as it relates to health to ensure that it

takes a holistic approach.

Ms. NORTON. One wonders whether or not the research should

be done outside of EPA. Mr. Chairman, I think we should look at

whether the CDC, NIH, I don’t know who should be doing this complicated research involving many different substances which may

interact one another. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Moran.

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Maybe the National

Science Foundation, the Institute of Medicine, something. But our

Public Health Director in Arlington has been asking, actually wondering out loud, ‘‘I know that 400 parts per billion is basically toxic

but is 200, is 100?’’ 15 probably isn’t but why did EPA choose that

as the actionable level? We asked that and we really didn’t get a

conclusive answer. Apparently—Dr. Silbergeld, go ahead and respond. That was going to be an introduction to my question but

please respond.

Ms. SILBERGELD. I was actually on the Science Advisory Committee at the time in which the recommendations, health based recommendations, were drafted that EPA would then utilize in devising its regulations. Our health-based regulation, our health-based

recommendation for lead in drinking water was zero. The 15 parts

per billion is therefore entirely a feasibility estimation and evaluation. And it was driven by a number of concerns, many of which

are important that Delegate Norton raised which have to do with

real world solutions to real world problems. I don’t want to minimize them. But I do want to state very clearly that number was

not based upon a health judgment. When pushed we suggested that

perhaps one could go as high as 7.5 parts per billion in drinking

water and still remain in an area of exposure that we at that time

as health scientists felt comfortable with.

With respect to your questions about numbers, I’ve tried to provide you some numbers in my testimony based on the medical literature, which I have referenced, which will indicate that drinking

concentrations as low as 30 to 50 are associated in studies with significant increases in blood lead levels that are sufficient to cause

concern, certainly for pregnant women, for the fetus and the very

young infant, probably also for hypertension in adults. So, yes,

there is a considerable body of information.

If you would like me to amplify upon that, I will do it for you

in terms of calibrating numbers that are reported on the basis of

analysis and expected areas of health concerning.

Mr. MORAN. You know I don’t imagine you buildup an immunity

to lead in your system.

Ms. SILBERGELD. No, unfortunately not. King Mithridates tried

the idea of taking metals in small amounts.

Mr. MORAN. Gold, I think.

Ms. SILBERGELD. He tried arsenic.

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Mr. MORAN. The chairman suggested it gave him a magnetic personality but didn’t extend his life. Our major concern now is for

children because they’re most vulnerable. I would assume the first

thing we want to tell parents of infants is don’t mix the baby formula with the tap water, particularly if you have—it hasn’t been

tested and you don’t know for sure that it might not be contaminated with high levels of lead.

When you move beyond the home you go immediately to the

schools. They have water faucets generally. That’s how they normally get their water. Now, it doesn’t give us any comfort even if

it has been running for a while that is going to be any less potentially toxic to them. Did you—I don’t know, are most water faucets

of—are they—is it mostly copper piping in schools? Would you assume that? Is that a reasonable assumption?

Mr. EDWARDS. Yeah, most water faucets in schools themselves

are safe. The problem that I foresee is downstream at some point

you have brass. And at some point water contacting that brass is

going to come to the water faucet. And whether that’s significant

or not we can’t say because we don’t have the data.

Mr. MORAN. Now, we think that this has been going on for about

3 years. So there would be some cumulative effect I guess. Does the

body accumulate lead in its system? Some metals you would normally wash out but others tend to be retained within the system.

What about lead?

Ms. SILBERGELD. Lead is accumulated in the body but, more importantly, the effects of continued exposure are cumulative. So that

both the exposure you have at any one point in time is of concern.

But continued exposures are of even greater concern.

Mr. MORAN. So if we had caught this, in other words, in the first

6 months and had been able to ameliorate it or change the corrosive nature of the decontaminants we were putting in, the chloramine, then 6 months wouldn’t have been a problem for the most

part unless it was an extraordinarily high level in some individual

homes, is that accurate?

Ms. SILBERGELD. We would certainly have made an important

and positive difference. I cite a study that was conducted in the

western part of England in which interventions were made just as

you describe to deal with water chemistry problems, and there by

lowering drinking water lead they saw a lowering of blood lead levels in the population drinking that water.

Mr. MORAN. Now, since this has been going on for 3 years would

you recommend that we do a very extensive, perhaps comprehensive testing of the blood levels in our children or what do we do

now? What do we do from a public health perspective? Does anybody want to respond to that? What would you recommend?

Mr. EDWARDS. Well, from an engineering perspective my main

concern is to stop the damage now, stop further damages.

Mr. MORAN. You think changing from chloramine and putting in

phosphates or something would stop the damage?

Mr. EDWARDS. Well, I am focused more on the short term, here

and now issue. First off that’s why I spend so much time trying to

get the flushing advice changed from something that was wrong to

something that makes a little sense.

Mr. MORAN. So you want them to flush for 5 minutes.

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Mr. EDWARDS. If they’re going to drink water they have to flush

it to the point that lead is reduced to lead levels—some of D.C.’s

own WASA’s levels shows 10 minutes is necessary.

Mr. MORAN. 10 minutes. I don’t think that’s a practical solution.

Mr. EDWARDS. So then you have the filters. Let me point out two

other things that concern me in the here and now. This partial lateral replacement program, is it helpful or not? And if it’s not helpful, it’s harmful. We better stop it.

Mr. MORAN. Could be harmful because of what—the new soldering or whatever?

Mr. EDWARDS. Because of the fact that you’re replacing part of

an old lead pipe with a brand new copper pipe. Our research at

Virginia Tech has shown that in essence what you are doing is you

are making a strong battery there. The brand new copper drives

corrosion of the old lead. And it’s very likely that replacing part of

the lead service line is going to increase lead levels, not make them

better. Now, I wish EPA could tell you they have data showing that

their partial lead replacement program is actually having a helpful

effect. Quite frankly I doubt that they have that data. The data I’ve

seen has scared me. The two worst levels you saw in the Post the

other day, 40,000 parts per billion, 20,000 parts per billion, these

were after a partial lead replacement occurred. So I’m just saying

we can spend $351 million to replace all of WASA’s lead service

laterals and leave this problem worse than it was. And let’s get

data to make sure that what we’re doing with that money is beneficial, because, quite frankly, I think it could be making things

worse.

And the other point I would make is do we know that this is not

a problem in new homes? Do we know that this is not a problem

in apartments? Those folks have not been warned yet. So yes, we

need to proceed on all fronts but I’m sitting here saying we have

to stop the damage. Stop the damage that’s occurring now.

Mr. MORAN. I understand. Is this serious enough that we need

to do public health testing of large portions of the population? I’m

not going to ask any further questions but I’d be interested in the

answer.

Ms. SILBERGELD. Yes. In response to your question I do believe

that D.C. should significantly increase their testing of young children. I noted that, as published in the CDC reports of last year,

in fact the last time that D.C. reported on its lead screening program, they were only screening 30 percent of children under 6

years of age to begin with. So the very first thing would be to get

an effective and comprehensive screening of children and focusing

on the youngest because frequently this testing gets biased toward

when the child enters elementary school. But it would be extremely

important to catch children through the baby clinics, through day

care centers and any other means of—I mean a 30 percent screening rate is unacceptable regardless of any specific lead problem.

But in the situation that you have here, there is an urgent need

to increase that.

Mr. MORAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Mr. Van Hollen.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I agree with Mr.

Edwards, you’re absolutely right. We want no one to spend millions

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of dollars to do a partial fix that either does nothing or either

makes things worse. That gets back to the root cause of the issue

in D.C. and potentially elsewhere. I want to get back to the issue

of the effect of chloramines. Because Mr. Olson, as I read your testimony, there are lots of cities that have been having problems

with lead, not necessarily the intensity of the problem here, but

you list a whole number of cities in your testimony. Is there any

consensus in the scientific community that the cause of the problem in any of those cities was a result of leaching or corrosion from

the chloramine?

Mr. OLSON. The sad answer to that question is I don’t think

there is any single person that can answer that question. It should

be EPA that would have an answer to that immediately, but there

is a huge problem with EPA collecting that information. And I

agree with you on the lead service line issue. I think one thing that

hasn’t been brought out about the lead service lines in the district

I attached to my testimony articles from the Washington Post in

1893 and 1895 where the debate was going on in the District as

to whether to widely adopt lead service lines. The decision was

made by the Federal overseers of the District’s water supply at

that time to install its service lines city wide. Now it shouldn’t be

up to the home owner to have to replace that little part of their

lead service line that the city decided to impose or the Federal Government decided to put in there, and thereby if they don’t replace

it, make the problem worse. WASA ought to be replacing the entire

lead service line.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, my green light never went on

but if that’s all right, let me just——

Chairman TOM DAVIS. You can take a hint pretty well there.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. On the chloramine issue, because we’ve been

talking all morning. We had a panel up there and there have

been—the suggestions in the media are that the chloramine is a

very possible cause of this. And yet as I understand it, there is—

in listening to testimony from the Army Corps, there is no consensus yet in the scientific community. I am just trying to get the

facts. So there is a substitute to chloramine that addresses the byproduct issue that led to chloramine over chlorine. And as an alternative where there is consensus if we were to implement today—

and I ask that question, Mr. Olson, because you have a recommendation in your testimony that talks about this other alternative, orthophosphate. On the other hand, Dr. Edwards suggests

in his testimony that before doing that more experimental data is

needed. Is there a consensus that there’s an alternative to chloramine that also addresses the disinfection byproduct rule that everyone could agree that we would implement today? We don’t have

to resolve the question of whether chloramine is the cause but we

know there is an alternative that meets all the requirements?

Mr. OLSON. Well, it’s a complicated question. With respect to—

chloramine is added, it is part of the disinfection process, it’s added

to reduce the disinfection byproducts. There are alternatives, alternative ways that are not going to cause disinfection byproducts to

disinfect your water. The Corps of Engineers has resisted other alternatives because they’re more expensive, but they include going

to activated carbon filtration and ozone or ultraviolet light to disVerDate 11-MAY-2000 09:15 Aug 30, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00264 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\94596.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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infect then. You could add a residual disinfectant. The byproducts

would be much lower. Before you do that you would have to look

at what the impact on corrosion control would be. So it may be that

the long term solution here is to go to modern treatment, as much

of Europe has, with those alternative disinfectants and activated

carbon and perhaps orthophosphate, perhaps something else. I

think it’s really important that what was mentioned by Delegate

Norton, we need some short-term fix for those that are being exposed today. We couldn’t agree more. The short-term fix is different

than the long-term fix. A short-term fix might be filters that are

NSF certified or whatever, something immediately that citizens can

use. They have to be maintained. We don’t hear the discussion

from WASA about that. You can’t install a filter and walk away.

They can make matters worse if you don’t maintain them. It’s absolutely critical. It’s only a short-term fix. Over the long run you have

to have water that is delivered to every citizen of the District and

in the country that is safe for any child or any person to drink.

That’s got to be where we’re headed. These others are short-term

fixes.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Let me ask, Dr. Edwards, you suggest in your

testimony I think that you go back, utilities be allowed to stick to

chlorine. Now as I understand it we went from chlorine to

chloramines because of the byproduct issue. Wouldn’t that be a

problem if you just went back to chlorine?

Mr. EDWARDS. Well, what’s happened here is the EPA has decided the disinfection byproducts are more important, if you will,

than the potential adverse consequences on home plumbing and

lead. WASA I think was doing OK with free chlorine under the old

disinfection byproducts regulations, but what’s happening, let me

just say this, the new regulations are so tight that utilities are having to switch to chloramines whether they want to or not in order

to meet disinfection byproducts requirements. So even though they

have protested this, some in very strong terms, they have no choice

because chlorines are a national primary drinking water standard.

As you have seen, lead only has an action limit which in many

cases means no action. There is no maximum amount of lead allowable in water. There are utilities out there that have exceeded the

action limit forever, and there is no plan to get them below the action limit. So action limit can mean no action at all.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you very much. I have a final question for all three of you. Do you think the timeframe that EPA has

laid out for implementing remedial steps is reasonable? Do you

think there are interim solutions that could be implemented prior

to September 1st?

Mr. OLSON. I think their response is wholly inadequate and that

there needs to be an immediate emergency order issued with specific deadlines to move forward with each one of these steps. That

doesn’t mean rushing into things but it means some deadlines, because if we don’t have enforceable deadlines our history in this city

with the water supply is things—as soon as it drops off the front

page of the Washington Post things tends to get sloughed off.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. OK.

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Ms. SILBERGELD. When I went to the EPA water site they said,

and this is a quote from EPA, ‘‘lead concentrations of 40 parts per

billion or higher poses an imminent and substantial endangerment

to the health of children and pregnant women.’’ Well, if imminent

and substantial endangerment doesn’t mean that you use emergency powers, I don’t know what does.

Mr. EDWARDS. Well, my only concern is what I already expressed, and that is the time line they put forth seems reasonable

but they did not—again stop the damages that are occurring as we

speak. The partial lead service line replacement program, is it beneficial, yes or no? This is an answerable question. If it is not beneficial, if it’s harmful, let’s stop it. And also we’ve got to get at this

issue in new homes and apartments. These people have not been

told anything yet. And if there is a problem, they have to be told.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Well, thank you very much.

Mr. MORAN. Just for a real quick question. There is a professor

at Dartmouth that suggested here that it’s conceiveable that the

problem is not chloramines but it could be industrial grade flouride

that is being used at the aqueduct. Is that possible?

Mr. EDWARDS. We have directly tested that hypothesis in the lab

and proven that flouride as it is dosed at the aqueduct does not

have any significant effect on lead leaching. I didn’t bring those results in because the chloramine results are just so clear.

Mr. MORAN. Thank you.

Chairman TOM DAVIS. Thank you all very much. I want to just

thank the witnesses for being here. You have added greatly to this.

I think you have given us some thought on some other congressional actions that may take place, particularly on some of the

studies that have been suggested in regulatory review. The committee stands adjourned.

[NOTE.—Additional information submitted for the hearing record

is on file with the committee.]

[Whereupon, at 1:30 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

[Additional information submitted for the hearing record follows:]

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