There are people in 10 counties who are getting sick at those levels. The standards would have protected tens of thousands of people who use 450 Michigan wells that would have fallen out of compliance, the EPA acknowledged. The Bush administration still plans to issue new standards, but EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman did not say when. Arsenic naturally occurs in groundwater extending from near Lansing to the north and through Oakland County and the state's Thumb area to the east. It can cause lethargy, skin problems, digestion problems and headaches in low concentrations.
High levels can cause cancer.
The tougher standards, adopted in January, were to take effect in five years for operators of wells that serve multiple users, including townships, mobile home parks, schools and campgrounds. Dr. Michael Harbut, chief of environmental medicine at Providence Hospital in Southfield who has studied low-level arsenic poisoning for years, called the reversal a disgrace. The appropriate threshold might be neither 10 nor 50 parts per billion, suggested Gerald Poisson, deputy county executive in Oakland County, where arsenic is a problem in some rural communities. I didn't think it was prudent to go down to 10. The decision was praised, however, by mining industry officials in the country's southwest, where the poison can enter water supplies as a byproduct of mining copper and other metals.