El Paso’s drinking water has small amounts of lithium. What does that mean?
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Westerhoff was interviewed for a story on risks from lithium in drinking water.
As part of the Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule 5 the USEPA will monitor Lithium concentrations in drinking waters – UCMR 5 will provide new data that will improve the agency’s understanding of the frequency that 29 per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and lithium are found in the nation’s drinking water systems, and at what levels. The monitoring data on PFAS and lithium will help the EPA make determinations about future regulations and other actions to protect public health under SDWA. The data will also ensure science-based decision-making, help the agency better understand whether these contaminants in drinking water disproportionally impact communities with environmental justice concerns, and allow the EPA, states, Tribes, and PWSs to target solutions.
Read why EPA needs lithium occurrence data: https://www.epa.gov/dwucmr/fifth-unregulated-contaminant-monitoring-rule#lithium
A paper from our group recently gives a nice overview of the type of lithium levels the EPA will probably find: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.135458
The El Paso Matters story –
El Paso’s drinking water has small amounts of lithium. What does that mean?
by Diego Mendoza-MoyersJuly 14, 2024
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency earlier this year made it clear: There’s lithium in El Paso’s water supply.
EPA data published this spring identified small amounts of naturally occurring lithium in El Paso’s drinking water, at different El Paso Water-owned facilities and wells in virtually every corner of the city.
The EPA’s figures and numerous studies in recent years show lithium exists in the water supply of not only El Paso, but also hundreds of other communities, mostly in dry areas of the Western United States that rely on groundwater.
Lithium is an alkali metal that’s used for mental health treatments and increasingly for technologies such as electric vehicle batteries. Its presence is largely the result of mineral deposits in places that used to be ancient seabeds.
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