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UCMR Page for Partially-Supplied Communities: 2015
Massachusetts Water Resources Authority
Research for New Regulations
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) periodically requires water systems across the country to conduct monitoring for substances that may be present in drinking water to help understand their national occurrence as part of the process of deciding whether to regulate them. Under the Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments, EPA is required once every five years to develop a list of up to 30 new contaminants that must be monitored by public water systems.
MWRA collected samples during 2013, 2014, and 2015 at locations throughout the communities in our service area which are fully supplied by MWRA. Even with the extremely sensitive test methods used capable of detecting some substances at parts per trillion levels, we expected to find very few of the substances that we were required to test for due to MWRA’s highly protected watershed and reservoirs. Only 5 of the 28 tested for in 2013, 2014, and 2015 were detected, and all were at extremely low levels.
UCMR Results for Partially-Supplied Communities
Nine of the communities which have both local sources and MWRA water were required to do testing on these unregulated substances. We tested for the 21 substances in these communities in 2015, and the results for your town are at the following links. If your town is not listed, then your town was not required to sample.
UCMR Results for Partially-Supplied Communities |
||
| 2015 | ||
| Bedford | Peabody | Wellesley |
| Canton | Wakefield | Winchester |
| Woburn | ||
| 2014 | ||
| Marlborough | Needham | Wilmington |
| Winchester | ||
| If your town is not listed, it is because your town was not required to sample. | ||
Here is the complete list of 21 substances plus 7 hormones:
| Substances (21) | |
|---|---|
| 1,2,3-trichloropropane | strontium |
| bromomethane | total chromium |
| chloromethane | hexavalent chromium |
| bromochloromethane | chlorate |
| chlorodifluoromethane | perfluorooctanesulfonic acid |
| 1,3-butadiene | perfluorooctanoic acid |
| 1,1-dichloroethane | perfluorobutanesulfonic acid |
| 1,4-dioxane | perfluorohexanesulfonic acid |
| vanadium | perfluoroheptanoic acid |
| molybdenum | perfluorononanoic acid |
| cobalt | |
| Hormones (7) | |
|---|---|
| 17-a-Ethynylestradiol | 17-b-Estradiol |
| Estrone | 4-androstene-3,17-dione |
| Estriol | Equilin |
| Testosterone | |
More information on these substances and UCMR3 can be found at at on the US EPA web site.
How will this data be used?
EPA will collect and analyze data for all three years and from systems all across the country to develop an understanding of the occurrence, level and distribution of these substances in drinking water. That data, along with information on potential health effects and water treatment effectiveness will be used by EPA to determine if any new regulations are needed.
Posted June 3, 2016