Only seven other states have more contaminants in their drinking water than Nevada, according to an analysis released Tuesday by a Washington, D.C.-based group of environmental advocates.
The nationwide survey by the Environmental Working Group, or EWG, found 100 contaminants in Nevada tap water, including 41 pollutants at levels the group says exceed health-based limits.
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In the Las Vegas Valley, 35 contaminants were found, including six above what the EWG considers healthy limits.
However, none of the contaminants was found in excess of state and federal safe drinking water standards.
"I don't want to say (the water) is not safe because that's not really the right characterization," said EWG Senior Vice President Richard Wiles. "You're in compliance with all the enforceable standards."
Still, the broad spectrum of contaminants found in Nevada and elsewhere is cause for concern, said Wiles, whose organization is pressing federal regulators to tighten drinking water standards, add to the list of regulated contaminants and do more to protect the nation's watersheds.
"Our general view on utilities is they're doing all they can do with limited resources and not-too-clean water coming into the pipe," he said.
In its analysis of reports from water utilities nationwide, EWG found 141 unregulated chemicals and an additional 119 for which the Environmental Protection Agency has set health-based limits. Most common among the chemicals found were water-treatment byproducts, nitrates, chloroform, barium, arsenic and copper.
The research-and-advocacy organization compiled findings from the states that agreed to provide data they collected from 1998 to 2003. That data comes from nearly 40,000 water utilities, serving 231 million people. The utilities were required by federal law to report that data to consumers.
EWG's findings in Nevada are based on data supplied by 255 water utilities and communities, including the Las Vegas Valley Water District and the cities of Henderson, North Las Vegas and Boulder City.
The most common contaminants found in the valley's drinking water were industrial pollutants such as arsenic and heavy metals, naturally occurring substances such as phosphate and uranium, and the byproducts of disinfection.
"Some of these numbers are kind of hefty, but they're all legal," Wiles said.
J.C. Davis, a spokesman for the Southern Nevada Water Authority, the valley's wholesale provider of drinking water, said that in addition to delivering water that exceeds state and federal standards for safety, the authority also treats for some of the pollutants not yet regulated by the EPA.
"When it comes to an environmental group like EWG, I don't know if anything short of zero on everything will be enough to answer their questions," he said. "They live in a philosophical world. They're expectations are unbounded by any operational constraints."
Federal regulators carry a different burden, he said. Before they force utilities to spend billions of dollars on new treatment methods, regulators must demonstrate the adverse health effects of the standards they set. To do that, they also must explain to water suppliers why one part per quadrillion of a certain pollutant is safer than one part per trillion, Davis said.
"One part per quadrillion is like flicking a grain of sand on beach in the South Pacific and then finding it again," he said.
Benjamin Grumbles, who heads EPA's Office of Water, said that "for the chemicals the agency regulates, nearly 100 percent of the community water systems that provide drinking water to the majority of Americans are meeting clean drinking water standards. We also have a process to continuously identify new contaminants for which regulation could reduce risks."
Jane Houlihan, EWG's vice president for research, said the group's findings show that the United States allows millions of people to be exposed to some chemicals for which EPA either has never considered the risks or if it has, has no enforceable limits.
"So in many communities the water that comes out of the tap could be contaminated with scores of chemicals. People shouldn't be alarmed, but they should be concerned. Our system of public health protections isn't working in this case," Houlihan said.
Wiles insists EWG is not out to start a panic in Southern Nevada or anywhere else where the legal standards for drinking water are being met. "But I see this mix of contaminants, and I would not want to put that in my baby's formula bottle. I think this presents a risk I would not want to take," he said.
The top 10 states, listed by EWG in order of the most contaminants in their drinking water, were: California, Wisconsin, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, Texas, New York, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Illinois.
The group listed the biggest water pollution sources as agriculture, industry and urban sprawl.
