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Chlorate Challenges for Water Systems
Author(s) -
Alfredo Katherine,
Stanford Ben,
Roberson J. Alan,
Eaton Andrew
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal ‐ american water works association
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.466
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1551-8833
pISSN - 0003-150X
DOI - 10.5942/jawwa.2015.107.0036
Subject(s) - chlorate , chloramination , maximum contaminant level , safe drinking water act , environmental science , environmental regulation , environmental planning , agency (philosophy) , regulatory agency , variety (cybernetics) , groundwater , environmental protection , business , water quality , computer science , chloramine , chemistry , chlorine , engineering , political science , ecology , biology , public administration , philosophy , inorganic chemistry , epistemology , geotechnical engineering , organic chemistry , artificial intelligence
Chlorate, currently included in the US Environmental Protection Agency's monitoring of unregulated contaminants and on the contaminant candidate list, could potentially receive a regulatory determination in the near future. This article, using available literature along with past and current monitoring data, assesses the presence of chlorate in drinking water and the potential impact of its regulation. The article gives specific attention to the variety of threshold concentrations that appear most often in the literature—210, 700, and 840 μg/L—and evaluates the effect a regulatory requirement at each of these values would have on utilities. The research indicated that potential regulatory thresholds > 700 μg/L would be violated by only < 10% of utilities. The effects of regional conditions and type of disinfection used depend greatly on the adopted thresholds. Utilities in the southern region of the United States and those using chloramination are most at risk if a low maximum contaminant level is adopted.