WASHINGTON, Apr 19 (UPI) -- Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christie Whitman called Wednesday for a study of a three to 20 parts per billion standard for arsenic in drinking water as a step forward to lowering the current 50 parts per billion standard -- a move criticized by environmental groups as opening the door to shifting the allowable level upward from the 10 parts per billion standard attempted by the Clinton administration.

Whitman stated that she is "moving forward to put in place a protective standard to dramatically deduce levels of arsenic in drinking water". In a prepared statement she said "the new standard, once established, will take place at the same time that EPA's previous proposal was scheduled to go into place -- 2006."

"I have said consistently that we will obtain the necessary scientific review to ensure a standard that fully protects the health of all Americans, and that we will establish that standard in a timely manner."

Whitman also announced plans to convene the National Drinking Water Advisory Council to review economic costs sure to result from lowering acceptable levels of arsenic.

"Many smaller water systems and the communities they serve may have to absorb additional costs to meet the new standard, " Whitman said. "We want to make sure those costs are fair and fully justified. A new standard will not be fully protective of the health of Americans unless we make the proper plans now to ensure that all drinking water systems will be able to meet it," she added.

Several environmental watchdog groups, including the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council immediately attacked the statement. Both groups say the move delays the start of the 10 parts per billion standard that was ready to go into effect and opens the door to perhaps setting a less strict level for arsenic.

Whitman will be asking the National Academy of Sciences to review, on an expedited basis, a range of three to 20 parts per billion. The last minute Clinton-era recommendation of 10 parts per billion had been put on hold by the new Administration for review. Since the 1940's the U.S. national standard has been 50 parts per billion.

The Sierra Club attacked the decision to review the Clinton recommendation of 10 parts per billion.

"By ignoring decades of study and considering doubling the amount of arsenic allowed in our water, President Bush is making an unsafe, irresponsible decision that pleases the mining industry at our families' expense," said Carl Pope, the Sierra Club's Executive Director.

"If President Bush hadn't caved to the mining industry, we would be on the road to protecting Americans at the standard recommended by the U.S. Public Health Service in 1962. But instead, President Bush's proposal could double Americans' cancer risk from arsenic in their drinking water." In 1993, the World Health Organization recommended 10 parts per billion as a "provisional guideline," for acceptable levels in drinking water.

In an extensive 1999 review of arsenic in drinking water the National Academy of Sciences recommended that the U.S. drinking water standard be lowered to less 50 parts per billion, but did not recommend any specific level. The National Academy of Sciences will be asked by the EPA to review new studies of arsenic in drinking water that were completed after the 1999 comment period.

In its recommendations of 1999 the National Academy noted that the exact effect of arsenic on causing disease at low doses was not completely clear. "Additional epidemiological evaluations are needed to characterize the dose-response relationship for arsenic-associated cancer and noncancer end points, especially at low doses. Such studies are of critical importance for improving the scientific validity of risk assessment," the Academy wrote.

Eric Olson, senior attorney at Natural Resources Defense Council, who was involved in a lawsuit to get EPA to issue a new arsenic standard, accused the Bush Administration of delaying tactics.

Olson said that the EPA claim that there would be no delay in implementation of the standard was a false claim, and that in fact there would be at least a one-year delay. Additionally, there would be a delay in implementing a mandatory notification of water customers by water companies who have more than five parts per billion in their water supply, Olson told UPI.

Normally, the EPA will allow contamination only at levels that would cause one additional case of cancer per 10,000 people exposed. However, the National Academy found that at 50 parts per billion, there was a chance of one cancer case per 100 people exposed.

The usual EPA assumption is that if one person in 100 is at risk at 50 parts per billion that there would then be one case per 500 people exposed at 10 parts per billion. This is still 20 times higher than the normal acceptable level. To achieve the normal standard of one case per 10,000 caused by arsenic in the drinking water, levels of arsenic would need to 0.5 parts per billion.

If the EPA were going to go lower than 10 parts per billion there would be no need to delay, Olson told UPI. "If that were truly where they were headed, they did not have to suspend the rule to go lower. They could have let this rule (10 parts per billion) go into effect and the law allows them to lower the standard at any point.

What that tells us is that is a pretty clear signal that they are thinking of going with a higher (than 10 parts per billion) standard." The EPA is only asking that the National Academy review the three to 20 parts per billion standard. The EPA is not asking for a recommendation, Olson added.

Olson also criticized Whitman's plans to convene the National Drinking Water Advisory Council to review economic costs sure to result from lowering acceptable levels of arsenic. Calling it a "kangaroo court," Olson said that it was composed mainly of water industry representatives Ten months ago, when Whitman was governor of New Jersey, the N.J. Department of Environmental Protection recommended that drinking water have no more than five parts of arsenic per billion parts of water.

(Reported by Joe Grossman in Santa Cruz, Calif.)

Copyright 2001 by United Press International.