Sir, – The news that drinking water being supplied to over 600,000 Irish citizens contains carcinogenic chemicals and breaches standards set by the World Health Organisation (Frank McDonald, Home News, August 26th) is shocking.
However, the response by the Environmental Protection Agency, our watchdog concerning environmental protection, to the effect that “health risks from such sources are much less than the risk from consuming water that has not been disinfected”, is appalling.
It’s difficult to know what to deduce from this response. Is the EPA being deliberately disingenuous and is it attempting to, forgive the pun, muddy the waters? Let’s be clear about this. We are not talking about some unpleasant impurities causing transitory upsets.
We are dealing with a situation where the chlorination process creates these carcinogenic trihalomethanes (THMs) if the water contains certain organic matter, such as peat byproducts.
The EPA’s response to the issue raised by Friends of the Irish Environment, seems to be that it will certainly research the matter but the public shouldn’t worry too much as it’d be even worse if the authorities didn’t chlorinate.
The fact that a “watchdog” should respond in this way to a public health hazard is worrying. This needs, at the very least, urgent clarification. – Yours, etc,