August 02, 2018
By:
Walter G. Wright
Category:
Arkansas Environmental, Energy, and Water Law
Arkansas Environmental, Energy, and Water Law
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The United States Geological Survey (“USGS”) updated in May its health-based screening levels (“HBSLs”).
USGS describes HBSLs as non-enforceable water-quality benchmarks.
USGS states that these water-quality benchmarks can be used to:
- Supplement United States Environmental Protection Agency Maximum Contaminant Levels and Human Health Benchmarks for Pesticides
- Determine whether contaminants found in surface-water or groundwater sources of drinking water may indicate a potential human-health concern
- Help prioritize monitoring efforts
USGS states that the HBSLs were updated in May in order to:
- Update toxicity information in benchmarks, when possible, for the 808 contaminants included in the online searchable HBSL database, including 31 new contaminants added since the last HBSL update in 2014
- Update all HBSLs to be consistent with new EPA methods and exposure assumptions
- Replace HBSLs for four contaminants that have new EPA Chronic Noncancer or Carcinogenic HHBPs
A link to the HBSLs can be found here.
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