Children's Advisors Urge EPA To Strengthen Cyanotoxin Health Advisories

摘要

EPA's children's health advisors are finalizing a letter recommending changes to the agency's drinking water health advisories on two cyanotoxins and calling for the agency to reconsider decisions that the advisors say reduce children's protection from the toxic water contaminants. The Children's Health Protection Advisory Committee (CHPAC) crafted the letter to Administrator Gina McCarthy after agency staff asked the panel to opine on several questions: whether the advisories, issued last May, adequately protect infants and young children; whether the agency should consider additional routes of exposure or health endpoints relevant to children; and best practices for EPA and states to communicate cyanotoxin risks to the public. In a letter that CHPAC members were slated to finalize after the close of its most recent meeting Nov. 12-13 in Washington, D.C., the advisors thanked EPA for issuing the drinking water advisories. Barbara Morrissey of Washington state's Department of Health, and the incoming CHPAC chairwoman, explained at the meeting that the federal advisories are important tools for states that do not have their own guidance on how to respond to the cyanotoxins, which are produced by harmful algal blooms. If a bloom is discovered, a state or local agency then has very little time to determine whether the level of the particular cyanotoxin in the water is harmful to area residents, she said.