Everybody wants clean and safe drinking water. Clean Water Action works for strong drinking water protections, for policies that keep pollution out of drinking water sources and for new solutions to community drinking water challenges.

Toxic chemicals used in making everyday products can end up in our drinking water, causing health concerns and requiring expensive treatment that raises the cost to consumers and communities. 

Contaminants of Concern

Perchlorate

Perchlorate is a chemical formely used in rocket fuel and still used in products including fireworks and airbags today. 

Widespread perchlorate contamination and a growing body of scientific evidence of health impacts has led the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to announce that it will set a federal drinking water standard for perchlorate.

Get our factsheet (pdf) to learn more about the sources of perchlorate, the health effects, and how perchlorate is, or isn't, regulated in our drinking water.

Hexavalent Chromium

Hexavalent chromium, also called chromium 6, came to the public's attention with the 2000 release of the movie Erin Brockovich, which focused on the contaminated drinking water of Hinkley, California.

Hexavalent chromium is a heavy metal used in producing pigments, leather tanning, electroplating, metal processing, wood preservation, and in alloys such as stainless steel. It was also used to inhibit corrosion in cooling towers - the use that contaminated Hinkley's water. Drinking water sources can become contaminated by leaks and discharges from industrial facilities and hazardous waste sites.

Despite severe health threats posed by hexavalent chromium, there is no national or state drinking water standard. Instead, it is regulated as "total chromium," which means that drinking water suppliers do not differentiate between the toxic (hexavalent) form and non-toxic chromium. The result is that drinking water supplies can legally contain unsafe levels of hexavalent chromium.