Readit NewsInstead, EPA has been pursing less formal measures to reduce perchlorate in the specific drinking water systems where it has been found: https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-notes-successes-reducin...
As one of “those people” who thinks it’s harmful to have a national regulation where a more local one will do, I don’t see the problem with this. There are many kinds of pollution that are national in nature, but drinking water is actually fairly localized. There is no evidence perchlorate pollution migrates great distances, so why do we need an nationwide regulation?
It should be noted that drinking water systems are almost entirely run by public entities, and already face massive funding challenges. When the EPA sets maximum allowable levels of a pollutant, it triggers a huge bureaucratic framework that everyone must follow. Is it unreasonable to decide that we don’t need to force everyone to go that far for a chemical that appears in possibly concerning levels in less than 1% of systems?
This is an excellent example of how even the slightest push back on the notion that the federal government should regulate anything and everything is treated by the media as a crisis of epic proportions. You didn’t know what perchlorate was before this article, and it doesn’t affect 99% of water systems out there, but the EPA declining to create nationwide monitoring and enforcement framework for the chemical is somehow “madness.”
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RtnQ2GqBeg
[2]: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/killing-of-george-fl...
[3]: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2020/06/03/457251670...
That actually sounds like a pretty good idea, honestly.
No, they should get proper training and be held to professional standards.