ABSTRACT
At the federal level, the Safe Drinking Water Act authorizes the U.S. EPA as the decision maker to set enforceable drinking water standards, also referred to as Maximum Contaminant Level (MCLs). Individual state environmental agencies may choose to develop their own more stringent drinking water standard or adopt the federal MCL. In general, drinking water standards are derived for contaminants that are found to exist in public water supplies at concentrations that pose a likely public health concern. Furthermore, an effective treatment method to reduce the contaminant's concentration must exist in order for the U.S. EPA or a state to set a drinking water standard. For perchlorate, several scientific issues have affected the development of drinking water standards, including the availability of analytical methods to truly determine if perchlorate is present, the determination of what constitutes a level of significant risk, the determination of how prevalent perchlorate exists in both drinking water and in other environmental media, and the existence of suitable treatment options.
