Lead Contamination Control Act

EPA regulations also limit lead in drinking water to 0.015 milligrams per liter (mg/L). The 1988 Lead Contamination Control Act requires the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), EPA, and the states to recall or repair water coolers containing lead. This law also requires new coolers to be lead-free. In addition, drinking water in schools must be tested for lead, and the sources of lead in this water must be removed. 

U S. Congress. 1988a. House suspended rules and passed HR 4939, Lead Contamination Control Act of 1988 Text of HR4939 and discussion. Congressional Record 100-140 H9645-H9648. 

In 1971, the Lead-Based Paint Poisoning Prevention Act prohibited federally owned or assisted residential properties from being painted with lead-based paints. That law also funded screening, treatment, and abatement efforts in 25 states. Such programs were again funded through the Lead Contamination Control Act of 1988. 

Media contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are regulated by the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) signed into law in 1976. The TSCA also provides standards for asbestos, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), and lead, and enables the EPA to track a total of 75,000 industrial chemicals currently produced or imported into the USA. 

In wines, traces of iron, which are picked up, perhaps, from processing and/or storage, or copper, which are picked up from mildew sprays, such as Bordeaux mixture, affect the oxidative stability of wines by acting as the redox shuttles as they transfer between oxidation states. Winemakers discovered that adding ferricyanide to wine, in a process known as blue fining, precipitates copper and iron and thereby reduces their concentrations below 1 ppm, which is considered to be acceptable. Critical control of ferricyanide addition is necessary, as cyanide is also a contaminant that must be measured. Where vineyards have replaced cherry and apple orchards, low concentrations of arsenic have started to appear but they are present at very low concentrations in high quality wines. The arsenic appears from arsenical compounds such as lead and calcium arsenates that were used for many decades as pesticides on apples and cherry orchards. 

The metals have the tendency to form compounds of low solubility with the major divalent cations (Pb, Cd being found in natural water. Hydroxide, carbonate, sulfide, and, more rarely, sulfate may act as solubility controls in precipitating metal ions from water. A significant fraction of lead and, to a greater extent, cadmium carried by river water is expected to be in an undissolved form. This can consist of colloidal particles or larger undissolved particles of lead carbonate, lead oxide, lead hydroxide, or other lead compounds incorporated in other components of surface particulate matter from runoff. The ratio of lead in suspended solids to lead in dissolved form has been found to vary from 4 1 in rural streams to 27 1 in urban streams. The US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) has reported Maximum Contaminant Levels in water that are permissible to be 0.005 m L for cadmium and 0.015 mg/L of lead. ... 

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