Radionuclides, drinking water standards

Environmental Protection Agency. 1991. National primary drinking water standards for radionuclides, proposed rule, June, 1991. EPA Fact Sheet, Radionuclides in Drinking Water, 570/9-91-700. 

The EPA s proposed drinking water standards for beta and photon emitters are limited to exposure of 4 mRem EDE/year (EDE, effective dose equivalent). Levels of strontium and tritium are determined by this method. The strontium method [15] covers the measurement of total strontium, including °Sr and Sr. Interferences from calcium and other radionuclides are removed by one or more precipitations of the strontium carrier as strontium nitrate. Barium and radium are removed as chromate. The daughter of °Sr is removed by a hydroxide precipitation step, and the separated combined Sr and Sr are counted for beta-particle activity. Tritium is determined by liquid scintillation counting after distillation [16]. 

Ohanian EV. 1989. National primary drinking water regulations for radionuclides. Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments, Regulations and Standards. Lewis Publishers, 45-55... 

EPA protects people and the environment from Sr-90 by establishing standards tor the clean-up of contaminated sites, by setting limits on the amount of Sr-90 (and other radionuclides) that may be released to the air, and by setting limits on the amount of sirontium-90 (and other radionuclides) that may be present in public drinking water. 

As was seen in Section 8.8, under the Safe Drinking Water Act (United States Public Law 93-523, enacted in 1974), EPA is charged with setting MCLs for contaminants. To date, standards have been set for only 66 of these. Table 8.9 contains a list of the chemical contaminants for which EPA has established MCLs and their values [66]. All values are in milhgrams per liter (mg/L). The chemicals are listed by category as disinfectants and DBPs, inorganic chanicals, organic chemicals, and radionuclides. 

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