Chromium VI Water Supply Contamination

Since you guys are the most scientifically minded folks I know, what do you think about this Chromium 6 contamination study? Tallahassee comes in #6 in terms of having Chromium 6 contamination in the water. It causes stomach cancer and was the chemical in the Erin Brockovich movie. Living in an apartment, a reverse osmosis filtration system doesn't seem very practical. Any precautions you can recommend and what level of concern is appropriate about this issue?

http://static.ewg.org/reports/2010/chrome6/html/executive-summary.html

Lee,
I'll take my chances with the water and you can take yours with Allahu Akbar! and we'll see who lives longer...

Lee,
This story is getting an immense amount of press. We need to step back and analyze what the facts really are.

1. This is the first study that was done over a large geographic area.

2. This study was performed and funded by a "Green Group".

3. There has not been any explanation or description of exactly how the samples were drawn and how or which lab did the testing.

4. There is no correlation between how each city sampled got it's water and the test results. Many of the cities listed get their water from mountain sources. Others are from shallow wells and yet others are from deep aquifers.

5. Hexavalent chromium is not just an industrial contaminent, it also occurs naturally.

6. The testing limit apparently was at approximately 1 ppb. Since no one has stated which lab did the testing and exactly what their test threshold limits are and exactly what procedures were used to do these tests, the data could be very skewed. The levels they were testing for could easily have been caused by bad sampling or even contaminated sample bottles.

I am not trying to ignore or gloss over the possibility of the seriousness of the issue but without any data on the sampling used, we cannot mathematically have valid data at 1ppb with one sample. Most of the cities had levels which I wouldn't even worry about but if I lived in Norman Ok., I would want to have a battery of tests done to verify the actual levels.

This article does irritate me from the standpoint that it using a lot of fear tactics and not much real data. It gives me the impression that someone is positioning themselves for a bunch of funding for a problem that might or might not exist. Unless your living next to the backdoor of a plating company that is dumping it's waste into the ground, the worry from the article will in all likelihood shorten your life expectancy more than low level exposure.

Wonder if it is really bad for you? In the quantities in question? Maybe it does more good than harm?

Health Food "experts" recommend chromium to improve metabolism, to lose weight and minimize the effects of type-II diabetes. Are the levels of chromium in drinking water anywhere as large as the dosage in the health food store chromium nostrums?