Arsenic Cleanup

There is no known benefit to human health from arsenic. Arsenic in water is tasteless, odorless and colorless. Excess and preventable chronic disease and death led the EPA in 2006 to reduce the acceptable public water level of arsenic from 50 to 10 parts per billion. Excess exposure to arsenic increases the risk for hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and an increased risk of lung, bladder, skin liver and kidney cancers. The International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified arsenic as a Group I human carcinogen. The previous standard of 50 parts per billion gave over a 70 year lifetime a 1 in 100 chance of developing a solid tumor just on the basis of drinking water which is the risk equivalent of being killed in a motor accident. Removing arsenic from the water supply is therefore important. Higher levels of arsenic tend to be found in ground water sources than in surface water such as lakes and rivers. Adsorption technologies provide the easiest, most efficient and most cost efficient means of removing arsenic from the water supply. Activated alumina has become the adsorption method of choice. Only DAI has developed the means to remove both asenite and arsenate compounds in a single adsorptive process.

Arsenic – Impact of Changes in EPA Enforced Environmental Legislation | Alumina and the Removal of Arsenic