Home water filters may leach lead
Copyright 1998 Scripps Howard
June 19, 1998
Home water filters intended to remove chemicals and other impurities may be leaching
lead into glasses of water.
A sampling of 16 under-the-sink filters found that nine contained brass
parts that leached lead at levels above those considered safe under
California's tough anti-toxics law.
Two of the filtration systems -- Omni and Franke -- leached lead into water
at 60 to 71 times the allowable level, said a study by the University of
North Carolina's Environmental Quality Institute.
"The irony is that this product is something that people buy specifically
because it's going to protect them from lead," said Michael Green,
executive director of the Center for Environmental Health, the San
Francisco nonprofit that commissioned the study and released the data
Thursday.
Representatives of Franke, a North Wales, Pa. company, said it couldn't
dispute the results and would immediately conduct its own tests. In the
meantime, the company is recalling its under-the-sink Uniflow water
filtration system.
The filtration systems apparently can contaminate the water if the small
faucets installed at the sink are made of brass, which contains varying
levels of lead that can leach into water, the study found.
Lead has long been documented as a poison that retards development in
children and damages nervous and other systems in adults.
In the sampling of 16 of about 50 brands, researchers found that nine
contributed lead to the water above the daily exposure permitted by
California's Proposition 65, the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Substances
Enforcement Act of 1986.
The filters manufactured by Omni and Franke added lead at levels 71 times
and 60 times, respectively, higher than the state's allowable level, the
study found.
"The product in question will be tested by an independent laboratory in
California to that state's Proposition 65 protocol," said Tom Smith Jr.,
division manager of Franke.
"Until that testing is complete, and the results confirm that Franke's
Uniflow product is in compliance with (the proposition's) limits, Franke is
withdrawing the Uniflow product line from the market. The company will
accept the return of that unit from any concerned consumer and refund the
purchase price."
At Omni in Hammond, Ind., president Jeffrey Ellison said the corporation
"will investigate the test protocol, which is outside the industry
standards, and if there is any valid concern raised by the results, Omni
will do what is necessary to make sure the public is protected."
Both Franke and Omni said their products are certified by the National
Sanitation Foundation, which oversees the filtration industry's quality
standards.
Based on the study's results, the Center for Environmental Health on June
10 filed a lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court against Omni alleging
that its filtration unit violates Prop. 65.
Omni president Ellison said in an interview that "Omni has always obeyed
the rules, and it's extremely unfair to drag a good company's name down to
get what they're after. The Model OT2 already has been replaced by a newer
model, and we're currently a month away from introducing a non-brass faucet."
Representatives for the Center for Environmental Health said they would
also contact the seven other companies that exceeded the state's allowable
lead level in the North Carolina study, asking for a switch to nonleaded
faucets.
The seven are Ametek, Amway, AquaPure, Ecowater, Equinox, QMP and Water
Boss. Ametek, the largest manufacturers of the filtration systems, has
already agreed to switch to lead-free faucets, according to the
environmental group.
In this study, the institute tested the brands in a three-week test similar
to one designed by the National Sanitation Foundation, measuring water
after it stands in the system for 10 minutes, 30 minutes, two hours and 16
hours.
"The lead leaches in very fast. In 10 minutes, you get about 26 percent of
the lead that builds up over 16 hours," said Richard Maas, research
director at the North Carolina institute. "What that tells you is there's
going to be a slug of lead almost every time they are used."
Companies that already use lead-free faucets include Calistoga, Cuno,
General Ecology, Kinetico and W.T.C. Ecomaster, according to the
environmental group.
By JANE KAY, San Francisco Examiner. Distributed by Scripps Howard News
Service.
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