Research

Drinking water for more than 20 million Americans is contaminated with a toxic legacy of the Cold War: Perchlorate interferes with normal thyroid function, may cause cancer and persists indefinitely...

Secret tests conducted in 1984 by the DuPont chemical company found a Teflon-related contaminant (C8) in the tap water of the Little Hocking Water Association in Ohio, just across the river from the...

Chlorinating tap water is a critical public health measure that saves thousands of lives each year by reducing the incidence of waterborne disease. But chlorination is no substitute for cleaning up...

On January 12, 2001, government health officials issued new advisories warning women to limit fish consumption during pregnancy to avoid exposing their unborn children to unsafe levels of...

California regulators have failed to order cleanup or take other legally binding enforcement action on more than 90 percent of the thousands of underground fuel storage tanks known to be leaking toxic...

Laboratory tests of apples grown in Washington State and purchased in Seattle supermarkets over the past five months found widespread insecticide contamination. Eight percent of apple samples had...

Everyone knows that women eat – and often crave – different foods when they're pregnant. But an Environmental Working Group (EWG) analysis of government data shows that some of the things they eat...

At the heart of the nation's Clean Water Act is a system of permits that determines how much pollution every factory, machine shop, electric utility, sewage treatment plant or other polluter can dump...

Half of major industrial water polluters in California are operating with expired pollution permits, according to an analysis of clean water enforcement data by Environmental Working Group (EWG) and...

An analysis of federal enforcement records shows that large industrial polluters in Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania are routinely breaking the law -- and getting away with it. Big water polluters are...

Across Ohio, small and large businesses have polluted public drinking water supplies with impunity. An Environmental Working Group analysis of Ohio EPA data and an internal, unpublished report from...

n a little-noticed decision earlier this year, the EPA's top scientific committee on children's health declared that protections against the toxic weed killer atrazine in food and water should not be...

Ten years after the American public demanded that the EPA ban the cancer-causing pesticide Alar, children are no better protected from pesticides in the nation's food supply. Multiple pesticides known...

The federal government and the states have adopted a high- cost, high-risk strategy in their drinking water programs, where consumers pay water suppliers to try to make polluted water drinkable. In...

Under existing federal pollution control laws, the American people are kept in the dark about the vast majority of toxic pollution spewed into the environment by U.S. industry. Even the most...

More than 45 million Americans in thousands of communities were served drinking water during 1994-1995 that was polluted with fecal matter, parasites, disease causing microbes, radiation, pesticides...

EWG's response to a pesticide industry-funded 'critique' of their report Tap Water Blues, which documented public health risks from drinking water contaminated with herbicides.

To determine the extent of pesticide contamination of baby food, we tested eight foods (applesauce, garden vegetables or pea and carrot blend, green beans, peaches, pears, plums, squash and sweet...

In 1993-94 over 53 million Americans drank water that did not meet Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) health or biological treatment standards or guidelines. In the Drink documents, on a community-by...

Wetlands, and federal efforts to protect them, have become the source of considerable controversy in recent years. Many opponents of the current wetlands regulatory system have made exaggerated claims...

Most people believe that the produce they buy meets pesticide safety standards. But as this study shows, fruits and vegetables with illegal pesticides end up on grocery shelves, in kitchens, and in...

Read EWG researchers' top tips to learn how to stay hydrated while reducing your exposures to common drinking water pollutants. Download as PDF