Journal of Chemistry

Volume 2013 (2013), Article ID 321609, 7 pages

http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/321609

Research Article

The New Standard for Drinking Water

V. Goncharuk

A.V. Dumansky Institute of Colloid Chemistry and Chemistry of Water, National Academy of Sciences, 42 Acad. Vernadskoho Boulevard, Kiev 03680, Ukraine

Received 3 July 2013; Accepted 13 September 2013

Academic Editor: Oleksandr A. Loboda

Copyright © 2013 V. Goncharuk. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract.

The main positions of the new standard on drinking water are provided. The inconsistency of existing approaches to the assessment including methodology of drinking water quality was substantiated. The main advantage of the new standard is the inclusion of integral methods of water quality, universal for all kinds and types of toxic compounds, irrespective of their origin and nature of the action.

1. Introduction

Drinking water, that is, the water whose organoleptic, physicochemical, and biological properties meet human biological needs and has neither color nor smell, should have a taste determined by the presence of physiologically necessary salts of calcium, magnesium, sodium, and potassium in corresponding concentrations without which metabolism in the human organism is impossible.

What optimal parameters should the water possess to be completely safe from the biological and physiological points of view?

For the first time in the world in 1853, in Brussels, at the International Congress of Hygienists, an attempt was made to set a standard for drinking water, which would include only nine controllable components. Among them there were vitally important substances such as magnesium, calcium, total mineralization (determined mainly by the presence of salts of sodium and potassium), and the content of oxygen in the water, sulfates, chlorides, nitrates, and ammonium. However, the age of industrialization, a fast development of the agroindustrial complex and the emergence of megapolises with compact settlement of people, whose number dramatically increased, started on the planet. A further development of civilization became impossible without the creation of civilized systems of water supply and a complex of water disposal facilities. In connection with the worsening of the ecological state of surface and underground sources the issue of water quality control, used by people for drinking purposes, became more acute. As a result of a low quality of drinking water real threats to the sanitary-epidemiological situation in various regions of the planet cropped out. And only early in the 20th century the first standard for drinking water appear in the USA. After almost a century after adoption in Brussels of the first recommendation for drinking water quality a document of the World Health Organization (WHO) was published, which today, at the beginning of the 21st century, proposes to bring under regulation 95 indices of which 26 are toxic substances, whose presence in drinking water is undesirable. The US standard regulates 102 indexes in drinking water, where complete absence is required for as many as 35 toxic indexes.

A high level of technogenic load on water bodies, the use of imperfect technologies of water conditioning, and secondary contamination of the water in distribution networks result in the ingress to the drinking water of a substantial amount of inorganic and organic pollutants whose joint effect on the human organism causes the effect of synergism known in chemistry and biology, posing real threat to human health. In the situation that has taken shape there is in principle no possibility to provide the population of any country or continent with quality and safe for human health drinking water [1–4].

An increase of the quality of the water being controlled by a national standard in various countries of the world does not solve the issue of obtaining safe drinking water at the centralized water conditioning stations either. All this calls for the ever more expensive equipment and complication of technological processes.

Against the background of such catastrophic changes in the quality of the environment the monitoring of several tens of substances in drinking water causes, to say the least, a surprise. A surprise is also caused by a lack of understanding of the fact that in pursuit of “technical progress,” even increasing the amount of controllable components in drinking water several times as much, one cannot give any guarantees that it is in fact drinking water and safe for human health. Even the use of underground water at present does not always guarantee the quality of the drinking water obtained, especially if one takes into account the fact that an absolute majority of organic matter in the environment under the effect of various physicochemical and ecological factors undergoes biotransformation into unknown and, most often, into unpredictable compounds. According to the aforementioned synergism the effects of two or more compounds of toxic nature of each individually taken substance increase in that case if this substance initially is not toxic. Hence the senselessness of using classic approaches to the assessment of drinking waters follows. The notion itself of “normalizing maximum allowable concentrations in drinking water of different toxicants” purportedly safe for human health is, as a matter of fact, immoral.

The proposed new standard include fundamentally new, very effective integrated methods of monitoring water quality, which are designed for revealing acute toxicity at the level of organism and finding chronic toxicity at the cellular level using cytogenetic methods on biological objects for this purpose. These methods are universal for all types and kinds of toxic compounds irrespective of their origin and the nature of their effect.

The new Standard for Drinking Water includes three different regulatory documents [5]:

(i) GOST (state all-union standard) for tap water (conditionally drinking); (ii) GOST for drinking water of increased quality (the water absolutely safe for human health);(iii) GOST for bottled water.

A new concept of providing the population with quality drinking water along with the general provisions and regulation requirements of the quality of drinking water accepted in the European Union, the WHO, and the Codex Alimentarius [6–10] has been taken into account in the development of the standard [11–15].

Such a concept provides for the following. Water safety in terms of toxicological and microbiological indices is prepared at waterworks. This water is suitable for household or domestic use and is fed to the distribution networks. In this case it is obtained mainly from the water of surface sources.

High-quality drinking water in the amount sufficient for satisfying human physiological needs is prepared at the consumption site in the plant of water pump rooms. It is then not fed to the distribution network but is supplied to the consumer by other methods (by gravitation flow or bottling). Such drinking water is obtained mainly from underground water protected against anthropogenic influence or from tap water.

The fundamental feature of the new standard is the regulatory justification of a new conceptual approach to water supply of population with quality drinking water. It provides economic water supply by utilizing the differentiating consumption of drinking water depending on physiological, sanitary-hygienic, and economic needs of human over one 24-hour period in a specific populated area. The necessity of such an approach is determined by the following objective reasons: unjustified use of quality drinking water for sanitary-hygienic needs; unsatisfactory state of transportation and distribution networks of the system of centralized drinking water supply; discrepancy of the technology of drinking water treatment in centralized systems of drinking water supply to the water quality in a water source; unjustified high economic costs for reconstruction and modernization of the systems of centralized drinking water supply for the preparation of high-quality drinking water in a volume substantially exceeding physiological and sanitary-hygienic human needs.

The second fundamental distinction of the new standard is the fact that the main accent was made on new approaches to the assessment of the quality of drinking water in terms of integral indexes of water toxicity, which is set by the methods of biotesting according to standardized techniques. This makes it possible to obtain objective information on the quality of drinking water before the conduction of a detailed analysis by all indices. Such an analysis is expedient in the case of finding toxicity and the necessity of establishing cause of its emergence.

The third fundamental distinction of the new standard is the requirement of complete absence of all toxic chemical and biological pollutants in drinking water designed for human consumption.

The employment of the methods of assessment of the drinking water quality by the integral indexes makes it possible within short terms and at the lowest economic costs to assess the suitability of drinking water for human consumption.

Unlike the methods of chemical analysis adopted today in the world (more than 100 indexes of water quality), the employment of the integrated methods of biotesting makes it possible to substantially (~ by 3-4 times) reduce the amount of controlled indexes.

It is a well-known fact that in the modern period in all countries of the world units, devices of various powers, and miniplants for add-on treatment of drinking water from various sources of water supply were used on a wide scale including from drinking water of centralized water supply and the center of realization or the pouring of tertiary treated drinking water to the containers of the consumers. An indispensable condition of achieving all regulatory indexes of drinking water safety is the setting of certain requirements of drinking water of both centralized and uncentralized systems of water supply.

By microbiological indexes drinking water should conform to the requirements given in Table 1.

Table 1: Microbiological indicators of drinking water quality.

Indicator
Measurement units
Norm, not more than

Water of systems of centralized drinking water supply
Water of uncentralized drinking water supply additionally purified (unbottled, bottled)

Number of bacteria in 1 cm³ of water under study (TMN) at 37°C
CFU/cm³

Number of bacteria in 1 cm³ of water under study (TMN) at 22°C
CFU/cm³

Number of bacteria of the colibacillus group (coliform microorganisms) in 1 dm³ of water under study (BCG index)
CFU/dm³

Number of thermostable colibacillus (fecal coliform—FC index) in 100 cm³ of water under study
CFU/100 cm³

Number of pathogenic microorganisms in 1 dm³ of water under study
CFU/dm³

Number of coliphages in 1 dm³ of water under study
PFU/dm³
“ ”
“ ”

Spores of sulfate-reducing clostridia
Presence (amount)/20 cm³

Blue pus bacillus (Pseudomonas aeruginosa)
CFU/dm³
Not determined
Absence

An excess of the norm shall not be allowed for 95% of water sample in the water supply network that is under investigation during the year.

An excess of the norm shall not be allowed for 98% of water samples in the water supply network that is under investigation during the year. In the event the BCG index is exceeded at the stage of colony identification investigations shall be carried out for the presence of fecal coliforms.

In the event of the presence of coliform bacteria or coliphages in a water sample their amount shall be immediately determined in repeatedly taken water samples. If in these samples generally coliform bacteria are found in the amount of >2/100³ and (or) thermostable coliform bacteria and (or) coliphages, pathogenic bacteria of the colibacillus group and (or) enteroviruses shall be determined. The investigation of drinking water for the presence of pathogenic bacteria of the colibacillus group and enteroviruses shall also be carried out following the decision of the organs of sanitary supervision in the event of the emergence of the epidemic situation.

The control shall be exercised at the outlet from the drinking water conditioning station in the case of using surface sources of water supply or underground ones, which have the hydraulic connection with the surface water body; during the transition period annually the index of the spores of sulfate-reducing clostridia with the norm “absence/20 cm³” shall be controlled.

By mycological indexes (micromycetes) drinking water should be in line with the norm given in Table 2.

Table 2: Mycological indicators of drinking water quality.

Indicator
Measurement units
Norm

Water of systems of centralized drinking water supply
Water of uncentralized drinking water supply additionally purified (unbottled, bottled)

Micromycetes
CFU/100 cm³
Absence
Absence*

Aspergillus fumigatus, Aspergillus niger, and Penicillium expansum must not be present at all.

Toxicity of drinking water of uncentralized water supply is an integral (express) quality index of drinking water in the case of suspicion of contamination of a water source or a distribution network with toxic compounds. The list of indices, test objects, and norms for determination of toxicity obtained from the results of biotesting are given in Table 3.

Table 3: Toxicity level of drinking water.

Indicator
Measurement units
Norm

Water of systems of centralized drinking water supply
Water of uncentralized drinking water supply additionally purified (unbottled, bottled)

Chronic toxicity on Ceriodaphnia affinis
Number of dead individuals and (or) a decrease of the number of newly born individuals in an experiment compared with the reference during 7 ± 1 days
Not determined
Absence of chronic toxicity

Genotoxicity on Drosophila melanogaster Mg
Rate of occurrence of dominant lethal mutations in an experiment compared with the reference during 72 h
Ditto
Genotoxicity absent

Toxicity on Tetrahymena pyriformis
A reduction of the increment coefficient of the number of infusorians in an experiment compared with the reference during the time set—24 hours (a short-term biotesting) or 96% (a long-term biotesting)
“ ”
Toxicity absent

Toxicity on Vibrio fischeri
Reduction of the level of luminescence of bacteria in an experiment compared with the reference over 30 min
“ ”
Toxicity absent

Genotoxicity on Salmonella typhimurium
A deviation of the total mutagenic activity of umuC-gene of bacteria Salmonella typhimurium in an experiment compared with a reference over 4 hours
“ ”
Genotoxicity absent

Radiation safety of drinking water shall be determined by the next acceptable levels: total volumetric activity of α-radiators (Σα-activity) not exceeding 0.1 Bq/dm³ and total volumetric activity of β-radiators (Σβ-activity)—1.0 Bq/dm³.

By organoleptic and chemical quality indexes, which affect organoleptic properties, drinking water should correspond to norms given in Tables 4 and 5.

Table 4: Organoleptic indicators of drinking water quality.

Indicator
Measurement units
Norm, not more than

Water of systems of centralized drinking water supply
Water of uncentralized drinking water supply additionally purified (unbottled, bottled)

Organoleptic indicators of quality

Smell at 20°C
Point
2
0

Smell during heating to 60°C
Point
2
1

Smell and taste
Point
2
0

Color
Deg
20
5

Turbidity
NUT
2.5
0.5

Table 5: Chemical indicators of quality, which affect the organoleptic properties of drinking water.

Indicator
Measurement units
Norm, not more than

Water of systems of centralized drinking water supply
Water of uncentralized drinking water supply additionally purified (unbottled, bottled)

Inorganic components

Hydrogen index (pH)
pH unit
6.5–8.5
6.5–8.5

Dry residue (total mineralization) optimal content
mg/dm³
1000 (1500)*
1000

100–400

Total hardness, optimal value
mmol/dm³
7 (10)*
7

1.5–4.0

Total alkalinity, optimal value
mmol/dm³
6.5
6.5

0.5–5.0

Sulfates
mg/dm³
250 (500)*
150

Chlorides
mg/dm³
250 (350)*
150

Total iron (Fe)
mg/dm³
0.2
Absence

Manganese (Mn)
mg/dm³
0.05
Ditto

Copper (Cu)
mg/dm³
1.0
“ ”

Zinc (Zn)
mg/dm³
5.0
“ ”

Calcium (Ca), optimal value
mg/dm³
100
100

20–60

Magnesium (Mg), optimal value
mg/dm³
30
30

6.0–15

Sodium (Na), optimal value
mg/dm³
200
200

20

Potassium (K), optimal value
mg/dm³
20
20

2.0–20

Organic components

Methyl-tert-butyl ether
mg/dm³
0.015
Absence

Oil products
mg/dm³
0.05
Ditto

Chlorophenols
mg/dm³
0.0003
“ ”

The value in the brackets may be established following the ruling by the Chief State Sanitary Physician in the corresponding area for the specific system of the drinking water supply based on the evaluation of the sanitary-epidemiological state in a town and the technology of drinking water treatment used in a case, when other sources of drinking water supply are inaccessible.

According to toxicological indices of harmlessness of the chemical composition drinking water should be in line with norms given in Table 6 and the EC directives [6].

Table 6: Toxicological indicators of the harmlessness of drinking water chemical composition.

Indicator
Measurement units
Norm, not more than

Water of systems of centralized drinking water supply
Water of uncentralized drinking water additionally purified (unbottled, bottled)

Inorganic components

Aluminum (Al)
mg/dm³
0.2 (0.5)2*
Absence

Ammonia (by )
mg/dm³
0.5 (1.5)2*
Ditto

Barium (Ba)
mg/dm³
0.1
0.1

Beryllium (Be)
mg/dm³
0.0002
Absence

Boron (B)
mg/dm³
0.5
Ditto

Cadmium (Cd)
mg/dm³
0.001
“ ”

Arsenic (As)
mg/dm³
0.01
“ ”

Nickel (Ni)
mg/dm³
0.1
“ ”

Nitrates (by )
mg/dm³
45
5

Nitrites (by )
mg/dm³
0.1
0.02

Perchlorates ()
mg/dm³
0.01
Absence

Mercury (Hg)
mg/dm³
0.0005
Ditto

Leas (Pb)
mg/dm³
0.01
“ ”

Selenium (Se)
mg/dm³
0.01
“ ”

Strontium (Sr)
mg/dm³
7
2

Stibium (Sb)
mg/dm³
0.005
Absence

Thallium (T1)
mg/dm³
0.0001
Ditto

Fluorides (F⁻) for climatic region:
mg/dm³

    II

1.5
1.5

    III

1.2
1.2

    IV

0.7
0.7

Total chromium (CCr)
mg/dm³
0.05
Absence

Cyanides (CN⁻), in particular cyanogen chloride
mg/dm³
0.05
Ditto

Organic components

Benz(a)pyrene
mg/dm³
0.00001
Absence

Benzol
mg/dm³
0.001
Ditto

Pesticides (sum)
mg/dm³
0.0005
“ ”

Synthetic anionoactive surface-active substances (ASAS)
mg/dm³
0.1
“ ”

Trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene (sum)
mg/dm³
0.01
“ ”

Tetrachloride carbon
mg/dm³
0.002
“ ”

Integral indicators

Permanganate oxidizability
mg O/dm³
2
0.75

Total organic carbon
mg C/dm³
4
1.5

When in drinking water several chemical substances are detected, which refer to the 1st and 2nd classes of safety, and have sanitary-toxicological indicators of hazard, the sum of relationships of concentrations of every one of them determined in water to the standard should not exceed 1.

The value in brackets may be set only by the ruling of the Chief State Sanitary Physician in the corresponding area for the specific system of drinking water supply based on the evaluation of the sanitary-epidemiological state in a town and the technology of drinking water treatment used with the account of the specific situation.

Pesticides (sum): organic insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, nematicides, acaricides, algicides, bactericides, virucides, rodenticides, slimicides, bound products (in particular growth regulators), and then metabolites and degradation products. The program of control involves only these pesticides, which, most likely, may be contained in this water.

For the water supply system, which uses reagent water treatment methods prior to its delivery to the distribution network, during pouring out, transportation, and storage for a set time of suitability and in conducting research the indexes given in Table 7 are additionally taken into account. The content of substances that are formed and enter the drinking water during its treatment should not exceed the norms given in Table 7.

Table 7: Substances formed and getting into drinking water during water conditioning.

Indicator
Measurement units
Norm, not more than

Water of systems of centralized drinking water supply
Water of uncentralized drinking water supply additionally purified (unbottled, bottled)

mg/dm³
0.001
Absence

Bromates
mg/dm³
0.1
Ditto

Residual chlorine dioxide
mg/dm³
0.2–0.8
“ ”

Residual ozone, within
mg/dm³
0.1–0.3
“ ”

Residual polyphosphates ()
mg/dm³
3.5
“ ”

Trihalogenmethanes: chloroform, bromoform, dibromochloromethane, bromodichloromethane (total)
mg/dm³
0.1
“ ”

Formaldehyde
mg/dm³
0.05
“ ”

Residual free chlorine, within
mg/dm³
0.3–0.5
“ ”

Residual bound chlorine, within
mg/dm³
0.8–1.2
“ ”

Chlorate ion
mg/dm³
0.7
“ ”

Chlorite ion
mg/dm³
0.7
“ ”

Chloroform
mg/dm³
0.06
“ ”

Dibromochloromethane
mg/dm³
0.03
“ ”

The program of control involves specific indicators with the account of the technology of water conditioning from the cited list.

The program of control involves specific indicators of using respective reagents and calculating them based on the analysis of the content of the monomer in the commodity flocculant. The reagent doses and the level of the monomer should correspond to the following requirements: at the polyacrylamide dose 1 mg/dm³ the content of acrylamide in it should not exceed 0.05%.

Reagents, introduced as preservatives for drinking water, shall be in accordance with Table 8. Other substances and methods for preservation of add-on purified bottled water from a noncentralized drinking water supply avoid the introduction of carbon dioxide and silver ions.

Table 8: Reagents permitted as preservatives for drinking water.

Preservatives
Measurement units
Permitted mass fraction of a preservative in water, not more than

Silver (Ag)
mg/dm³
0.025 (0.05)1*

Carbon dioxide (CO₂)
%
0.2–0.6

For waters containing chloride ions >50 mg/dm³.

Thus, the approval and introduction of the new standard will allow us:

(i) to substantially reduce capital and operational costs for obtaining high-quality drinking water in amounts sufficient for meeting physiological needs of the population;(ii) to reduce costs for exercising control over the quality of drinking water intended for human consumption as a result of using integral methods of assessing water quality without reequipment of chemical-analytical laboratories with expensive equipment;(iii) to improve the state legislative database for providing the population with good-quality drinking water, safe for human health.

Designations and Abbreviations

BCG: | Groupofcolibacillusbacteria
Bq: | Becquerel
PFU: | Plaque-formingunits
GMN: | Generalmicrobialnumber—numberofsaprophytemicroorganisms
CFU: | Colony-formingunits
NUT: | Nephelometricunitsofturbidity
ASAS: | Anionoactivesurface-activesubstances
SSAS: | Syntheticsurface-activesubstances
TCB: | Thermostablecolibacillusbacteria.

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