Remove Arsenic from Your Drinking Water Arsenic (As) enters drinking water supplies from natural deposits in the earth or from agricultural and industrial practices. Surface arsenic-related pollutants enter the groundwater system by gradually moving with the flow of groundwater ...Remove Arsenic from Your Drinking Water Arsenic (As) enters drinking water supplies from natural deposits in the earth or from agricultural and industrial practices. Surface arsenic-related pollutants enter the groundwater system by gradually moving with the flow of groundwater from rains, melting snow, etc.
Arsenic won’t affect the taste or smell of drinking water enough to call attention to such contamination. Like many contaminants in drinking water, arsenic is potentially hazardous at levels or concentrations that do not impart a noticeable taste, odor, or appearance of the water. Arsenic is not easily dissolved in water.
Therefore, if it is found in a water supply, it usually comes from mining or metallurgical operations or from runoff from agricultural areas where materials containing arsenic were used as industrial poisons. Arsenic in water has no color, taste or odor. Arsenic and phosphate easily substitute for one another chemically, therefore commercial grade phosphate can have some arsenic in it.
Arsenic is highly toxic and has been classified by the US EPA as a carcinogen, which was derived from toxicity considerations rather than carcinogenicity. The current MCL for arsenic is 0.010 mg/l as of 01/23/06.