It was November 1985 — the same month that the Environmental Protection Agency proposed setting a drinking water standard for asbestos — when Woodstock, N.Y., experienced a drop in water pressure symptomatic of a much bigger problem.Residents of this environment-loving town named for the 1960s rock festival held nearby soon learned that asbestos fibers had clogged their showerheads and faucets. News reports told of clumps of blue fibers raining down from a man’s shower.
The culprit: deteriorating asbestos cement pipe.
The townspeople didn’t know what danger asbestos in their drinking water might pose. Experts couldn’t tell them if they had breathed asbestos through their vaporizers or steamy showers or if the fibers had imbedded in their clothes and bed linens.
Twenty years later, those questions linger.
Alabama has dozens of water systems using 200 miles cement asbestos pipe, much of it made at Capco in Ragland, a shuttered plant in nearby St. Clair County. The water systems’ operators say they follow state and federal regulations for water quality, but the majority of those systems never have had to test for asbestos in the water.
Woodstock illustrates what happens when tests — some of which in Alabama haven’t been conducted in more than 10 years — indicate asbestos in the water supply.
A lengthy cleanup
After flushing the water lines, local officials took samples from four locations on the Woodstock water supply. Four of the samples had levels greater than the government standard of 10 million fibers per liter, with the highest containing 304.5 million fibers per liter. The EPA standard today is 7 million fibers per liter.
Officials didn’t know how long Woodstock’s corrosive water had been wearing down the pipe and leaching asbestos into the water. The fiber had been present in the water since at least 1976, an old water sample confirmed, and possibly as early as 1960.
The owner of one local coin-operated laundromat had complained for years of fibers clogging washer screens. He didn’t know what they were.
"We had no way of determining how long our exposure was," Woodstock town supervisor Jeremy Wilber said in a recent interview. "We couldn’t determine how long those pipes had been bleeding asbestos into our system, long enough to clog the filter at the (laundromat)."
For decades, the inhalation of asbestos had been linked to asbestosis, a fatal scarring of the lungs, lung cancer and the rare, aggressive cancer of the lining of the lungs and abdomen, mesothelioma.
Ingesting asbestos was suspected to increase the risk of gastrointestinal cancers, but little information was available. Likewise, no one was sure about the risk of inhaling asbestos in the shower or through the wash.
Increased incidence of gastrointestinal cancers had been shown in asbestos workers. Studies in humans and animals on cancer risks associated with asbestos in drinking water and ingesting asbestos had shown both positive and negative results.
The EPA’s proposed drinking water standard acknowledged that the information was limited. The agency calculated its proposed asbestos limit, 7 million fibers greater than 10 microns per liter, based on the 1984 draft report of a National Toxicology Program study of asbestos ingestion in rats.
The agency calculated its proposed asbestos limit, 7 million fibers greater than 10 microns per liter, based on the 1984 draft report of a National Toxicology Program study of asbestos ingestion in rats.
To compare, the diameter of a human hair is 80 microns.
The study found a statistically significant increase in tumors in the large intestine of male rats that ingested fibers that size and larger.
Town supervisor Wilber, having lived all his life in Woodstock, remembers the situation as a resident.
The town’s water passed through the asbestos pipes, located near the pumping stations, that had had been laid in the 1950s.
"By then everyone had forgotten we had laid these pipes," Wilber said. "As soon as we determined there was asbestos in the water, the town immediately went out and bonded for a million bucks to yank all the pipes up and replace them with more conventional plumbing."
That took at least three months. In the meantime, residents had running water, but they were advised against using it. Wilber remembers being told that the biggest danger would be from humidifiers and showers, but that it was OK to drink and cook with the water.
Like most residents, he opted not to.
"There was always a crowd at the pump house to get water right out of the pumps before it entered the water system," he said.
Evidence cloudy
The EPA conducted a review of chemicals regulated in drinking water in 2002, but a decision has yet to be made for asbestos because the EPA Integrated Risk Assessment Program was reviewing the data on asbestos in drinking water.
That assessment isn’t finished.
When asked what is known today about the risks of ingesting asbestos, as opposed to 20 years ago when the standard was established, the EPA cited the following:
Three studies published by the National Toxicology Program in 1990 looked at the potential for asbestos ingestion to cause cancer in animals. All three had negative results.
The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry reviewed the data on asbestos in 2001 and found that asbestos ingestion does not cause any significant noncancer effects in the gastrointestinal tract or other tissues.
Asked specifically about the risk of inhaling asbestos in steam or whether fibers could become imbedded in clothing washed by water containing asbestos, the EPA Office of Water said it knows of no specific studies that examined those questions.
Last year, the New York State Health Department ended its follow-up of the Woodstock Asbestos Exposure Registry and issued a report of their investigation. The health department had established the registry in 1986 to monitor the rates of cancer among individuals who lived on the water supply between 1960 and 1985.
Those studied did not experience an increased incidence of respiratory cancer, gastrointestinal cancer or all cancers combined. A significantly increased risk of pancreatic cancer was observed among males, but the state said the association may be related to factors other than asbestos, such as cigarette smoking or chance.
"Preventive public health policy suggests that new AC pipes should not be installed to carry water, especially if the water is corrosive," the conclusion reads. "Also, water supply systems using existing AC pipes should be monitored, especially in areas where the water has corrosive properties, and replaced if necessary."
Though Wilber is familiar with the study’s results, he’s not convinced that asbestos in drinking water is safe.
"It’s kind of like living next to a nuclear power plant," he said. "Everyone assures you it’s safe, but you don’t know."
His advice to any system with asbestos cement water pipes is to take them out.
"I just can’t see the sense of mixing asbestos in the water supply," he said. "I would never recommend to anyone to use an asbestos cement water pipe."
