"We need to investigate it. We don't know the toxicity," said environmental engineer Julian Fairey, an associate professor at the University of Arkansas and lead author of the paper. "This work was 40 years in the making in terms of trying to identify the compound, and now that we have identified it, we can delve into how toxic is this thing."
Initial computational modeling of the compound shows similarities to other chemicals with demonstrated toxicity, which "suggests that it is probably not harmless," Fairey said.
"The water is still safe to drink. Tap water is more regulated, with more people working on it, than bottled water," said Lisa Ragain, a principal water resources planner at the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments who serves on the National Drinking Water Advisory Council's Microbial and Disinfection Byproducts Rule Revisions Working Group.
Collection
[
|
...
]