Question:
KINGFISHER COUNTY, Oklahoma, June 14, 2001 (ENS) - The U.S. EnvironmentalProtection Agency's (EPA) Region 6 has ordered five swine farms inKingfisher and Major Counties in Oklahoma to give families in the area safedrinking water and identify the extent of existing contamination.

The EPA used its emergency powers under the Safe Drinking Water Act tocompel the hog farms to comply. The orders require the companies to providesafe drinking water to four homes located near the facilities. Thecompanies are also required to conduct more sampling and analysis todetermine the extent of contamination in and around the facilities.

"This is the first time that we have seen elevated nitrate concentrations indrinking water that can be directly linked to hog operations and theirlagoons," said Gregg Cooke, EPA regional administrator. "When our watersources become polluted and dangerous to drink, we understand just howfragile they are."

Answer: The EPA's action is intended to protect public health and the environmentfrom dangerous levels of nitrate arising from several swine productionfacilities in central Oklahoma. In response to concerns raised by localcitizens, the EPA conducted sampling and analysis at the facilitiesdiscovering nitrate levels in groundwater at concentrations up to 10 timesacceptable health based levels.

The highest concentration found at an adjacent household drinking waterfaucet was 15 milligrams per liter (mg/l) nitrate-nitrogen, where theacceptable level is 10 mg/l. Nitrate contamination results when hog manurelagoons, some as large as two football fields, leak through the soil intogroundwater supplies.

This groundwater provides much of the drinking water source for residents ofOklahoma through private or municipal wells. The EPA's action is intendedto prevent nitrate concentrations in nearby household drinking water fromcontinuing to rise, and to prevent dangerous levels of nitrates ingroundwater from traveling into additional household drinking water wells.

Nitrate in drinking water is colorless and odorless. Ingestion of nitrate,converted to nitrite in the body, interferes with the oxygen carryingcapacity of the blood, causing cyanosis, and at higher levels, asphyxia.

High levels of nitrate in water can cause "blue baby syndrome" in infantsthat can be fatal if left untreated. At 10 mg/l or higher concentrations,nitrate poses a health threat to the population in general, and an acutethreat to infants younger than six months old.