Almost 100 million people in the US may be exposed to unregulated industrial chemicals in their drinking water, with communities of color especially at risk, according to a new analysis of federal monitoring data for water systems across the country. The study, published Wednesday in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, analyzed data gathered by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from 2013 to 2015 for four types of unregulated chemicals, finding that 27% of those nearly 5,000 public water systems had detectable levels of at least one contaminant. Overall, more than 97 million US residents were served by a public water system with detectable levels of the contaminants examined in the study.

Related article:

• EcoWatch: Nearly one-third of U.S. residents exposed to dangerous, unregulated contaminants in drinking water, analysis finds