Unsafe Levels of Uranium Present in American Public Drinking Water: University Study

A 100-tonne Caterpillar truck descends to the bottom of the Sue E open-pit uranium mine at Areva Resources Canada's McClean Lake site in McClean Lake, Saskatchewan, in this file photo. David Boily/AFP via Getty Images

A study of public water systems serving 290 million people in the United States per year has found high concentrations of uranium.

“We estimated that 63.1 percent of CWS [community water systems] compliance monitoring records reported detectable concentrations of uranium, and that 2.1 percent of CWSs with available uranium data had 2000–11 average concentrations above the MCL [maximum contaminant levels],” researchers at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health found, in the study published in The Lancet Planetary Health.