If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere – but you may want to stay for the water.
The Big Apple has New York's cleanest water supply, and neighboring suburbs on Long Island the worst, according to a new study on contaminants in public water systems around the state.
According to the New York Public Interest Research Group, the safeguards put in place by New York City to protect its water supply are so effective they should be used as a model.
The city has source-water protection program that limits development near its upstate reservoirs and watershed, and works to keep pollution from septic systems and farming chemicals away from the water sources, the New York Post noted.
"Nowhere else in New York State is there another program like that," said Liz Moran, the NYPIRG environmental policy director.
However, in the city's closest suburbs — Long Island's Nassau and Suffolk counties — the study found the largest number of emerging contaminants among the public water systems in the state.
The pollutants include 1,4 dioxane, which was detected in some locations above the EPA's reference concentrations — a direct legacy of Long Island's industrial past when the chemical was widely used as a solvent, the Post reported.
Low levels of exposure to 1,4-dioxane can cause developmental effects to fetuses, thyroid disorders, ulcerative colitis, high cholesterol, preeclampsia, and kidney, and testicular cancers, according to the report.
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