Martínez Acuña, Mónica; Mercado Reyes, Marisa; Alegría Torres, Jorge; Mejía Saavedra, José
Resumen:
Zacatecas state is located in the central
area of Mexico, where the underground water contains
elevated quantities of natural arsenic and fluoride.
In order to estimate health risk associated with
human exposure to these pollutants, tap water samples
from the southern-central region of the state
were analyzed. Ninety percent of the samples
exceeded the levels of arsenic established by the
World Health Organization (WHO) of 0.01 mg/L
and 43 % exceeded the limit established by the
NOM-127-SSA11 of 0.025 mg/L. Forty-three percent
of the samples had fluoride levels above the
Mexican regulation limit of 1.5 mg/L (NOM-127-
SSA1). We used WHO and EPA’s health risk assessment
method, we estimated 80 % of the inhabitants
of sites studied could be exposed to arsenic levels
higher than those recommended by EPA and the
WHO, 22 % could be exposed to fluoride levels
higher than those recommended by EPA, and 16 %
of the local population may be in risk of suffering
dental fluorosis.