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 "Safety" is an interesting concept and often a matter of opinion. There are two distinct camps regarding water quality safety. On one side, we have the reassurances of government and our water utilities that our drinking water meets or exceeds all Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards. And if you are blessed with a good source like the mountain snow pack and rain of the Pacific Northwest, fewer chemicals than the national average may have been used to achieve those results. The other side is well represented by people such as scientific writer and researcher Colin Ingram, author of The Drinking Water Book: A Complete Guide to Safe Drinking Water. Colin's five-year independent water research left him with little confidence in regulation. He firmly recommends lowering your overall health risk by reducing any pollutants in your drinking water to their lowest possible level.
Is our Water Safe? The skeptics have caught my attention. Water-quality facility failures happen. Sometimes the standards themselves are inadequate. Increasingly, new synthetic chemicals such as pharmaceuticals are released into the wastewater system, find their way back into our drinking water and have a negative cumulative effect on our health. The EPA website states that all drinking water will have some contaminants, but "as long as they occur below EPA's standards, they don't pose a significant threat to health, although people with severely compromised immune systems and children may have special needs." Shouldn't what is safe for children be the benchmark for all? Legislative change requires a tremendous body of evidence and grassroots civil protest. Adding a single contaminant to the EPA list can take at least a decade; compliance with the new standard adds a minimum of another five years. Meanwhile, citizens serve as guinea pigs in a nationwide water quality lab.
The entire debate hinges upon whose definition of "safe" water is acceptable to you. Some experts also claim that having a chemical sprayed directly onto market-ready food does no harm, as long as the FDA approves the application. I disagree, and watching our girls thirstily drain their glasses of water, I find myself wanting to know exactly what is in our tap water.
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Not all Contaminants are Regulated: The Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974 authorized the EPA to set safe standards for drinking water in public water systems, and communities serving 25 or more people. The EPA does not regulate smaller private water supplies (wells, cisterns or springs), which are used by approximately 15 percent of the U.S. population. In 1986, the Act was amended to set a Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) for a list of known contaminants. These MCLs are mandatory and legally enforceable. In addition, there is a secondary list of contaminants with "recommended" standards. Monitoring this list is required; achieving standards is encouraged. A third list exists, called the Contaminant Candidate List (CCL), for contaminants that are being researched for possible standard-setting. Currently there are 88 MCLs, 15 recommended standards and 51 CCLs listed on the EPA website. In short, your public water facility tests for an extensive list of contaminants, some of which have standards that require a specific level of treatment.
The Consumers' Right to Know: The Safe Drinking Water Act was further amended in 1996 to require that all consumer water systems provide their customers with an annual water-quality Consumer Confidence Report (CCR). It lists water origins, any contaminants found and their sources, MCLs and any violation of water-related rules. Your CCR is available from your supplier at no charge. Many post their reports online through the EPA's website. (See resources.)
If your water quality is decent, the list will be relatively short, as only the contaminants actually found are listed. In that case, why would anyone consider adding in-home treatment? Our family has three main reasons. Our CCR lists only 27 contaminants out of a test list of 192, but 10 of those 27 are known carcinogenic by-products of chlorine disinfection. Plus, I have no desire for our family to ingest or inhale chlorine itself or absorb it through our skins. Lastly, many water treatment facilities purchase by-products of the fertilizer industry, such as fluorosilicic acid, to use for fluoridation. (See "Skip the Fluoride" in issue # 6.) Colin sums it up nicely by saying that fluoridation is "one of the most irrational and health threatening programs ever offered to the American public."
Treatment Failures: No less disturbing is the water-quality news of the last few decades. For example, in 1993, Milwaukee, WI experienced the largest mass infection from the parasite cryptosporidium ever to occur in the U.S. According to the Centers for Disease Control, over 400,000 people became ill, about 4,000 were hospitalized and approximately 69 died from gastrointestinal distress contracted through the public water supply. The contamination was traced back to a city water-treatment plant. The incident served as catalyst to improve biological water-treatment practices nationwide.
Inadequate Standards: When a standard for one contaminant must be revised, I wonder about the validity of the rest. In 2001, the EPA lowered the MCL for the toxic metal arsenic to one-fifth of its former level due to compelling evidence of health hazard. Some longtime contaminants are only now being considered for regulation. For instance, in January of this year, the National Academy of Science (NAS) released a report on perchlorates, chemical contaminants that are both naturally occurring as well as man-made. Perchlorates that are chemical by-products of rocket-fuel production are common pollutants near military sites. Based on their findings, the EPA established a recommendation and is in the process of evaluating a drinking-water standard. Recent legislation has been introduced in Congress, however, that would absolve the military from EPA compliance as a matter of national security. While the debate drags on over standards, our health is at risk.
Background Check: CCRs are packed with facts, but I found ours confusing. Calling our water utility allowed me to ask enough questions to gain some understanding. Each area has a unique list of potential contaminants and water suppliers can answer questions about regular treatment, additives, disinfection and disinfection by-products. You can also ask if there have been any outbreaks of disease or poor health caused by the water supply. If there are new MCL requirements, you can find out about their progress toward compliance. For private water supplies, the local Department of Health (DOH) is a good place to research about common problems in area water supply.
Hiring a Lab: Sometimes your own testing is in order. You may have a private water supply. You might hear reports of contaminants in your area that your CCR did not identify. Contaminants can also come from your own in-house plumbing and fixtures. Another factor could be someone in your household with a compromised immune system or other health issues. Independent laboratories offer quality testing on water that you send in. These labs are not designed to advise you on which contaminants you should test for, so you'll need to select them before you call. Your state DOH can provide a listing of labs that they have certified. Or try National Testing Laboratories (NTL) at 800-458-3330 or www.ntllabs.com.
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Types of Water Contaminants:
Which contaminants you find in your drinking water, and at what concentration they occur, will depend on many factors: your water source, local industrial and agricultural activity, treatment additives, and the condition of the water-delivery system and your own home's plumbing. Many of the examples below are regulated, others are merely monitored and some have yet to make the list at all.
Microorganisms / Biological Contaminants include bacteria, viruses and parasites (cysts like giardia and cryptosporidium).
Inorganic Chemicals include nuisance minerals that cause odors (like the rotten-egg odor of hydrogen sulfide gas), hardness (calcium and magnesium) and staining (iron and manganese), as well as toxic inorganics such as asbestos and nitrates, and the metals arsenic, lead and mercury. (See "Heavy Metal" in issue # 6.) Inorganics may be naturally occurring or enter the water from man-made sources including industrial waste, agricultural runoff, water delivery systems and household plumbing, especially sink faucets. Asbestos is naturally occurring and is also commonly found in asbestos cement water-distribution pipes.
Organic Chemicals include volatile organic chemicals (VOCs), like dry-cleaning solvents, and other chemicals such as PCBs, fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. There are hundreds of thousands of Synthetic Organic Chemicals (SOCs) in use and finding their way into our water supplies. Haloacetic acids (HAAs) and trihalomethanes (THMs) are chlorine-disinfection by-products that are known carcinogens and are present in most tap water.
Radioactive Substances in both mineral and gaseous states are often found in water supplies near, or downstream from, mines or nuclear facilities. In addition, hospitals release low-level radioactive wastes into sewers. Radon, a naturally occurring gas byproduct of radioactive decay, causes cancer. Because pressure quickly releases it into the air, the primary waterborne danger comes from inhalation during showers, baths and cooking.
Additives include chlorine (disinfection), fluoride (for "dental health") and flocculents, which are substances added to water in order to clump particles for ease of filtering.
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