How Safe is Our Drinking Water

We’d like to trust that the water we drink to maintain our health is safe, but that’s not always the case...

The quality of tap water in the U.S. varies widely from place to place...in fact, more than 700 toxic compounds have been identified in water drawn from U.S. water systems...according to recent reports from the Natural Resources Defense Council, drinking water in the U.S. is increasingly becoming a health risk...

Even if your municipal water supply is free of bacteria, it may contain high levels of chlorine, lead and rust, which, combined with other substances, can form unhealthy compounds...the EPA sets safety standards for the maximum contamination levels allowed, yet in 1992 and 1993, over 8,000 of the nation’s local water systems reported exceeding these levels...

Lately, several cities have issued warnings to their citizens to boil their drinking water because of contamination ...

According to recent reports, over 100 million Americans drink water that contains significant levels of at least one of three cancer causing chemicals-arsenic, radon and chlorine by-products...

Adding chlorine as an anti-microbial is a common practice in many municipalities, yet  many cancer producing chemicals are the by-product of chlorine, which has been banned from the drinking supply of many European countries...

In addition to chemical contamination, chlorine resistant viruses and parasites can slip through the more than 1,000 large water systems lacking proper filters...according to the Center for Disease Control, more than 900,000 people become sick in the US each year from these water borne microorganisms...

Despite these problems and more, enforcement of current regulations is weak...

In 1991 and 1992, for example, the EPA issued fewer than 4,000 fines, although there were more than 250,000 violations of the Safe Drinking Water Act....

According to the National Academy of Science, the EPA sets its safety levels according to adult tolerances; thus children, pregnant women and older people may be especially vulnerable to the pollutants in water...

Polls show that the public wants more stringent drinking water laws.  In fact, many people have decided to deal with the problem themselves by installing home water filtration systems and using bottled water...yet, some bottled water may not be much better than some tap water, as water bottling is still an unregulated industry...one company was found to be selling municipal tap water that had been labeled spring water... yet another was getting its water from a well adjacent to a toxic dump site...

The best health protection today is to either be completely confident about the purity of your bottled water or to install a water purifier on your tap...

Take action to determine how good or bad your water is:  ask your water company for the results of their quality tests...check to see whether bacteria, lead, hardness, fluorine, chlorine and nitrates fall within safe levels...even if your municipal system tests clean for lead, contamination may still occur from your pipes...lead is a recognized health hazard and is especially harmful for infants, small children and pregnant women...in order to decrease your exposure to lead, let your water run for 3-5 minutes in the morning or after a period of disuse...never use hot tap water for drinking or cooking as it more readily leaches contaminants and probably contains impurities from sitting for long periods in the heater tank...and, if you must drink tap water, let it stand for a few hours to allow some of the chlorine to dissipate.