Is The End of Safe Pure Drinking Water Near

Don't trust your city to provide you with safe water

Municipalities want their citizens to believe that the city’s water delivery system provides clean, safe, tasty drinking water to their taps… after all aren’t you paying for safe water every month when you pay your water bill? Actually, very few people have access to pure safe drinking water.

There are several problems. First, the drinking water delivery infrastructure is in serious trouble. In the 1850’s cast iron and lead were used to create the pipes that bring water to your house. The cast iron pipes had a life expectancy of about 150 years. Around 1900, the steel industry  made huge leaps and steel pipes were used in the water system. They had a life expectancy of around 100 years. Lead pipes continued to be used. In the 1950’s ductile steel pipes were used. They had a life expectancy of about 50 years… and the lead pipes were still being used. If you look at the dates here you notice that with the exception of lead, all the materials used to deliver water to homes and businesses is expected to fail now.

This problem is very serious because pipes don’t just suddenly burst. Instead, they tend to form small pinhole leaks. That means they are not immediately noticed as having a problem. Even so, the problem is very real because water delivery pipes are typically buried in proximity, often below, sewer lines. Sewer lines are also subject to leaks. That means that the bacteria, pharmaceuticals, and other nasty stuff you flush down the toilet are leaking out of the sewers and into the pipes that bring water to you.

The blessings and curses of chlorine

To combat that problem, municipal water treatment plants put enough chlorine in the water to continue to kill bacteria all the way down the delivery line, not just at the treatment plant. Since chlorine tends to dissipate from the water, a bunch of chlorine needs to be added. The closer you live to the treatment plant the more chlorine you will find in your water. Or, if you are one of the really unlucky people, your municipal treatment plant has started to use chloramine instead of chlorine. It persists longer than chlorine. That means less is needed to reach the end of the line, and, of course, that means it’s cheaper to use. The most current research is demonstrating that both chlorine and chloramine are potentially very harmful in the body.

Dangers of lead pipes and fixtures

In the 1980’s the link between lead and brain damage was clearly understood. Unfortunately, that doesn’t get rid of the lead pipes still underground and in older homes. The good news is that many localities have hard water. Magnesium and calcium form a lime scale in the lead pipes that actually reduces the amount of lead in water by forming a barrier between the pipe and the water. That was true until chloramine. Enough chloramine separates into its constituent chlorine and ammonia to provide a nice ammonia meal for the bacteria in the water. Their waste product is highly acidic and that dissolves the lime scale.

These are just a couple of the many toxic substances typically found in water. Even if you have well water, it can easily contain toxic substances, arsenic in particular.

Solutions

The bottom line is that you cannot assume your water is safe to drink whether it comes out of the tap, out of a well, or out of a bottle. Millions of people get sick from unsafe water each year and some very serious problems like cancer, miscarriages, ganglion cysts, skin problems, Alzheimer’s, and others can be linked to water contaminants. The problem will get worse and worse before it gets better because it costs a whole lot of money to solve it. The best solution for each individual is to test their water supply, see what toxic substances it contains, and install water filtration technology customized to their unique needs. There is no one-fits-all solution and many water filters ranging from pitcher filters to whole house systems will not actually produce safe, pure water.