Thursday, May 13, 2010

Are You Drinking Contaminated Tap Water?

If you are concerned about contaminated tap water, you are certainly not alone. It is an issue that everyone should be concerned about.Are you drinking contaminated water?
There are a couple of ways to found what types of contaminants are present in your supply and in your home. If you are serviced by a public treatment facility in the US, they are required to publish a quality report, sometimes referred to as a Customer Confidence Report, on an annual basis. The reports do not always inspire confidence.
If you have a private well or have older pipes, it is sometimes a good idea to have a sample tested. In homes with older pipes, there are sometimes traces of lead that would not show up on the quality report, because they are not present at the facility.
Many Kinds of Contaminants
There are hundreds of different contaminants that could be present in a private well. Testing for all of them is expensive. Sometimes, you can get information from your local government offices concerning which contaminants to test for. That can reduce the cost of testing.
A simple litmus paper test will reveal one type of contaminated tap water. If chlorine is present, the paper will change colors. The test strips are very inexpensive, used primarily for testing the amount of chlorine in pools. They are available at any hardware store. So, if you are curious, you could buy some.
There are some contaminants that can only be tested for by an independent laboratory. Facilities do not test for them on a regular basis, if at all. Cysts are one example.
Waterborne Illnesses
Cryptosporidium and giardia cysts are a cause of waterborne illnesses, with symptoms similar to those of any kind of intestinal virus; vomiting, diarrhea, stomach cramps, etc. Treatment facilities do not normally test for cryptosporidium contaminated tap water, unless they suspect there is a problem.
Independent laboratories can test a sample, but this is one type of contamination that can change greatly, in a very short period of time. There might be no cysts today, but thousands tomorrow. They are basically the egg-form of parasites.
Parasites
When the parasites release the cysts, they float around until they find a host. They are very hardy, immune to chemicals such as chlorine. The only practical protection from them is a sub-micron filtration system. Many of the better home purifiers include this step.
Perchlorate
Facilities never test for perchlorate contaminated tap water, unless they are required to do so. Independent testing has found high levels of the chemical in hundreds of different supplies around the US.
It takes a good dual stage home purification system to effectively remove perchlorate. The risk of exposure varies, depending on a person's age. But, it can increase a person's risk of cancer, as can many of the other chemicals found in publicly treated supplies.
What Should You Do?
It is safe to assume that there is some degree of contaminants present in all of the homes in the US and probably throughout the world. Buying a good home purifier is actually less expensive than testing for contaminated tap water. The logical step is to buy one.
And now please visit the CleanWaterPure website listed below for updated information on how to remove contaminated water from your home.Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization

 

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