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How
Safe is Your Drinking Water?
The not for profit EWG
(Environmental Working Group) tested the
municipal water of 42 states in 2005.
They found approximately 260
contaminants in the water supplies, with 141 of
the contaminants being unregulated chemicals
that there are no safety standards for or
methods for removing them from the water
supplies.
However, it must be stated that 90% of
the municipalities were in compliance in
applying and enforcing standards that exist.
The problem is not with the
municipalities, but with the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) who have failed to
establish standards for so many of the
contaminants that end up in our drinking water.
To be fair to the EPA, they have set
standards for approximately 90 contaminants
that are permitted in certain levels in our tap
water. For
a complete list of all the possible
contaminants, you can view the EPA's standards,
and the possible source of each contaminant
along with its possible health effects, at www.epa.gov/safewater/mcl.html.
Despite these alarming
results, the Natural Resources Defense Council
(NRDC), states that our water is safe to drink
simply because most of the contaminants in our
water supplies exist in very small
concentrations.
As for the safety of
bottled water, you must first beware that
approximately 25% to 30% comes straight from
municipal tap water systems.
Some companies do however; process the
water through additional filtering. In fact must of you would be surprised to learn that the NRDC
has conducted extensive research on bottled
water and has found that it is bottled water is
subject to less rigorous testing and purity
standards than water which comes out of our
city water supplies.
The reason for this is that the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration allows for some
contamination by E. coli or fecal coliform to
be present in bottled water, whereas the EPA
prohibits any such contamination.
However, you must also realize that
these allowed amounts are in very small
concentrations.
The bottom line is that once people
realize that their bottled “Pure Mountain
Spring Water” could contain containments,
they demand for higher quality for their
bottled water when in fact they should be
demanding that our tap water is cleaner and
safer to drink.
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