As you probably learned in grade school, most of the Earth’s surface is water. Yet 98% of that is salt water. According to the National Groundwater Association (NGWA), only 2% of all that water is fresh, or drinkable water, and most of that is actually trapped in glaciers. To understand what may or may not be in your drinking water, you have to first understand where our drinking water comes from.
Other than people who have their own wells such as in rural areas, most of us rely on a municipal water supply for our tap water. There are ultimately two sources of that water — surface water and groundwater.
Surface water is the water we see all around us; in rivers, lakes, streams reservoirs, and other fresh water sources from which we draw our drinking water. While sources for surface water are much more apparent – the truth is, the majority of our drinking water comes from where we can’t see it – far below the earth, in groundwater.
Groundwater refers to any water below the soil and rock. Groundwater is drawn from below the water table, which is that point under the surface where the ground is totally saturated with water.
Groundwater is the major source of water for most of the municipal water systems in the United States. Rural residents, withdrawing their water from wells, also rely upon groundwater.
All Sources of Water Can Be Contaminated
Despite the best efforts of any given municipality, both groundwater and surface water can be terribly contaminated. According to a recent report on NPR radio, an estimated one in ten Americans have been exposed to drinking water that fails to meet federal health standards and contains dangerous chemicals, parasites, bacteria, viruses, even prescription medications! The report said one of the main reasons for such high levels of tainted water is that water-pollution laws and standards are very loosely enforced.
Each of these two sources of our drinking water can be beset with its own set of contaminants; groundwater is subject to the runoff from farms and industrial pollutants, and can store pesticides, toxic chemicals and nitrates. Surface water is also subject to these kinds of chemical pollutants, but also has the added issues of being contaminated with bacteria and other dangerous microorganisms such as Cryptosporidium. In Milwaukee in 1993, in the worst outbreak in US history, 100 people died and over 400,000 became terribly ill, when the protozoan Cryptosporidium, got into the city’s water supply.
More recently, I am sure you remember the tragedy in Flint Michigan. The Flint water crisis began in 2014, after the drinking water source for the city of Flint, Michigan was changed from Lake Huron and the Detroit River to a less costly source of the Flint River. Due to insufficient water treatment, lead leached from water pipes into the drinking water, exposing over 100,000 residents to elevated lead levels.
What Is the Greatest Source of Contaminated Drinking Water?
Yet, despite the tragic events in Flint and Milwaukee, industrial agriculture and the use of pesticides and herbicides is the greatest source of chemical contamination to our drinking water. Most people are familiar with pesticides and understand their danger, however, it is actually herbicides that pose the bigger threat, because they are used on more crops and over greater areas. Herbicides are far more prevalent in our drinking water than pesticides. Though not as well known for their detrimental effects to humans as pesticides such as the now banned DDT, herbicides too, pose health risks to humans.
For example, Alachlor is a herbicide that was introduced in 1969. It is still in use today to control grassy weed infestations among corn, soybean, and peanut crops. According to the EPA, ingestion of the chemical Alachlor has been shown to lead to eye, liver, kidney or spleen problems, and an increased risk of cancer. Atrazine is another herbicide that has been used for several decades to protect mostly cornfields. Atrazine has been shown to cause cardiovascular and/or reproductive problems.
We need water to survive and maintain good health, but when it is combined with these chemicals and compounds, its very life giving properties are replaced instead with sickness causing microorganisms, and by toxins that are known to cause diseases from asthma, to Parkinson’s, to cancer.
Any reasonable person can no longer ignore the idea that the water you are drinking from your tap could be loaded with harmful contaminants, especially if you have children in your home. The proven correlation between contaminated drinking water and many serious health problems and infectious disease outbreaks -is far too strong for any thinking person to discount.
So what are you to do? Bottled water is an alternative. But, bottled water is not as healthy, or as well-regulated as you may think. The sources of many of those beautiful “springs” and “rolling hills” you see on many bottled water containers – is really the nearest tap!
Experts agree that the best way to ensure the safety of your drinking water is to install some kind of purification system on your tap.
No matter how you filter your water, or how many times you filter it, it will still contain all the harmful
minerals and toxins that are dissolved in the water. There is no known way to filter water and remove the
dissolved pesticides, herbicides and the very dangerous drugs and medicines that have been flushed down
the drain to dispose of them or the same that have survived the human digestive system.
People who waste their money on expensive water filters are also risking their lives by not realizing the
above facts. People all over the world, not just in the United States, are awash in their own sewage and have no idea how dangerous it is to drink any water that is not pure, or to drink any beverage that was made from water that is not pure. Most people will look at a bottle, or glass, of water and if it looks
“clear” they will assume that it is pure enough to drink. Nothing could be further from the truth.
NO bottled water is fit to drink unless it deserves to be labelled as PURE WATER. Pure water is ONLY water that has gone through the distillation process which removes EVERY contaminant from the water.
In recent times stores have begun to sell water, mostly in gallon plastic jugs, that are labelled as pure
water or distilled water. For years people have bought distilled water to use in their steam irons or some
other appliance that tap water would soon destroy. But they wouldn’t seriously consider actually drinking
that “kind” of water. And why is that?
It is because of a half-truth promulgated by the medical community, the people who we are supposed
to trust. They will tell you that pure water is dangerous to your health. Doctors will tell you not to drink
distilled water because it doesn’t contain the minerals you need, as does tap water. The true part of this
statement is that pure, distilled water, does not contain anything, no non-organic minerals, which you do
not need, or toxins which can kilol you or make you sick.
The vitamins and minerals that you do need are obtained from the foods that you eat. As human beings
we are not capable of processing non-organic minerals, like calcium carbonate, which is nothing more than dissolved limestone rock and other non-organic minerals. If we could process such minerals, then
we wouldn’t need to eat meat and vegetables. We could live very well by just eating a handful of dirt
whenever we got hungry. That thought is revolting, and rightly so.
So why should we drink water that contains minerals that only serve to clog our arteries and joints when they enter our systems because they can not be of any other benefit to us.
On the other hand, distilled water tends to dissolve the harmful plaque and harmful deposits and carry
it to our kidneys where it will be disposed of in the urine.
All of this that I have written is fact and may easily be proven to be fact. I write this to help inform all
and everyone who has not yet been made aware that they have been drinking sewage. Wake up, people,
and educate yourself. The world is full of lies and liars who care nothing about your health.
I appreciate you article and your attempt to inform the public of the very real dangers or using most of
the water available to human beings on Earth.
I also agree with most of the facts you have presented. However, your advice to your viewers that they should install “some kind of purification system on their tap” is a far cry from sound advice.
It is true that a water filter will remove all foreign particles larger than a few microns in diameter , but
have you considered that most of the harmful contaminants are too small for the filters to catch?
Reverse Osmosis filters are used mostly to remove salt (dissolved sodium chloride) from the water
because salt on the dirty side of the filter attracts salt on the clean side. This only works for salt.
RO filters cannot remove other dissolved minerals, toxins and pharmaceuticals that are present in
virtually all water and are much more dangerous to our health than salt or particles that might be caught by a high quality water filter.
If a person doubts the information above and wants further proof, that proof is easily attained. Just
collect the best filtered water you can obtain and boil a gallon of it on your kitchen stove until all
the water has been boiled away. Your proof of the ineffectiveness of your water filter will be found
in the bottom of your boiling pan. The residue in your pan will contain calcium chloride and other
in-organic forms of calcium, sodium chloride, and many other contaminants. You can take this
material to a chemist or other qualified person and request a list of the chemicals contained in
your sample.
WalMart and other stores now carry containers of pure drinking water. This water is safe and free
from all contaminants and should be used for drinking, cooking and mixing beverages. All beverages
made with “common water” should be avoided. Doing this simple thing will soon dissolve the plaque
in your arteries, help avoid heart problems and help prolong your life. Cheers to Life!