Startling FACTS About Our Water

.......

By the 1980's, production of synthetic chemicals was up to 500 billion pounds.  And 1000 new chemicals are introduced each year. Yet the Federal Safe Drinking Water Act only addresses 100 contaminants!

The causes of water contamination are numerous and range from agricultural runoff to improper use of household chemicals and everything in between. While the standard use in our society of over 75,000 different chemical compounds has offered added convenience and productivity in our lives, it has also come at a tremendous price… drastic increase in degenerative diseases. In the early 1900s, before chlorine, pesticides, herbicides and the tens of thousands of other chemicals that we are exposed to, the average person had a 1 in 50 chance of getting cancer.

Today, 1 in 3 can expect to get cancer in their lifetime; 1 out of every 2 men!

Our use of man made chemicals has become so extreme that we can now find traces of these low level toxins in virtually every public water supply in the world. 

“U.S. drinking water contains more than 2100 toxic chemicals that can cause cancer.”   Recent report by the Ralph Nader Study Group, after reviewing over 10,000 documents acquired through the Freedom Of Information Act "Up to two thirds of all cancers may be attributed to these low level toxins.... once contaminated our ground water will remain so for tens of thousands of years… if not geologic time!”  The Federal Council On Environmental Quality

Our tendency is to blame it on the big factory up stream. And while industry has certainly played its part in our water contamination problems, it is “us” individuals that are the most to blame. The majority of the contaminants found in our drinking water can be traced back to improper or excessive use of ordinary compounds like lawn chemicals, gasoline, cleaning products and even prescription drugs.

Once we realize that everything that goes down the drain, on our lawns, on our agricultural fields or into the environment by any means… eventually winds up in the water we drink, we begin to see just how fragile our water supplies really are.

Our municipal water treatment facilities are not designed or effective for removing these synthetic chemicals and typically only consist of sand bed filtration and disinfection, much like a standard swimming pool filter. For the most part today’s water treatment facilities are much the same as they were at the turn of the century.

“Drinking water plants are old and out of date, and water supplies are increasingly threatened by and contaminated by chemicals and microorganisms.” Natural Resources Defense Council. “The way we guarantee safe drinking water is broken and needs to be fixed.” Carol Browner, U.S. EPA

One of America’s leading authorities on water contamination, Dr. David Ozonoff of the Boston University Of Public Health warns that, “the risk of disease associated with public drinking water has passed from the theoretical to the real.”  Many illnesses that in the past could not be linked to a probable cause, can now be directly linked to toxins in our drinking water.

The use of pesticides and herbicides has become so excessive that they are now commonly found in household tap water with alarming frequency.

A 1994 study of 29 major U.S. cities by the Environmental Working Group found that all 29 cities had traces of at least one weed killer in the drinking water. The report titled “Tap Water Blues“ went on to say that “Millions of Americans are routinely exposed to one or more pesticides in a single glass of tap water”.

These first ever “tap water testings” found two or more pesticides in the drinking water of 27 of the 29 cities, three or more in 24 cities, four or more in 21 cities, five or more in 18 cities, six or more in 13 cities and seven or more pesticides in the tap water of five cities. In Fort Wayne Indiana nine different pesticides were found in a single glass of tap water!

As a startling side note it was reported that in these 29 cities 45,000 infants drank formula mixed with tap water containing weed killers and that “ over half of these infants were swallowing 4 to 9 chemicals in every bottle!”

The tragic health effects of consuming these highly toxic chemicals are magnified many times over for small children because their systems are more sensitive and still developing. Small children also consume a much larger volume of fluids per pound of body weight and therefore get a bigger dose, yet non of these factors are considered when the EPA’s maximum contaminant levels are set. The National Academy of Sciences issued a report in 1993 on this subject and stated that “ children are not little adults, their bodies are less developed and incapable of detoxifying certain harmful compounds.” 

Another major flaw in the estimated risks of chemicals in our drinking water is the false assumption that only that one chemical is being consumed. The regulations are set based on what is assumed safe for a 175 pound adult drinking water with only that one chemical present and does not take into account the combined toxicity of two or more chemicals.  (Let alone 100s!)  

“...when two or more of these contaminants combine in our water the potency may be increased by as much as 1000 times.”  1995 Science Advisory Report to the EPA “The one thing we know for sure about toxins in our drinking water is that the more we look the more we find.”  Jacquelyn Warren of the Natural Resources Defense Council

Regardless of the differing opinions it is safe to assume that there is NO acceptable level for pesticides, weed killers, or chlorine, MTBE, etc.. in our drinking water.

In America each year we use over 2.2 billion pounds of pesticides, or eight pounds for every man woman and child in the country.

Industrial solvents like TCE and Benzene make their way into our water supplies from literally hundreds of sources.  Airports and military bases degrease planes and engine parts with TCE, one of the most concentrated toxins in existence. One teaspoon of TCE will render over 250,000 gallons of water undrinkable, and yet thousands of gallons are used in uncontained applications each day. 

Perchlorethelyne, cyanide, and benzene are used in such common industries as bottled water, food processing plants, dry cleaning, car washes, photo processing, etc.. much of which ends up going down someone's drain and into our water supplies. It has been shown that areas with the highest levels of these man made carcinogens in their water supplies also have the highest incidence of cancer.

Cancer extracts a staggering toll from our society, one in every seven people will die from this man made disease. According to the Center For Disease Control “Death from cancer is increasing more rapidly than is the population”.    It is now widely accepted that cancer is an environmental disease.  The World Health Organization and the National Cancer Institute both suggest that most human cancers, perhaps as many as 90% are caused by chemical carcinogens in the environment.  This realization is paramount for change because it means that most cancers could be prevented by minimizing or eliminating our exposure to chemical carcinogens.

While the powerful chemical industry argues that the levels of these toxins in the environment are not significant, scientific evidence has shown otherwise. A National Cancer Institute report to the Surgeon General concluded that “no level of exposure to a chemical carcinogen should be considered toxicologically insignificant for man".

We spend billions of dollars each year seeking a cure for cancer. The disease is merely a result of the real problem, environmental pollution. If we were to direct these billions of dollars and the same intense effort towards curing the problem (pollution) instead of learning to live with the result (cancer), we would do future generations a great service, and we could realistically stop the “cancer epidemic".

A word about bottled water contamination.

FDA recently proposed regulations that would establish standard definitions for all bottled water products, and set new limits for approximately 50 chemical and other contaminants that may be present in bottled water. FDA has already established quality standards for 31 contaminants.

Under a final rule published in the Jan. 3, 1993, Federal Register, the allowable levels for seven synthetic volatile organic chemicals were amended to comply with maximum contaminant levels set by EPA.  The seven chemicals are: benzene, carbon tetrachloride, 1,2-dichloroethane, 1,1- dichloroethylene, 1,1,1-trichloroethane, trichloroethylene, and vinyl chloride.

Proposed regulations would also revise or affirm maximum levels for inorganic substances such as lead, copper, mercury, barium, and cadmium.

The proposed regulations would also establish or modify permitted levels for 28 synthetic organic chemicals, including 10 synthetic volatile organic chemicals, 17 pesticides, and polychlorinated biphenyls.

In all, the proposed regulations would establish 27 new chemical levels and amend the existing allowable levels of many others.

The point is... even bottled water is generally not safe to drink either, especially when ill.
 

---

Primary toxic poisons found in our water supply:

• MTBE - fuel additive
• Pharmaceutical Drugs
• Disinfectants
• Chlorine
• Chloramine
• Chlorine Dioxide
• Total Trihalomethanes
• Haloacetic Acids
• Bromate
• Chlorite
• Microbes and Parasites
• Radionuclides
• Radon
• Combined Radium 226/228
• Beta/photon emitters
• Alpha emitters
• Inorganic Contaminants
• Arsenic
• Antimony
• Asbestos
• Barium
• Beryllium
• Cadmium
• Chromium
• Copper
• Cyanide
• Fluoride
• Lead
• Mercury
• Nitrate
• Nitrite

Synthetic Organic Contaminants, including Pesticides & Herbicides 2,4-D 2,4,5-TP (Silvex) Acrylamide Alachlor Atrazine  Benzoapyrene Carbofuran Chlordane Dalapon Di 2-ethylhexyl adipate Di 2-ethylhexyl phthalate Dibromochloropropane Dinoseb Dioxin (2,3,7,8-TCDD) Diquat Endothall Endrin Epichlorohydrin Ethylene dibromide Glyphosate Heptachlor Heptachlor epoxide Hexachlorobenzene  Hexachlorocyclopentadiene Lindane Methoxychlor  Oxamyl [Vydate] PCBs [Polychlorinated biphenyls]  Pentachlorophenol  Picloram  Simazine Toxaphene

Volatile Organic Contaminants Benzene Carbon Tetrachloride Chlorobenzene  o-Dichlorobenzene p-Dichlorobenzene  1,1-Dichloroethylene cis-1,2-Dichloroethylene trans-1,2-Dicholoroethylene Dichloromethane 1,2-Dichloroethane 1,2-Dichloropropane Ethylbenzene Styrene Tetrachloroethylene 1,2,4-Trichlorobenzene 1,1,1,-Trichloroethane  1,1,2-Trichloroethane Trichloroethylene  Toluene Vinyl Chloride Xylenes

 

---

What About Bottled Water?

You may be surprised to know that bottled water is generally NO safer than tap water, and in some cases, even worse.

Occasionally, one sees reports in the news of pesticides, bacteria or toxic metals in the public water supply. Many think that this is a good reason to change to bottled water. But is it?

The The Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974 requires that tap water is tested at every stage of its treatment. Tap water usually comes from reservoirs and other surface water sources. Even here it is tested daily. Then it is pumped to filter beds where layers of graded sand or carbon filters remove all particles of matter and microbes, and it is tested again. At this stage the water is checked in laboratories against 57 parameters which can detect 80-90 different substances.  After this the water is chlorinated to ensure that any remaining bacteria are killed. If any unwanted substances do manage to get through all these tests and into the public supply, they will be in such small quantities as to be quite harmless. Detailed analyses of public tap water are available on demand.

Are bottled waters as clean?  We just don't know.  Bottled waters are split in law into two types:  'Mineral' and 'Spring' waters. The Natural Mineral Waters Association claims that the regulations which apply to them are draconian and expensive. But the parameters call for mineral waters to be tested for only 13 chemicals and bacteria - less than one quarter as many substances as are tested for in tap water. There are also no requirements that mineral water be tested daily or even weekly.  A mineral water manufacturer can test when conditions suit him and when a clean result is likely. But the public still cannot know what those tests say, as the results of tests of mineral waters are not available to the public. The regulations on 'Spring Waters' are even more relaxed - there is no specific legislation at all!   Anyone can go to any water source, bottle the water, call it 'Natural Spring Water' and sell it in shops without doing any analyses at all. And it is likely to be contaminated.

The Hereford and Worcester Public Analyst tested many of springs in his area and found that over half were unfit for human consumption. He considered that without safeguards, many of the bottled spring waters were unsafe.

Dr. Joseph LaDou, acting chief of the division of occupational and environmental medicine at the University of California, agreed that bottled water is "no safer or healthier than ordinary tap water. They just taste better because they aren't chlorinated, " he explained. "But these waters typically contain as much or more asbestos, dry cleaning fluid, and other volatile compounds as does tap water."

Mineral Contamination

Scientists at the University of Wales at Aberystwyth led by Dr Ron Fuge tested 81 bottled waters, selected at random, for their mineral content using a plasma mass spectrometer. Many were found to have levels of potentially harmful minerals which were above the legal regulation levels for tap water.  In some cases they were considerably higher. The legal limit for sodium in tap water is 150 mg/litre. The amount of sodium in Vichy Saint-Yorre, for example, was seven times that limit.  For anyone on a low-salt diet, this is much too high. In Hépas, calcium was nearly twice the limit and fluoride in Mattoni was more than twice the limit. Uranium is rarely seen in tap water. Where it is, it is less than 2 micrograms per litre. There are no specific limits set down for uranium but uranium is a very toxic metal and the probable prudent limit is about 4 micrograms per litre. Perrier's level was 4 micrograms, San Pellegrino was 8 and Radnor Hills 12. Uranium in Badoit, however, was a massive 24 times the prudent limit. Badoit's label states 'Constant analysis shows that there is a low level (97 micrograms per litre) of uranium present and this is a natural component.' Natural it may be, but low level it is not. Of the 81 waters tested, 17 exceeded mineral limits for tap water as defined in the UK Act and a further 29 exceeded guidelines laid down elsewhere.

Italian scientists studied the cause of kidney stones in the city of Parma.  They compared the diets of stone formers with people free of the complaint, and found that there was only one difference. 'It was deduced that stone patients did not follow a different dietary style from the rest of the population except for a high consumption of un-carbonated mineral water'. The amount consumed was less than two litres a day.

Man-made chemical contamination

Contamination from man-made chemicals is potentially more of a problem than the minerals. The chemicals can be split into two classes: organic and inorganic. The organic chemicals likely to be found are residues of pesticides and herbicides used by the farming industry, and industrial detergents used both by farms and the water industry.

Until fairly recently there were no limits set for organic chemicals in tap water.  That has changed and there are now stringent limits in which allowed amounts are in the order of only 1 part in ten billion. If you hear of tap waters breaking these limits, and it does happen from time to time, and are thinking that you might be better off with bottled water, you might reflect that in many cases, the same aquifer is used for both tap and bottled water - and there are no tests for pesticides required to be done on bottled water. The bottled water manufacturers don't test for organic chemicals.

The Suffolk County Study in the USA tested 88 bottled waters and what they found was horrifying.  It was this study which discovered the cancer agent, benzene, in Perrier and caused it to be withdrawn, but they also found: Freon, kerosene, toluene, trichloroethylene, and xylene in a number of other bottled waters.

Another American team in Pennsylvania analyzed 37 brands, 28 of them from Europe, for:  alkalinity, aluminum, barium, beryllium, boron, cadmium, calcium, chloride, chromium, cobalt, copper, fluoride, iron, lead, lithium, magnesium, manganese, mercury, molybdenum, nickel, nitrate, pH, phosphate, potassium, silver, sodium, specific conductance, sulfates, tin, vanadium and zinc.  Twenty-four of the 37 did not comply with drinking water standards in the USA.  With the exception of Mountain Valley, a United States water, every one of them failed to pass EEC or WHO limits on at least one count.

Again - the only monitoring that is done, is done by the water bottling companies themselves - and they don't publish the findings.

Bacterial contamination

There are bacteria all around us: in the air, in the water, on our hands and on bottling equipment.  In tap water, bacteria are killed by the chlorine or ultra-violet light with which the water is treated. Although the limit for bacteria in tap water is 100 bacteria per millilitre, the normal level found is around 2 bacteria per millilitre. The situation with bottled waters is quite different.

In a test of 51 bottled waters taken at random, Chester Public Health Laboratory found only 22 with a bacterial content within the limits set for tap water. Only Purefect 95 and the sparkling waters bottled in glass had levels comparable to tap water.  Ten of the other waters had levels of up to 1,000 bacteria per millilitre, eight had between 1,000 and 10,000, while a further eleven were in the 10,000 to 100,000 bacteria class. One bottle was found to contain 188,000 bacteria per millilitre - a massive 1,880 times the limit for tap water.

Once again there are no legal limits for bacteria in bottled waters, although there is a legal requirement that no bacteria must be introduced during the bottling process. The bacterium usually found is Pseudomonas fluorescens , found widely in fresh-water springs and not considered to be a contaminant.  But while the presence of this bacterium is not considered dangerous in bottled water, when it is found in meat products it is described as potentially pathogenic and is a cause for concern. Go figure!

There are no regulations governing the number of bacteria in bottled water at point of sale. However, there is a legal requirement that none must be added at the bottling stage. It is disturbing, therefore, that Hunter and Burge found 7 cases of Staphylococcus which originate on human skin. They say that over 11% of the bottles contained bacteria that are unlikely to have been present in the source water and conclude: 'at least in some cases standards of hygiene may not have been as high as one would hope'. These levels of contamination are clearly at odds with bottled water's clean image.

A matter of taste

The other reason people give for drinking bottled water is its taste - bottled water, they said, tastes better. Yet when this was tested, those who professed to be able to tell the difference failed miserably. The testers used Evian and Highland Spring against local tap water - three waters which had very different characteristics from each other. Even so, only one-third of the 140 people got the correct answer. That is exactly what one would expect to get by chance.

 

Conclusions

The major problem with bottled water is that we just don't know what is in it. Tap-water regulations make it mandatory that the public water supply is tested daily and that findings are freely available for scrutiny.  There are no similar regulations for mineral and spring waters.  What we do know, however, is that bottled mineral and spring waters have no health-giving properties over tap water.  We also know that, while most bottled waters are safe, their mineral, chemical and bacterial contents mean that they are not as safe as tap water. (scary thought!) Yet they cost around 1,500 times as much as tap water.

Before 1980 there were few regulations for tap water.  Recent advances in equipment sophistication have meant that substances can be detected now at levels which previously were impossible. As a consequence, materials have been discovered in tap water which previously were unknown.  Studies have found that drinking tap water in any part of the USA is usually safer than drinking bottled water.  (And the tap water is in horrible shape!)  No study there or in Britain has found any benefit with drinking bottled water versus tap water.  While sparkling waters do tend to have a slight advantage, as the carbon dioxide gas used to make them fizz has antibacterial properties, no bottled waters are considered safe enough to be recommended as a drink for children.

We have an anomalous situation where different regulations apply to what is essentially the same commodity, merely packaged in a different way. Bottled waters should be subject at least to the same regulations as tap water. It could be argued, however, that if their advertising is going to stress their inherent purity, and if they are to cost so much more, perhaps their regulations should be even more stringent. There is little doubt that if tap water regulations were applied to bottled waters, many would disappear from supermarket shelves.

And, by the way, do you suppose some water bottlers are having a laugh at their customers' gullibility?  How many purchasers of Evian have noticed that this name spelled backwards is 'NAIVE' ?

source:www.frequencyrising.com

 

Bottled Water Definitions:   Source:  www.fda.gov

"Artesian" water: bottled water drawn from a well that taps a confined aquifer (a water-bearing rock, rock formation, or group of rocks) in which the water level stands above the natural water table.

"Distilled" water: produced by a process of distillation--vaporizing water, then condensing it in a way that leaves it free of dissolved minerals.

"Mineral" water (previously exempt from bottled water quality standards): water that comes from a source tapped at one or more bore holes or springs originating from a geologically and physically protected underground water source.

"Purified" water: produced by distillation, deionization (passing water through resins that remove most of the dissolved minerals), reverse osmosis (the use of membrane filters to remove dissolved solids), or other suitable processes, and that meets the U.S. Pharmacopeia's most recent definition of "purified" water.

"Spring" water: water obtained from an underground formation from which water flows naturally to the surface, or would if it were not collected underground through a bore hole where a spring emerges.

"Well" water: from a hole bored or drilled in the ground to tap an aquifer .

Contact Us

 

Please contact me, Michael, today with any questions. 

Independent Enagic Distributor

508-269-3081 EST   info@kangen-water-machines.com

© Copyright August 2009