A few years back, I remember a very interesting piece by the news show 20/20 showing that bottled water was mostly just "marketing" and no substance. They set up what was the water equivalent to the "Pepsi Challenge" - stopping New Yorkers as they shopped, asking them to taste several samples of water, with the video showing person after person actually choosing "New York City Tap Water" as their favourite, after their name brand bottled water alternatives. The premise is fine - people chose based on their taste preferences. The numbers weren't disclosed and they only showed the people that "preferred" the tap water for the video, but they made their point - or did they?
Just this week, New York was mandated by the EPA to reduce the lead detected in their public school's tap water - the water in the fountains, the water children drank every day while attending classes. (If you're a fan of irony, picture sending your kids to school to learn and hearing they have been drinking something that lowers IQ!) Last week, there was a story about water quality in Cedar City, Utah - this time, they had detected excessive nitrate levels in the water and needed to reduce them to legal limits. Nitrates in drinking water cause what is referred to as "blue baby syndrome" in infants, and all around is something to be avoided in drinking water.
So where am I going with this? The water that we always take for granted, the water that is supposedly safe for us, from time to time does test positive for contaminants that are known to be harmful to us. There is no disputing it; there are chemicals in water, plenty of them - whether drugs from prescriptions, disinfection by-products from adding chlorine (and in Edmonton city water's case, also the addition of ammonia,) fluoride (which has been in the news a lot as of late and something people are now treating as a contaminant rather than a health benefit) - the issue is: what is safe, at what level and what are the risks?
When I visit rural land owners (farms, acreages, etc.) with private wells - many times people drink the water right from the well with no treatment at all. "If it was safe for my Great Grandpa who dug the well 100 years ago, it oughta be safe for me now!" - I hear this all the time. Problem is - there are about 10,000 new chemicals added to our environment every single year now. There are literally millions of chemicals, drugs, fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides that are sprayed, used and also rain down from the air pollution so prevalent these days. What was safe 100 years ago, 50 years ago, or even 20 or 30 years ago may not be safe any more.
Municipalities can be slow to react to threats - often because there are so many things we don't even bother testing for. What it comes down to is the plain fact that we don't always know what is in our water - and with the rates of cancer these days being what they are, does it not make sense to be safe, invest a little in prevention and make sure the water you and your family drink is just good old H2O? Not H2O and a whole bunch of other stuff we don't know about, but assume to be safe?
A recent study announced by CBC found that 70% of bottled water was contaminated with bacteria and other health concerns. Most bottled water starts out as tap water anyway and with no law regulating what they do and don't have to do to the water they sell, what is the alternative? What is the safest thing to do? We recommend water purification installed into the home. For pennies a glass, much less than the cost of bottled, you can make your own purified water, as you need it and have control over what is actually in your glass.
Our bodies are about 70% water - to me, it makes sense to ensure it is composed of the highest quality water available. There are so many risks we face every day in society - why make something as simple and necessary as safe, clean, pure drinking water one of those risks?
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