|
Did you know there could be contaminants such as lead in water without you knowing it? You may think your drinking water is clean, but the truth is that water-treatment facilities can’t remove all of the contaminants found in your water.
Our drinking water comes from one of two sources. Larger water-treatment facilities typically draw from surface water (lakes, rivers, and reservoirs), while smaller water systems often rely more on groundwater. Groundwater tends to be cleaner because it’s less vulnerable to human-generated pollution: sewage, oil, pesticides, fertilizers, mine waste, and bacteria and viruses that thrive in open waters.
However, groundwater is not contaminant-free, as it can pick up substances from poor-performing septic tanks, landfills, agricultural runoff, and leaky pipes, as well as from weathering of rocks and soils that may contain naturally occurring metals such as lead, copper, and arsenic.
As water leaves the treatment facility and eventually arrives at your home, it passes through a large network of pipes, many of which are aging and cracked. Cracked pipes can both leak water out and let potentially contaminated water into the pipes and into your home.
Household plumbing has its own issues, too. For instance, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that 10 to 20 percent of human exposure to lead results from contaminated drinking water.
Start by finding out your city’s water-quality scorecard. The University of Cincinnati recently developed a very helpful online tool that lets you see how major metropolitan areas compare in water quality. You also can search by water contaminants and see where in the U.S. they’re present.
You can get a water report on the quality of your city’s drinking water. The EPA posts most water reports online. Check the test results for contaminants, such as the microbe Cryptosporidium, which can cause diarrhea, vomiting, and cramps, and mercury, which can cause kidney or nervous system disorders, to name a few.
If you’re concerned about water quality in your home, you can contact your county’s health department for help in testing for bacteria or nitrates. You also can locate a certified testing lab online or by calling the EPA’s Safe Drinking Water Hotline at 1-800-426-4791.
Finally, consider going on the offensive by installing a PUR® water filter system as a last line of defense against many contaminants entering your drinking water. PUR state-of-the-art filtration removes 99 percent of lead in water and reduces many other contaminants while retaining beneficial fluoride.
|
