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Whats bad about tap water? | Whats bad about bottled water?

What’s bad about tap water?

All tap water in America contains levels of synthetic chemicals, heavy metals, parasites and/or chlorination by products that pose significant health risks. We can either filter out these poisons prior to consumption, or we force our body to become the filter. We all drink water, and most us drink water treated with chlorine. Your body is made up of cells…about 61,000,000,000,000 of them. Bacteria are also cells. If chlorine kills bacteria, what do you suppose it does to cells?

Tap water in 42 states is contaminated with more than 140 unregulated chemicals that lack safety standards, according to the Environmental Working Group’s (EWG’s) two-and-a-half year investigation of water suppliers’ tests of the treated tap water served to communities across the country.

In an analysis of more than 22 million tap water quality tests, most of which were required under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, EWG found that water suppliers across the U.S. detected 260 contaminants in water served to the public. One hundred forty-one (141) of these detected chemicals – more than half – are unregulated; public health officials have not set safety standards for these chemicals, even though millions drink them every day.

The scariest of their findings is that, of the 260 contaminants found in U.S. drinking water, more than half do not fall under any regulation at all. Among the unregulated are the auto fuel additive MTBE and jet fuel ingredient perchlorate, both of which can be found in your average Los Angeles kitchen sink.

The state records we have compiled contain no tests whatsoever on unregulated contaminants for fully 23% of the 39,751 water systems represented, and EPA has required testing, in limited surveillance programs, for just a fraction of the hundreds on unregulated tap water contaminants identified in peer-reviewed studies. Some unregulated contaminants were found in the tap water of hundreds of communities, while others were found in very few; some were detected at levels of health concern, while others were not. These differences in the scale and magnitude of exposures can guide priorities when EPA assesses potential mandatory safety standards for these chemicals:

• Of the 141 unregulated contaminants found in tap water, 40 were detected in tap water served to at least one million people. While 20 unregulated contaminants were detected in just one system, only one time.
• Nineteen unregulated contaminants were detected above health-based limits (EPA 2004b) in tap water served to at least 10,000 people. Forty-eight unregulated contaminants were not detected above health based limits anywhere, and seventy lack health-based limits, which have yet to be developed by EPA.

EPA has required water suppliers to test tap water for approximately 200 unregulated contaminants over the past 30 years (EPA 2001b, 2001c, 2005c, FR 1996) But the Agency’s own scientists have identified 600 chemicals in tap water formed as by-products of disinfection (Richardson 1998, 1999a,b, 2003); tracked some 220 million pounds of 650 and spearheaded research on emerging contaminants after the U.S. Geological Survey found 82 unregulated pharmaceuticals and personal care product chemicals in rivers and streams across the country that provide drinking water for millions of Americans (Kolpin et. Al. 2004, EPA 2005d).

In its most recent national Water Quality Inventory EPA found that 45 percent of lakes and 39 percent of streams and rivers are “impaired” –unsafe for drinking, fishing, or even swimming, in some cases (EPA 2000). Even after water suppliers filter and disinfect the water, scores of contaminants remain, with conventional treatment regimes removing less than 20 percent of some contaminants (Faust and Aly 1998).

• Of the 141 unregulated contaminants utilities detected in water supplies between 1998 and 2003, 52 are linked to cancer, 41 to reproductive toxicity, 36 to developmental toxicity, and 16 to immune system damage, according to chemical listings in seven standard government and industry toxicity references. Despite the potential health risks, any concentration of these chemicals in tap water is legal, no matter how high.
• Altogether, the unregulated chemicals that pollute public tap water supplies include gasoline additive MTBE; the rocket fuel component perchlorate; at least 15 chemical by-products of water disinfection; four industrial plasticizers called phthalates linked to birth defects and reproductive toxicity. 78 chemicals used in industrial and consumer products; and 20 chemical pollutants from gasoline, coal, and other fuel combustion.

EWG’s analysis of tap water testing from 42 states validates the public concern about tap water. We found that between 1998 and 2003, water suppliers collectively identified in treated tap water 83 agricultural pollutants, including pesticides and chemicals from fertilizer- and manure-laden runoff; 59 contaminants linked to sprawl and urban areas, from polluted runoff and wastewater treatment plants; 166 industrial chemicals from factory waste and consumer products; and 44 pollutants that are by-products of the water treatment process or that leach from pipes and storage tanks.

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What’s bad about bottled water?

The production and consumption of bottled water has significant environmental impacts:

• Hazardous air pollutants are produced during the nonrenewable, petroleum-based manufacture of plastic bottles
• The transportation of these bottles consumes a significant amount of energy
• In the United States, an estimated 75 percent of these bottles are thrown in the trash instead of being recycled
• 60 Million plastic bottles a day are disposed of in America alone
• Massive amounts of greenhouse gases are produced from manufacturing the plastic bottles

Encourage the use of reusable containers that can be refilled with tap water, or consider purchasing water coolers with reusable water jugs.

In 2006, the equivalent of 2 billion half-liter bottles of water were shipped to U.S. ports, creating thousands of tons of global warming pollution and other air pollution. In New York City alone, the transportation of bottled water from western Europe released an estimated 3,800 tons of global warming pollution into the atmosphere. In California, 18 million gallons of bottled water were shipped in from Fiji in 2006, producing about 2,500 tons of global warming pollution.

And while the bottles come from far away, most of them end up close to home -- in a landfill. Most bottled water comes in recyclable PET plastic bottles, but only about 13 percent of the bottles we use get recycled. In 2005, 2 million tons of plastic water bottles ended up clogging landfills instead of getting recycled.

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