Water

New York Times reporter Charles Duhigg has been doing a series on Toxic Water in America.   Now, you may be thinking that drinking water is of no real concern and hey, it comes from the tap.  It's practically free!  Yet we pay the price for practically free water over time.  We pay with our health.

Note:  if you do not plan to drink anything other than tap water, please stop reading.

I'm serious.  It gets weird.

The articles are disturbing though I think the topic has been treated fairly.  In my opinion, the government has not been treated as an evil villain attempting to poison us all; and that's a good thing (to borrow the colloquialism).  I don't really see the government at fault in all this;  I see us at fault.  The truth is, we desire to live in large cities where all our amenities are provided.  I happen to be a fan of this, at least in some respects (think of the toilet....I'll not go further).  Trouble comes when we give full autonomy to the government and virtually eliminate public scrutiny.  As they say, you cannot expect what you do not inspect.

It would seem that the waste treatment plants are doing what they can to kill bacteria, namely they are spiking our water with chlorine.  At first pass, that sounds terrible.  Yet in reality it's that very process that is saving our lives.  As you read the articles thoroughly  you will see that with all the disgusting additives in the water, invaders from water run off, pollution, and just plain laziness, we would not survive without chlorine.  Documented incidents are included in the articles that call out things in the water that just shouldn't be there; hormones, arsenic, floating chicken heads (what?), and even a report of pickles being discarded in the sewer system causing the smell of vinegar and spices to permeate the complex.  You can see that without the chlorine, we'd be much worse off.  But is that enough?

I've copied a link to a recent interview on Fresh Air hosted by Terry Gross.  Terry is, in my opinion, a good interviewer and often has guests on her show that are interesting.  Her interview with Duhigg was no exception. 

So what, then, is the solution?  Well, I can assure you that bottled water (as in packaged and sold at the store) is only part of the solution.  While bottled water certainly has its place, some studies have suggested that the long term use of purified water alone can be detrimental as well.  Purifying the water, through reverse osmosis or other processes, does clean the water, but kills both the harmful bacteria and the necessary bacteria.  What you say?  Good bacteria?  Certainly, bacteria that your body needs in order to stay well. We certainly want it to destroy the bad bacteria, but some studies have indicated that over time that may too be detrimental to your health.

Have you ever thought about water filtration?  I mean your own filtration system for your own home.  Personally, I use the Berkey system.  It filters out the chemicals and bacteria that I don't need while leaving the rest.  It tastes wonderful too.  But that is certainly not the only system.  Many more exist.  Just google "survival gear" or "water filtration systems" and you'll have your work cut out for you.

But the bottom line is that you must do what is right for your family.  Health is not a matter we should leave up to any government agency.  We must take our families health and welfare into our own hands.  As long as the government is "by the people" and "for the people" isn't that the way it should work anyway?