Deadly Amoeba Found For First Time In Municipal Water Supply

By Richard Knox, NPR

September 15, 2013

A 4-year-old child who died of a rare brain infection in early August has led Louisiana health officials to discover that the cause is lurking in the water pipes of St. Bernard Parish, southeast of New Orleans.
It's a type of single-celled amoeba called Naegleria fowleri, about a tenth the width of a human hair. Some call it a "brain-eating" amoeba, although it does its damage by causing a devastating immune reaction rather than by actually devouring brain tissue.
Officials are pumping more chlorine into the municipal water supply to kill the bugs and advising the parish's 40,000 residents how to avoid infection. They say the risk is tiny.
As we'll discuss shortly, it's not easy to get infected, and drinking the water poses no risk. But still, finding such a dangerous microbe in the drinking water is troubling and noteworthy.
"This is the first time that it has been found in the drinking water in the United States," Louisiana state epidemiologist Raoult Ratard tells Shots.
But it won't be the last, he says — because health officials are now trying to pin down the cause of previously unexplained encephalitis cases. About 40 percent of cases of this dangerous brain inflammation have no known cause. "Five years ago, we would never have known that this recent case was caused by the amoeba," Ratard says.
Another new element: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now tests water supplies when a case of amoebic encephalitis is discovered, to see where the bug came from.
For instance, in 2011 two Louisiana residents — one a 20-year-old man from St. Bernard Parish — died of amoebic encephalitis after using tap water to rinse their nasal passages, using a popular device called a neti pot. Health officials assumed that contaminated tap water was the source of the infection, but it was never proved.
This summer the amoeba infected the brains of two other US children – a 12-year-old Florida boy, who died, and a 12-year-old Arkansas girl, who survived. She may be one of only three known to survive the infection in the United States.
These alarming deaths are likely to remain rare – but not quite as rare as health officials used to think.
"We're going to see more cases," Ratard says. Instead of three to five cases of amoebic encephalitis per year across the nation, "maybe we'll go to 10 a year," he says. "I don't expect we'll have a hundred."
The episode vividly illustrates how humans live in a sea of potentially lethal microbes that, amazingly, seldom kill.
In this case, it's because Naegleria fowleri is only dangerous when it gains entry into the brain. It does that when water containing the amoeba gets inhaled very deeply, into the area where the roof of the nasal passages meets the floor of the brain.
"To get infected, the amoeba has to get to the ceiling of your nose – way, way up there," Ratard says. "At the top of the nose you have a little paper-thin plate made of bone with a bunch of holes, a little bit like a mosquito net. The holes are for the olfactory nerve. So the amoeba is crawling up the nerve and gets into the brain."
Drinking amoeba-contaminated water poses no risk, presumably because the single-celled organisms can't survive in stomach acid. Normal bathing or showering isn't a risk because even if tap water is contaminated, it doesn't penetrate into the deepest nasal passages.
Brain infections from the amoeba usually pop up in late summer, when warm water favors its reproduction and many people are diving into ponds to escape the heat.
Since uncounted numbers of people swim in waters that undoubtedly contain amoebae, Ratard says, it's a wonder there aren't more infections. Public swimming pools pose no risk because chlorine kills the microbes.
The child who died last month in St. Bernard Parish while visiting from Mississippi, had been playing a long time on a Slip'n'Slide connected to a household water faucet.
It took about two weeks for the CDC to determine that the child had a Naegleria fowleri infection. Then state officials started investigating how.
"We collected the hose and got some samples from the outside faucet, water heater, and toilet tank water," Ratard says. After testing verified amoeba contamination, Louisiana officials put out a press release about the case.
Further testing of tap water in four nearby areas revealed the presence of Naegleria fowleri, as officials announced on Thursday.
Understandably, the announcement has sparked considerable local anxiety, even though health officials have stressed that the risk is low – and can be avoided entirely by common-sense precautions.
"In the old days, you would look at your faucet and it wouldn't scare you," Ratard says. "But these days, for some people, it looks menacing."
To avoid risk, officials are advising people not to put their heads under water while bathing in tap water — and to supervise young children who might. Flushing the water from household pipes before filling a child's wading pool decreases the risk, although some people might want to add some bleach to the water as an added precaution.
Local officials have shut off the water at school drinking fountains, although it's hard to imagine how schoolchildren could inject that water deep into their noses.
In a couple of weeks, officials will retest the St. Bernard Parish drinking water to ensure that added chlorine has eliminated the threat – for this season at least.

Copyright 2013 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Blood Worms Showing Up In Municipal Water Supply

 A sample of blood worms pulled from a water filter pre filter

There's something in the water — and it isn't an ice cube. Residents of one small Oklahoma town are being ordered to sip exclusively bottled water, after tiny red blood worms started popping up in drinking glasses earlier this week.

The outbreak in Colcord, OK, has all but shut down the community, home to around 800 people. Schools are closed, convenience stores can't serve fountain sodas, and residents have been instructed not to cook or brush their teeth using tap water. Bathing, fortunately, is still deemed acceptable by local health authorities.

"The chlorine won't kill them, the bleach won't kill them."

Blood worms — actually the larvae of the midge fly — are typically small, maxing out at around half-an-inch in length. They're known to pop up in the southeastern United States, though not often in municipal water supplies, and are also sold freeze-dried as fish food. Blood worms tend to thrive in low-oxygen or heavily polluted water, where they burrow inside mud. And unfortunately for officials in Colcord, the buggers are also extremely resilient. "The chlorine won't kill them, the bleach won't kill them," Cody Gibby, the town's water commissioner, told a local TV network. "You can take the worms out of the filter system and put them in a straight cup of bleach and leave them in there for about four hours, and they still won't die."

The health risks associated with ingesting blood worms are unknown, though they aren't believed to cause adverse effects. But local authorities in Colcord aren't taking any chances — while they try to figure out how the worms infiltrated water supplies in the first place, they're also distributing pallets of bottled water to residents.

 Blood worms. This is a picture of blood worms sold as fish food.

High Levels of Arsenic Found in Groundwater Near Fracking Sites 

 

A new report finds poisonous arsenic contamination in Texas occurring in close proximity to natural gas extraction

By Theodoric Meyer and ProPublica

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A new study out of the University of Texas in Arlington finds high levels of arsenic in groundwater near fracking sites. Pictured: natural gas rig outside of Shreveport, Louisiana. Image: Flickr/Daniel Foster

 

A recently published study by researchers at the University of Texas at Arlington found elevated levels of arsenic and other heavy metals in groundwater near natural gas fracking sites in Texas’ Barnett Shale.
While the findings are far from conclusive, the study provides further evidence tying fracking to arsenic contamination. An internal Environmental Protection Agency PowerPoint presentation recently obtained by the Los Angeles Times warned that wells near Dimock, Pa., showed elevated levels of arsenic in the groundwater. The EPA also found arsenic in groundwater near fracking sites in Pavillion, Wyo., in 2009 — a study the agency later abandoned.
ProPublica talked with Brian Fontenot, the paper’s lead author, about how his team carried out the study and why it matters. (Fontenot and another author, Laura Hunt, work for the EPA in Dallas, but they conducted the study on their own time in collaboration with several UT Arlington researchers.) Here’s an edited version of our interview:
What led you guys to do the study?
We were sort of talking around lunch one day, and came up with the idea of actually going out and testing water in the Barnett Shale. We’d heard all the things that you see in the media, all the sort of really left-wing stuff and right-wing stuff, but there weren’t a whole lot of answers out there in terms of an actual scientific study of water in the Barnett Shale. Our main intent was to bring an unbiased viewpoint here — to just look at the water, see if we could find anything, and report what we found.
What kind of previous studies had been done in this vein?
The closest analog that I could find to our type of study are the things that have been done in the Marcellus Shale, with Rob Jackson’s group out at Duke University. Ours is set up very similarly to theirs in that we went out to private landowners’ wells and sampled their water wells and assayed them for various things. We decided to go with a list of chemicals thought to be included in hydraulic fracturing that was actually released in a congressional report. Our plan was to sample everyone’s water that we could, and then go through that list of these potential chemical compounds within the congressional list.
How did you do it?
We were able to get a press release put out from UT Arlington that went into the local newspapers that essentially called for volunteers to be participants in the study. For being a participant, you would get free water testing, and we would tell them our results. We were upfront with everyone about, you know, we don’t have a bias, we’re not anti-industry, we’re not pro-industry. We’re just here to finally get some scientific data on this subject. And we had a pretty overwhelming response.
From there we chose folks that we would be able to get to. We had to work on nights and weekends, because we had an agreement with EPA to work on this study outside of work hours. So we spent quite a few weekend days going out to folks who had responded to our call and sampling their water. But that wasn’t quite enough. We also had to get samples from within the Barnett Shale in areas where fracking was not going on, and samples from outside the Barnett Shale where there’s no fracking going on, because we wanted to have those for reference samples. For those samples we went door to door and explained to folks what our study was about.


We have people that were pro-industry that wanted to participate in this study to help out — saying, you know, ‘You’re not going to find anything and I’m going to help you prove it.’ And we also had folks that were determined to find problems. We have the whole gamut of folks represented in our study.
We would take a water well, and we would go directly to the head, the closest we could get to the actual water source coming out of the ground, and we would purge that well for about 20 minutes. That ensures that you’re getting fresh water from within the aquifer. So we didn’t take anything from the tap, and nothing that had been through any kind of filtration system. This was as close to the actual groundwater as we could get. We took some measurements, and then we took several samples back to UT Arlington for a battery of chemistry analyses. That’s where we went through and looked for the various volatile organic compounds and heavy metals and methanols and alcohols and things like that.
What did you find?
We found that there were actually quite a few examples of elevated constituents, such as heavy metals, the main players being arsenic, selenium and strontium. And we found each of those metals at levels that are above EPA’s maximum contaminate limit for drinking water.
These heavy metals do naturally occur in the groundwater in this region. But we have a historical dataset that points to the fact that the levels we found are sort of unusual and not natural. These really high levels differ from what the groundwater used to be like before fracking came in. And when you look at the location of the natural gas wells, you find that any time you have water wells that exceed the maximum contaminate limit for any of these heavy metals, they are within about three kilometers of a natural gas well. Once you get a private water well that’s not very close to a natural gas well, all of these heavy metals come down. But just because you’re close to a natural gas well does not mean you’re guaranteed to have elevated contaminate levels. We had quite a few samples that were very close to natural gas wells that had no problems with their water at all.
We also found a few samples that had measureable levels of methanol and ethanol, and these are two substances that don’t naturally occur in groundwater. They can actually be created by bacterial interactions underwater, but whenever methanol or ethanol occur in the environment, they’re very fleeting and transient. So for us to be able to actually randomly take a grab sample and detect detectable methanol and ethanol — that implies that there may be a continuous source of this.
You found levels of arsenic in areas with fracking that were almost 18 times higher than in areas without fracking or in the historical data. What would happen to someone who drank that water?
Arsenic is a pretty well-known poison. If you experience a lot of long-term exposure to arsenic, you get a lot of different risks, like skin damage, problems with the circulatory system or even an increased risk of cancer. The levels that we found would not be a lethal dose, but they’re certainly levels that you would not want to be exposed to for any extended period of time.
What about the other stuff you found?
The heavy metals are a little bit different because they are known to be included in some fracking recipes. But they’re also naturally occurring compounds. We think the problem is that they’re becoming concentrated at levels that aren’t normal as a result of some aspect of natural gas extraction.
It’s not necessarily that we’re saying fracking fluid getting out. We don’t have any evidence of that. But there are many other steps involved, from drilling the hole to getting the water back out. A lot of these can actually cause different scenarios whereby the naturally occurring heavy metals will become concentrated in ways they normally wouldn’t. For example, if you have a private water well that’s not kept up well, you’ll have a scale of rust on the inside. And if someone were to do a lot of drilling nearby, you may find some pressure waves or vibrations that would cause those rust particles to flake out into the water. Arsenic is bound up inside that rust, and that can actually mobilize arsenic that would never be in the water otherwise.


Methanol and ethanol are substances that should not be very easy to find in the groundwater naturally. We definitely know that those are on the list of things that are known to be in hydraulic fracturing fluid. But we were unable to actually sample any hydraulic fracturing fluid, so we can’t make any claims that we have evidence fluids got into the water.
Have you talked with the homeowners whose wells you sampled?
We have shown those homeowners the results. I think most of the folks that had high levels of heavy metals were not necessarily surprised.  You hear so much I think maybe they were expecting it to come back with something even more extreme than that. I don’t want to say they were relieved, but I think they all sort of took the news in stride and realized, OK, well, as a private well owner there’s no state or federal agency that provides any kind of oversight or regulation, so it’s incumbent on that well owner to get testing done and get any kind of remediation.
Do you think fracking is responsible for what you found?
Well, I can’t say we have a smoking gun. We don’t want the public to take away from this that we have pegged fracking as the cause of these issues. But we have shown that these issues do occur in close relation, geographically, to natural gas extraction. And we have this historical database from pretty much the same exact areas that we sampled that never had these issues until the onset of all the fracking. We have about 16,000 active wells here in the Barnett Shale, and that’s all popped up in about the last decade, so it’s been a pretty dramatic increase.
We noticed that when you’re closer to a well, you’re more likely to have a problem, and that today’s samples have problems, while yesterday’s samples before the fracking showed up did not. So we think that the strongest argument we can say is that this needs more research.
From ProPublica.org (find the original story here); reprinted with permission.

Spike in fluoride concentration levels prompts temporary shutdown at Mt Crosby water treatment plant

• Robyn Ironside
• The Courier-Mail

BRISBANE's water supply will remain fluoride free until later on Tuesday or Wednesday after a problem at the Mt Crosby water treatment plant on Friday night.

Seawater found fluoride levels in one reservoir had jumped to double their normal concentration, prompting an immediate shutdown of the fluoride plant.
The Queensland Water Supply Regulator was notified of the increased levels and advised the disruption did not pose a health risk, said an Seqwater spokesman.
He said the elevated level of fluoride - as much as 1.7mg a litre - did not make it into drinking supplies.
"We thought we'd be able to bring the plant back online over the weekend but our guys are still working to figure out what triggered that spike early Friday night," he said.
Under the Water Fluoridation Regulation 2008, Seqwater is required to produce fluoridated water of between 0.7mg/L and 0.9mg/L averaged over a quarter.

The spokesman said Seqwater was still confident the target rate would be achieved during the July-September quarter.
Fluoride was added to Queensland's water supply under the previous Labor Government in 2008-09 but last year the Newman Government legislated to allow councils to decide whether to maintain fluoridation.
LNP backbencher and health campaigner Jason Woodforth has lobbied vigorously to have fluoride removed from water supplies and on Monday expressed his deep concern about Friday night's incident.
"Let's call fluoride for what it is. It's a toxic waste product," said Mr Woodforth.
His views have been opposed by others in the Newman Government including Health Minister Lawrence Springborg and Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek, a former dentist.
The Seqwater spokesman said they were confident of getting the fluoride plant at Mt Crosby back online by later on Tuesday or Wednesday.
"We won't put it back online until we know exactly what's occurred," he said.

It's Poison!

10 American Cities With the Worst Drinking Water

by Douglas McIntyre Jan 31st 2011 

   Unknown to most Americans, a surprising number of U.S. cities have drinking water with unhealthy levels of chemicals and contaminants. In fact, some organizations and state environmental agencies that collect and analyze water data say the level of chemicals in some Americans' drinking water not only exceeds recommended health guideline but the pollutants even exceed the limits set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the national legal authority in these matters.

The website 24/7 Wall St. examined the quality of water supplies in most major America cities, using data collected from multiple sources for five years (ending in 2009) by Environmental Working Group (EWG), based in Washington, D.C. The fact that the data covered a half-decade is important because it shows that the presence of certain chemicals is persistent.

Cities in Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Georgia provided insufficient data to be included in EWG's database. Some other major cities outside of these states also failed to submit information, including Detroit, Salt Lake City and Washington, D.C.

Test results from EWG's national database covered "a total of 316 contaminants in water supplied to 256 million Americans in 48,000 communities in 45 states." According to the data, among the contaminants were 202 chemicals that aren't subject to any government regulation or safety standards for drinking water.

Based on the EWG's methodology, 24/7 Wall St. came up with its 10 worst cities list. These cities' water quality rank is based on three metrics, in order of increasing importance:

• The percentage of chemicals found based on the number that were tested for
• The total number of contaminants found
• The most dangerous average level of a single pollutant.

Here's that list, in descending order, with the city's water utility in parenthesis:

10. Jacksonville, Fla. (JEA)
Located on the northeast coast of Florida, Jacksonville is the state's largest city. According to EWG, 23 different toxic chemicals were found in Jacksonville's water supply. The chemicals most frequently discovered in high volumes were trihalomethanes, which consist of four different cleaning byproducts -- one of which is chloroform. Many trihalomethanes are believed to be carcinogenic. Over the five-year testing period, unsafe levels of trihalomethanes were detected during each of the 32 months of testing, and levels deemed illegal by the EPA were detected in 12 of those months. During at least one testing period, trihalomethane levels were measured at nearly twice the EPA legal limit. Chemicals like arsenic and lead were also detected at levels exceeding health guidelines.

9. San Diego (San Diego Water Department)
Located on the Pacific in Southern California, San Diego is the country's eighth-largest city. According to California's Department of Public Health, San Diego's drinking water system contained eight chemicals exceeding health guidelines as well as two chemicals that exceeded the EPA's legal limit. In total, 20 contaminants have been found. One of those in excess of the EPA limit was trihalomethanes. The other was manganese, a natural element that's a byproduct of industrial manufacturing and can be poisonous to humans.

8. North Las Vegas (City of North Las Vegas Utilities Department)
North Las Vegas's water supply mostly comes from groundwater and the Colorado River, and doesn't contain chemicals exceeding legal limits. However, the water supply did contain 11 chemicals that exceeded health guidelines set by federal and state health agencies. The national average for chemicals found in cities' water exceeding health guidelines is four. North Las Vegas had a total of 26 contaminants, compared with the national average of eight. The water contained an extremely high level of uranium, a radioactive element.

7. Omaha (Metropolitan Utilities District)
The land-locked city of Omaha gets its water from the Missouri and Platte Rivers, as well as from groundwater. Of the 148 chemicals tested for in Omaha, 42 were detected in some amount, 20 of which were above health guidelines, and four of those were detected in illegal amounts. These were atrazine, trihalomethanes, nitrate and nitrite, and manganese. Atrazine is an herbicide that has been shown to cause birth defects. Nitrate is found in fertilizer, and nitrite is used for curing meat. Manganese was detected at 40 times the legal limit during one month of testing.

6. Houston (City of Houston Public Works)
Houston is the fourth-largest U.S. city. It gets its water from sources such as the Trinity River, the San Jacinto Rivers and Lake Houston. Texas conducted 22,083 water quality tests between 2004 and 2007 on Houston's water supply, and found 18 chemicals that exceeded federal and state health guidelines, compared to the national average of four. Three chemicals exceeded EPA legal health standards, against the national average of 0.5 chemicals. A total of 46 pollutants were detected, compared to the national average of eight. The city water has contained illegal levels of alpha particles, a form of radiation. Similarly, haloacetic acids, from various disinfection byproducts, have been detected.

5. Reno (Truckee Meadows Water Authority)
Reno gets most of its water from the Truckee River, which flows from Lake Tahoe. Of the 126 chemicals tested for in Reno over four years, 21 were discovered in the city's water supply, eight of which were detected in levels above EPA health guidelines, and three of these occurred in illegal amounts. These were manganese, tetrachloroethylene and arsenic. Tetrachloroethylene is a fluid used for dry cleaning and as an industrial solvent, and is deemed a likely carcinogenic by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Arsenic is a byproduct of herbicides and pesticides, and is extremely poisonous to humans. During at least one month of testing, arsenic levels were detected at roughly two and a half times the legal limit.

4. Riverside County, Calif. (Eastern Municipal Water District)
Riverside county is a 7,200-square-mile area located north of San Diego, part of California's "Inland Empire." The county is primarily located in desert territory, and so the water utilities draw their supply from the Bay Delta, which is miles to the north. The water in Riverside County contained 13 chemicals that exceeded recommended health guidelines over the four tested years, and one that exceeded legal limits. In total, 22 chemicals were detected in the district's water supply. The contaminant exceeding legal health standards was tetrachloroethylene.

3. Las Vegas (Las Vegas Valley Water District)
Located in the Mojave desert, Las Vegas gets its water from the Colorado River through miles-long intake pipes. While its water doesn't exceed the legal limits for any single type of contaminant, Las Vegas's water has a large range of pollutants. Of the 125 chemicals tested for over a five-year period, 30 were identified in some amount, and 12 were found in levels that exceeded EPA health guidelines. These chemicals included radium-226, radium-228, arsenic and lead. The two radium isotopes are commonly found around uranium deposits and are hazardous to human health, even in small quantities.

2. Riverside, Calif. (City of Riverside Public Utilities)
Riverside, with a population slightly greater than 300,000, gets most of its drinking supply from groundwater. Regulators in the city of Riverside, which has a different water-treatment facility than the rest of Riverside County, detected 15 chemicals that exceeded health guidelines and one that exceeded legal standards. In total, 30 chemicals were found. Since 2004, the water has almost consistently been riddled with alpha particle activity, traces of bromoform (a form of trihalomethane) and uranium, causing an unusually unhealthy water supply.

1. Pensacola, Fla. (Emerald Coast Water Utility)
Located on the Florida Panhandle along the Gulf of Mexico, Pensacola is Florida's westernmost major city. Analysts say it has the worst water quality in the country. Of the 101 chemicals tested for over five years, 45 were discovered. Of them, 21 were discovered in unhealthy amounts. The worst of these were radium-228 and -228, trichloroethylene, tetrachloroethylene, alpha particles, benzine and lead. Pensacola's water was also found to contain cyanide and chloroform. The combination of these chemicals makes Pensacola's water supply America's most unhealthy.

How To Remove Fluoride From Water

Most people are aware that there is a controversy surrounding public fluoridation of drinking water. Here is a list of ways to obtain drinking water without fluoride. In addition, I've listed water purification methods which do not remove fluoride from water.

Ways to Remove Fluoride from Water

Activated Alumina Defluoridation Filter
These filters are used in locales where fluorosis is prevalent. They are relatively expensive (lowest price I saw was $30/filter) and require frequent replacement, but do offer an option for home water filtration.

Distillation Filtration
There are commercially available distillation filters that can be purchased to remove fluoride from water. On a related note: When looking at bottled water, keep in mind that 'distilled water' does not imply that a product is suitable for drinking water and other undesirable impurities may be present.

These Do NOT Remove Fluoride

Brita, Pur, and most other filters.

Some websites about fluoride removal state otherwise, but I checked the product descriptions on the companies' websites to confirm that fluoride is left in the water.

Boiling Water
This will concentrate the fluoride rather than reduce it.

Freezing Water
Freezing water does not affect the concentration of fluoride.

Steps to Reduce Fluoride Exposure

Don't take fluoride supplements.

Read labels on bottled beverages.
Unless they are made using distilled or reverse-osmosis water, they are probably made with fluoridated public water.

Consider using unfluoridated toothpaste.

Avoid drinking black or red tea.
There are many health benefits associated with chemical compounds found in tea, but this may be a beverage to avoid if you need to reduce your fluorine intake. Black and red tea come from two different types of plants, but both leaves naturally contain high amounts of fluorine.

Be wary of tinned fish and canned food items.
Fluoride may be used as a preservative.

Avoid black or red rock salt or items containing black or red rock salt.

Avoid using chewing tobacco.

Avoid long term use of medication that contains fluorine.

Certain antidepressants and medications for osteoporosis contain fluorine.

~ Tom Retterbush


SOURCES & RESOURCES

Video:How to Remove Fluoride From Water
http://video.about.com/chemistry/How-to-Remove-Fluoride-From-Water.htm

International Society for Fluoride Research Website
http://www.fluorideresearch.org/

Impact of fluoride on neurological development in children
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/fluoride-childrens-health-grandjean-choi/

Drugs In The Water

"Without knowing it, you are being medicated.  Maybe even now you have a cup of coffee or tea in hand, filled with water compliments of your local municipal system.  Think those sodas and energy drinks are any better?  Think again.  Unless the water is specifically filtered for pharmaceuticals, you’re still getting dosed.
There is an unhealthy cocktail of drugs in your drinking water.

Did you know with each sip, you self-medicate with anti-anxiety and even psychotropic drugs?  That’s right, according to a report released this past week in Science, environmental pollution by pharmaceutical companies are a major threat to our world’s water supplies."

Full story here:  http://www.thelibertybeacon.com/2013/02/20/dazed-and-confused-drugs-in-drinking-water/

Benefits Of Using A Salt Free Water Softener

• Zero waste water
• Leaves in beneficial minerals
• Does not require electricity to operate
• Naturally softened water without salt
• Conditioned water without the slippery feel
• Prevents / removes hard water scale from plumbing and appliances
• Proven third party tested no salt water softener
• A no salt water softener saves you money,
• Great for lawn and gardens; Better drinking water for pets

                                                               Salt Free         Standard Softener

Salt Free: Yes Uses Salt Keeps Beneficial Minerals: Yes No Electricity: No Yes Wasted Water: No Yes (6,200 Gallons /Yr) Monthly Maintenance: No Yes (Salt) Eliminates Slimy Feeling: Yes No Yearly Operating Cost ($) $0 $566 /Yr* Requires RO System: No Yes RO Operating Costs: $0 $100-$200 /Yr. Saving Your Appliances The most important investment you make in your home are your appliances. Why not protect those investments from the damaging effects of hard water and save money on costly repairs! Repairs can cost you hundreds of dollars every year due to hard water damage. Protecting your appliances will keep them running longer and more efficiently without needless repair costs. To repair your ice maker in the fridge from hard water damage costs $230 for a repairman! A hot water heater, if protected can save you up to $30 a month in water heating by keeping scale buildup off the heating element, making it more efficient. Not protecting your water heater could cost you $300-$1,000 to replace! You also save the yearly plumber visits for clogged shower heads, minor appliance repairs or clogged pipes which will save you up to $500/ year!The Pelican NaturSoft system is designed to protect your plumbing from the damaging effects of hard water up to 75 grains per gallon of hardness (over 1,200 mg/L). Unlike the Pelican NaturSoft system, other similar systems fall short requiring the media to be replaced every 5 years and have a limited hardness rating of only 25 grains. That means we have already saved you $876 in normal yearly repairs and maintenance in the first year and prevented a costly $530 - $1,230 repair cost from damaged appliances! Saving Time Cleaning How much is your time worth? Keeping your house clean takes up a lot of your time and your time is worth something, right? The Pelican NaturSoft prevents the minerals in your water from etching your glass and fixtures and prevents the minerals from sticking to surfaces. The number one expense and time consuming job of cleaning is the removal of hard water scale from toilets, fixtures, shower heads and sinks. One study (Ohio State University) determined that it takes an average of nearly 4 hours per house cleaning hard water scale. When softened water was made available, cleaning time was cut by 40%. Over the course of a year, this would save you more than 10 8-hour work days (80 hours).We spend up to $45/month in cleaning supplies and harsh chemicals. Let's be conservative and say we save only 20% on cleaning time and supplies. If your time is worth $10/hour (and its probably worth more) we are saving you $42 a month cleaning hard water off your fixtures and in cleaning products! That's 40 hours saved and $504 a year in savings! Soaps & Savings Ever wonder why you go through so much soap when doing your laundry? Hard water prevents many soaps from properly creating soap suds and thus requires more soap and soaps containing salts and chemicals to counteract the hard water. These soaps are harsh on your skin and your clothes. The extra soap also costs you money every month, on average we spend $20/month on soaps. With the NaturSoft system installed you can reduce your soap usage and use more natural soaps with less salts and chemicals. NaturSoft reduces soap usage and improves cleaning. So what's our total savings so far? A huge $1,380 savings in 1 year from simply adding a NaturSoft system to your home. With an unlimited lifespan on the NaturSoft system, you will have paid for your system within the first year and it will pay you every year thereafter.

Is Martinelli & Co Apple Juice Worth The Extra Buck Or Two?

Apparently it is. 

"Still, one of the biggest employers in town -- the Martinelli beverage company, famous for its sparkling apple cider -- said it would rather move a planned expansion elsewhere than use fluoridated water in a new line of juices."

"We believe fluoride is bad for your body so, morally and ethically, we simply cannot put that water in our products," said John Martinelli, president of S. Martinelli & Co., his family's business for 142 years. "If half the people in this town don't want to be mass-medicated, then we shouldn't be."

The full article here on the link,
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/15/local/la-me-fluoride15-2010feb15

Milwaukee Cryptosporidiosis outbreak

The 1993 Milwaukee Cryptosporidium outbreak was a significant distribution of the Cryptosporidium protozoan in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and the largest waterborne disease outbreak in documented United States history. The Howard Avenue Water Purification Plant (see Town of Lake water tower) was contaminated, and treated water showed turbidity levels well above normal. It was one of two water treatment plants for Milwaukee. The root cause of epidemic was never officially identified; initially it was suspected to be caused by the cattle genotype due to runoff from pastures.^[1] MacKenzie et al. and the CDC showed that this outbreak was caused by cryptosporidium oocysts that passed through the filtration system of one of the city's water-treatment plants, arising from a sewage treatment plant's outlet 2 miles upstream in Lake Michigan.

This abnormal condition at the water purification plant lasted from March 23 through April 8, after which, the plant was shut down. Over the span of approximately two weeks, 403,000^[2] of an estimated 1.61 million residents in the Milwaukee area (of which 880,000 were served by the malfunctioning treatment plant) became ill with the stomach cramps, fever, diarrhea and dehydrationcaused by the pathogen. At least 104^[2] deaths have been attributed to this outbreak, mostly among the elderly and immunocompromised people, such as AIDS patients.

The outbreak was discussed on Season 1 Episode 2 on Monsters Inside Me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Milwaukee_Cryptosporidiosis_outbreak

A Pineal Gland With Fluoride Buildup.

Fluoride is a highly toxic substance

"Fluoride is a highly toxic substance. Consider, for example, the poison warning that the FDA now requires on all fluoride toothpastes sold in the U.S. or the tens of millions of people throughout China and India who now suffer serious crippling bone diseases from drinking water with elevated levels of fluoride. In terms of acute toxicity (i.e., the dose that can cause immediate toxic consequences), fluoride is more toxic than lead, but slightly less toxic than arsenic. This is why fluoride has long been used in rodenticides and pesticides to kill pests like rats and insects. It is also why accidents involving over-ingestion of fluoridated dental products–including fluoride gels, fluoride supplements, and fluoridated water–can cause serious poisoning incidents, including death. The debate today, however, is not about fluoride’s acute toxicity, but its chronic toxicity (i.e., the dose of fluoride that if regularly consumed over an extended period of time can cause adverse effects)."

Read the full article here: http://www.fluoridealert.org/issues/health/

Shout Out!

If you have or know of a quality filtration manufacturer and would like to give them a shout out feel free to leave a comment.

First filter supplier I'm checking into.

Their prices seem good and their products appear to be of the best quality. Better quality than many of their competitors and their products are made here in the USA! I will be making it a point to only advertise for products made here in America. No slave labor filters!

ULTIMATE TRIPLE UNDER-COUNTER

FLUORIDE WATER FILTER FOR CITY WATER:

KDF/GAC, Fluoride Removal, 0.5 Micron Carbon Block

UCT-FL-CB - Designed for municipal water that contains a high level of chloramines (chlorine combined with ammonia) and/or VOCs (volatile organic chemicals), PPCPs (pharmaceuticals, personal care products). This triple cartridge water filter features our Fluoride removal cartridge (typical life - 1 year) PLUS our KDF/GAC cartridge (typical life 2 to 3 years) PLUS a high performance 0.5 micron extruded multi-media carbon block cartridge (typical life 2 to 3 years) in the third housing (this technology is recommended in Dr. Andrew Weil's book, Eight Weeks to Optimum Health). The carbon block cartridge is made from a high grade coconut shell carbon that has a high capacity for chlorine, chloramines, VOCs, MTBE, and cyst removal. The ULTIMATE weapon against bad city water! Includes premium series faucet, "EZ faucet connector" (see detail here), high pressure polyethylene tubing, mounting bracket, and housing wrench. Quick-connect fittings make installation a snap! Includes chlorine test strips to verify when it's time to replace cartridge. 3 year prorated warranty on cartridge, 5 year on components.Housings and cartridges are made in the USA of NSF-approved, BPA-free plastic.

Includes PREMIUM faucet (see below), "EZ faucet connector" , high pressure polyethylene tubing, mounting bracket, and housing wrench. Quick-connect fittings make installation a snap! Includes chlorine test strips to verify when it's time to replace cartridge. 12" tall, 14" wide, 6" deep. 3 year prorated warranty on KDF/GAC cartridge, 5 year on components.

Here is the link to their on line store.
http://www.pure-earth.com/fluoride-water-filters.htm

I'm back in business!

A brief company history.
Back in 1994 I began  "A Pure Water Source" to provide clean affordable drinking water to people in the greater Los Angeles and Orange County areas. This was back in the day before I had a computer and advertising was difficult and expensive. I had my own plumbing and construction company at the time and decided to just go to work for a commercial plumbing company. By 1998 I closed up shop and stopped working with water filtration on a regular basis. For the last ten years I have worked as a Union plumber on all sorts of systems. Medical, commercial, residential, institutional. Now It's time to bring back and start doing my own thing again. A Pure Water Source is now reborn.

Mission Statement
A Pure Water Sources purpose is to install water filtration systems for residential and commercial applications at the most affordable prices.

With the recent scientific discoveries showing the health risks associated with drinking fluoridated water, having a Pure Water Source is more important than ever before.

Here on the blog I will be posting reports about the water quality as well as the adverse affects of common contaminants found in municipal city water systems. Some of this information will make you angry. Some of it may make you sick to your stomach. Knowledge is key to living a more healthy life and avoiding many illnesses. I will be attempting to educate my viewers and customers to the potential dangers found lurking in their water. On this blog, you will see things you will not like knowing about.