11 Apr 12
With Earth Day 2012 quickly approaching, it is always good to think about some of the things that we can do to be responsible in our actions and usages in our lives. Water, although it seems to be an abundant resource, is not infinite. Water conservation is a great thing to teach about and be reminded of when Earth Day comes around each year. But unfortunately, in many parts of this beautiful nation, we need to think about conserving water throughout the year, not just on Earth Day.
Earth Day is a day to inspire awareness and appreciation for the Earth’s environment. But according to some experts, “the Earth’s climate is warming. This is the unequivocal conclusion of climate scientists. Despite the complexities of climatology, certain consistent trends emerge with implications for water availability: as the world gets warmer, it will experience increased regional variability in precipitation, with more frequent heavy precipitation events and more susceptibility to drought. These simple facts will have a profound impact on freshwater resources throughout the United States, as the warmer climate will reduce available water supplies and increase water demand.”
In order to inspire awareness, we also need to provide an understanding of how homeowners and consumers can do their part in conserving water, while still providing their families with safe drinking water. Responsability and advanced water technology go hand-in-hand. It is imperative to find a home water system which will reduce water waste in reverse osmosis systems by up to 90%, require less energy, and will provide a constant flow of water.
Climate change is expected to lead to reductions in water supply in most regions in the United States. Scientists predict significant loss of snowpack in the western mountains, a critically important source of natural water storage for California and other western states. Consumers in these areas are urged to review their options with products like water coolers or other drinking water systems and responsibly share the limited resource needed for sustaining life at the very least. A smart drinking water system is the perfect example of responsible water use and water conservation. Earth Day might be a good reminder of how to go green with your products, but an eco-friendly drinking water system will remind you all year long. Smart drinking water systems can save over 4,000 gallons of water in a year as compared to a traditional R.O. filter under typical household conditions. Learn from Earth Day and see how a drinking water system help you be more environmentally aware, responsible, and conserve more water.
31 May 11
As millions of children leave the house and head for school every day, many of them are heading out for a full day of thirst. Considering the amount of time they spend at school, every child should be drinking at least three 8 ounce glasses of water while in the school. That is a pretty tall order when they only have the drinking fountain to get water from. It would be hard to drink down 8 ounces of water from a fountain; a cup would make it so much easier and far more possible, but cups are an expensive luxury and sometimes even viewed as a distraction.
Since First Lady Michelle Obama has taken on childhood obesity as her issue of choice, many things are coming to our attention including our kids being dehydrated. Getting enough water to drink is important to keeping a healthy weight in children. In fact it’s key to keeping a healthy weight in everyone. Imagine if you will spending a full 8 hour day at work and only drinking milk or orange juice, and if you wanted water having to go to a fountain to get it. Most adults wouldn’t put up with these conditions in any location and certainly not for a full 8 hour day. But our kids put up with it, in fact it’s just normal to them so nothing is said and nothing is done.
Every day at lunch children are allowed to choose between orange juice and milk. Both of these drinks are good enough but perhaps not the best choice. Children spent time at school each day playing at recess, exerting during Physical Education class and all they are offered is a quick drink at the fountain. There is no way for them to catch up on the water they need at lunch because water isn’t on the menu. Older students can buy a bottle of water out of the machine but it may be flavored, so just plain healthy great tasting drinking water seems very hard to come by.
As part of the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act that Congress passed in December 2010, all schools have to provide water in the eating area of the school. But, all they have to do is have a drinking fountain near the lunch room. So if a student would prefer water with lunch, they have to sit down, eat part of their lunch, then get up and go to the fountain for a drink and return to their lunch because there are certainly no cups available. That is absurd, to expect our children to do that for a drink of water. It is fairly certain that children don’t choose to have water with their lunch then. In fact most of them will take the milk and usually the flavored sugar-laden milk at that. That means that instead of giving their body the necessary hydration it requires, they are instead feeding it more sugar. No wonder the health of our children is deteriorating. Being able to have a simple cup of water at the table with lunch is all it would take to begin reducing the amount of obesity in our kids.
Educators claim that providing cups is an expense their budgets can’t handle. Chicago public schools, Miami-Dade County Public Schools, Newark Public Schools, Atlanta Public Schools and Clark County Public School District in Nevada, all do not provide cups for drinking water to any students. In fact most public school systems across the country don’t provide cups. “Water fountains aren’t providing adequate hydration,” says Matt Sharp, senior advocate of the California Food Policy Advocates. The simple fact is that most students have to stand in line at the drinking fountain with an educator nearby encouraging them all to hurry up and think of the other students. Time is limited for the water fountain and they simply cannot get a large amount of water drank under those conditions.
The UCLA/RAND Center for Adolescent Health Promotion, a CDC-funded prevention research program has been testing a way to get children drinking more water at mealtime to help combat our obesity epidemic. It’s called a water intervention, a 5 week research program that includes installing a water filter in the school, filling 5 gallon jugs with filtered water, chilling them overnight, and then placing them in the lunchroom with cups. This was done in 5 schools in the Los Angeles school district provided free. “We’ve seen students really gravitate towards the water out here and fill up their cups right before and after lunch to hydrate” says Burt Cowgill, the project manager. “The water is very popular and we have a lot of participation.” However once the research project ended it was up to the school district to continue providing the cups and water. The Los Angeles Unified School District says it cannot afford the estimated $1.8 million to $2.3 million every year to provide the cups and water for the entire district. Who knew that water was so expensive, even restaurants give a cup of water with a meal at no charge. The real kicker may well be those nice drink machines that every school has in the foyer. The school makes money off those machines and if they also provide cups of free water at lunch, how many kids would then buy bottled water from the machine? Likely not very many and that is the real problem. Schools don’t want to spend money they may not have and then make less from the machines too.
It all boils down to what parents will do to guarantee their children get enough to drink during the day. Many parents send a lunch with their kids to school; perhaps it’s time to add a water bottle full of great tasting water to that lunch. No one can make the schools install a water filtration system, but there are home water treatment systems available to everyone. These systems can provide every home with great tasting water right from the kitchen sink or a convenient water cooler. We can fill a water bottle from the kitchen tap put it in the lunch box and tell our kids to be sure and drink it at school. While this won’t guarantee they get enough, it is a place to start. Drinking water is necessary for human life, it’s time to make sure our kids’ life is all it should be. Help them get enough to drink so they can focus in class and learn the material they are expected to know. Maybe someone will teach them about water and how important it is to us; perhaps that person will be you.
25 May 11
We don’t usually think of our drinking water as medicine though it is supposed to be healthy for us, but sometimes it has contaminants in it that aren’t good for us. We don’t take medicine that isn’t prescribed for us and we certainly don’t typically take something that we don’t know what it is and what it is for. That is, unless our water is contaminated with chemicals or medications and we are unaware of it. Then we are taking medicines we aren’t aware of.
Take for instance water that has high concentrations of lithium in it. Lithium is a soft metal that is widely distributed on Earth; it is present in sea water as well. Lithium is most commonly found in rocks and in brines. It is extracted from the water of mineral springs and brine pools and brine deposits in South America throughout the Andes Mountain chain with Chile being the leading lithium producer followed by Argentina. In the U.S. lithium is recovered from brine pools in Nevada.
Lithium is used primarily in lithium batteries; however it is also used in the pharmaceutical and fine-chemical industry. It is used to treat bipolar disorder as well as treatment-resistant depression worldwide.
According to a recent article, high concentrations of lithium were found in villages of the Argentinean Andes Mountains where people treated for bipolar disorder showed altered thyroid function. The Swedish research shows that hypothyroidism can be triggered by the ingestion of too much lithium which is apparently present in the ground water that is used as drinking water. “The amounts of lithium that the Latin American women are ingesting through their drinking water is perhaps a tenth of what a patient would take daily for bipolar disorder,” explained Dr. Karin Broberg, and occupational and environmental physician at Lund University in Sweden. “But on the other hand, they are absorbing this lithium all their lives, even from before birth. What this implies for their health, we don’t really know in practice. That is why we are planning a new study that will compare the health of two groups of mothers and children; respectively, the ones with the highest and lowest levels of lithium in their blood.”
The concern is that there are elements that are found naturally in and on the earth that are also being found in our drinking water here in the U.S. and we don’t have all the answers regarding the long term effects these may have on human life. There is certainly no way we can take simple ground water and ingest it without also ingesting contaminants that may have negative effects on our body in a variety of ways and severity. It means that drinking water needs to go through a series of treatments before we drink it in order for it to be truly safe to drink.
Municipal water treatment plants take ground water and run it through a series of filters and chemical treatments to remove bacteria and other contaminants in order to make it “safe” to drink, but that all that means is that the water won’t make you sick to your stomach. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t other contaminants left in the water known or unknown that may have long-term negative effects on the body. There are things left in the water that we simply don’t know enough about, just like lithium. The reality is that we can’t blindly drink water without taking into account where it has been and what it has touched. We must think of our own health and well being, consider that our water can either benefit it or take it away from us completely. We can purchase home water treatment systems today that will better guarantee the safety of our drinking water. All it takes is one little system mounted under the sink or a convenient water cooler in the corner and we can drink all the water we want knowing it is really safe, healthy, great tasting water. We can’t ask for peace of mind from someone else, we can only give that to ourselves. Drinking water shouldn’t be assumed to be clean; we must do our own guaranteeing.
24 May 11
Water is the most necessary ingredient to sustain all life forms. In fact water is so necessary that villages and towns were built near water all across our country, rather than any other distinguishing feature. Women used to have to walk to the stream to do the laundry on a washboard and to dip a bucket and get drinking water or cooking water. Water was used a lot back then, but even more so now. In fact back then water was visibly used all the time, today it is one of the most invisible ingredients in everything.
Water is the most familiar substance in our lives but is also the most overlooked. Most people don’t even think about the fact that water vapor is the insulation in our atmosphere that makes Earth a comfortable place for us to live. Water drives our weather and shapes our geography; it is the lubricant that allows the continents themselves to move. Water is necessary in the function of machines of technology like the MRI machines, Twitter accounts, manufacturing of blue jeans, iPhones, Kleenex, basmati rice, steel, and many other items. In fact our entire life is awash in water – right down to the functions of the human body, they too are all about water. Every cell in our body is pumped full of it. Blood is 83% water, every heartbeat is mediated by chemicals in water, and the cells in our eyes execute all their seeing function in water, thinking about water requires neurons filled with water. Quite simply put, life is all about water.
Back in 1999 a team of researchers recorded 289,000 toilet flushes of Americans in 12 cities from Seattle to Tampa. The researchers used electronic water-flow sensors to record not just toilet flushes but every ‘water event’ in each of 1,188 homes for 4 weeks. This study has not been duplicated since, however it is still the staple that the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency still looks at for how Americans use water at home. This study showed everything we do with water at home, how many gallons a bath takes, how often the clothes washer runs, how much water the dishwasher uses, how much water for a shower with a low-flow shower head and without, how many toilet flushes per day and how many gallons with each flush. All of these pieces of information made up this study and proves our complete fixation on water.
Americans use more water flushing our toilets than bathing or cooking or washing our hands, dishes, or our clothes. Do you ever think of how many times you flushed the toilet today using 2.5 gallons or how many times you washed your hands probably using ½ gallon of water each time? Most American’s don’t give this any thought at all, the fact is we turn on the faucet and there it is every single time without fail so why worry about it? Actually that is the problem we don’t think about it enough. We hear about it happening somewhere almost every year – drought. Sometimes it is here in America, sometimes in other countries across the world. The fact is, water being more readily available is making it scarcer all at the same time. Most people won’t believe that statement because it hardly seems possible.
The world has 6.9 billion people; at least 1.1 billion don’t have access to clean, safe drinking water. Another 1.8 billion people don’t have access to water in their homes or yard, but do have access within 1000 yards. That means at least 40% of the world either doesn’t have good access to water, or has to walk to get it. Add to that population growths over the next 40 years and we have a lot more people that need water and may not have it. On top of all of this is climate change. Water availability is intensely weather and climate dependant. We have cities in America that have lived under water restrictions during drought years and many more that are looking at that possibility even now.
Big water issues are coming to light, however, this doesn’t mean we can’t deal with them. We can fix this problem simply by being informed and each individual doing their part. It is about water conservation, being aware what is being used and what is being wasted. We can stop letting the water run while we brush our teeth and we can stop letting the water run while we grab a towel to dry our hands. There are so many little tiny efforts that we can each one put forth that would make a great difference when it’s all added up over several households. Considering that the United States uses less water today than it did in 1980 is proof of that. The population has grown by 70 million people, but we use about 50 billion gallons less than we used in 1980. Conservation works when knowledge is passed around.
In regular American households, water can be conserved in so many ways. Not just by changing habits but also by changing some fixtures and appliances. Getting a low-flow shower head, newer toilet that uses less water with each flush, replacing the wasteful reverse osmosis system with a newer more economical, efficient system, these are the changes that will make a difference. Did you know that reverse osmosis systems waste thousands of gallons of water just in recharging themselves? Most people just know the water they get from an RO tastes good, but never consider the wastefulness of the system. There are newer drinking water filtration systems out on the market today that have taken into account the possibility of water shortages in the future. These new systems are aware that small changes can pay big dividends in the long run. Basically we need to make changes now so that our future isn’t wrapped around water scarcity. When water is no longer available in abundance is when we will begin to think about water in a very new light. The best plan is not to wait that long, make changes today that will protect our future water supplies.
16 Apr 11
Over the past few years more testing has been being done on drinking water and more harmful contaminants are being identified. Finding all the different contaminants has also given us a good idea of how much damage they can cause. Drinking water is something we cannot do without, yet we really must have good clean drinking water, not contaminated sludge.
Uranium is a common element found in rock and soil. It is a result of volcanic activity, and therefore is radioactive. It is mined for energy, industry, medicine, and weapons among other things. Uranium is useful; however, it is also dangerous when ingested. Uranium is present in greater amounts in granite rock, shale and sandstone. Whenever water flows through these rock formations, the mineral dissolves into the water. Wells that draw from underground sources where it flows through bedrock are more likely than other wells to contain too much uranium for safe consumption. Uranium is also present in the environment as a result of leaching from natural deposits, released from mill tailings from mining, emissions from the nuclear industry, the combustion of coal and other fuels, and also the use of phosphate fertilizers that contain uranium.
About 99% of the uranium ingested in food or water will leave the body, but the remainder will enter the blood and be removed by the kidneys and a small amount will deposit in a person’s bones where it will remain for years. The World Health Organization (WHO) has been working to determine safe levels, and a 2011 document offering a provisional guideline suggests that 0.03mg/L may be a conservative level. The WHO says that the “guideline value for uranium remains provisional because of the difficulties in identifying an exposure level at which effects might be expected from the scientific data”. Despite the so-called recommended safe levels, is there really any level of uranium that we want in our water?
It is becoming so clear that trusting the local water treatment plant to remove all the contaminants that could potentially be harmful is simply impossible, and those of us with private wells have even less protection. There are answers; however, most contaminants can be removed from water with the proper information and products. We simply have to be informed about what is in our water and what the levels are so we can choose the water treatment system that we need.
The WHO reports that standard reverse osmosis treatment will remove 90-99% of uranium. Documentary proof exists to show that uranium and many other contaminants can be removed from drinking water by reverse osmosis, distillation, special absorbent media (such as titanium dioxide) and anion exchange systems. Even though there is no way to stop uranium from ever being in the water to begin with, it is good to know it can be removed and that there are home water systems that can do the job.
The first step is testing the water you drink every day, the next step is to be informed about your choices to fix the problem, then go out purchase your home drinking water treatment system and let it fix the problem for you. Get on board with the first step and find out if you have a problem that could be damaging your kidneys and bones. Then guarantee your own health and safety with a cutting edge water treatment system that will deliver great tasting, clean, safe water to your kitchen sink or bottleless water cooler.
11 Apr 11
Water is the most important natural resource we have on this earth. According to one source, less than 2% of the Earth’s water supply is actually fresh water, 97% of the water on earth is salt water in oceans and seas, and only 1% is available for drinking water. How much of that 1% is completely wasted, flowing down the drain as drips from an unattended faucet or an undetected leak buried beneath a sidwalk?
As America begins to see the need for recycling we also are learning to cut back on things and recycle and reuse other things. We have become informed about taking shorter showers, running the dishwasher and washing machines only on full loads, and turning the water off while brushing our teeth. All these practices have begun to be used in residences across the country. With all these changes in the private sector we haven’t seen very many changes in the business sector.
Businesses across the country use a tremendous amount of water in their restrooms and break rooms. Not only because of the number of employees but also the patrons that go in and out throughout the day. The fact is water use isn’t at the top of any business priority list especially in regions where water shortages aren’t an everyday concern. However, it should get more attention because environmental scientists expect worldwide shortages of fresh water to be one of the most pressing environmental concerns in the next 50 years. Populations will be nearing 10 billion and water and utility rates will have continued to rise as well. Therefore water use will have gotten more expensive and it is one of the expenses that is easiest to shave off the amount used.
Businesses can actually find out where they use the most water and how much of it they are using as well as how much of it they are wasting. Water Audits are fairly unknown at this point, but as more information finds its way around the country, businesses will find it’s a very useful tool in trimming budgets. A commercial water audit examines how much water a business uses and provides detailed information on where opportunities lie for using less water thus saving business money. Audits can also identify costly water leaks that need to be repaired. Once a business has a completed water audit they can begin making changes that will essentially lower their water use as well as trim their utility budget.
The new terminology in water conservation is Go Low-Flow. Restroom and break room faucets that are equipped with low-flow aerators actually lower the water usage from 2.2 gallons per minute to 1.5 gallons per minute. Older toilets also use 5 gallons of water with every flush, new high efficiency toilets use 2 gallons per flush. Last but equally important is the drinking water cooler. Most businesses provide filtered or treated drinking water so staff isn’t required to drink the chlorinated water out of the tap. These drinking water systems can be water savers or wasters depending on the type and age of system installed. New cutting edge systems on the market today are geared more toward the water conservation side than the old ones. Traditional reverse osmosis systems didn’t give any thought to the amount of water used to make a gallon of drinking water. The new systems have given this a lot of thought and have come up with new technology that doesn’t require the use of several gallons of water to treat one gallon of drinking water. All of these changes are huge on water conservation and low on cost.
The next area most businesses can look to for water conservation is the landscaping. Huge lush green lawns are usually the decoration for big business buildings. However, this is expensive decoration because it takes a lot of water to maintain that lush greenery. Businesses can consider planting a more native landscape or install a rain-harvesting system for landscape irrigation. Both of these choices would significantly reduce the amount of water used outside the building.
As always, informed people make informed choices. Bringing employees in on the project will also help with water savings. Reminding everyone to be aware of their water usage will help them all to be reminded of turning the faucet off right away instead of letting it run while they reach for a towel. Every little change makes a difference in how much water is used and how much is wasted. After all we only have 1% of all the water on the earth to work with for drinking water; we need to work on conserving it.
28 Mar 11
If you live in a suburb of a major city, do you know where your drinking water comes from? Population growth in these major areas is making water availability of real concern to developers and urban planners. In fact, around Denver Colorado this concern has prompted developers to approach farmers and ranchers about their water rights. For now Colorado farmers still own more than 80% of the water flowing in the state, but that control is rapidly changing as developers approach them with astronomical offers to purchase the water rights.
Farming and Ranching has seen a dramatic drop off in financial growth and payoff in recent years. Technology has offered greater job opportunities and our children are taking that road instead of staying on the family farm. This change has made many of the older generations look for ways to make a little money off the farm because they won’t be passing it down another generation. Selling the water rights is giving them that opportunity in a really big way. Unfortunately at the same time it is taking away the ability to grow food for large areas. Every country is seeing a population increase which means that every country needs to be able to grow a sizable portion of their food. We can’t do that if we are selling water rights to suburbs. Even Arizona has seen a decrease in farmland. After World War II Arizona had 500,000 acres of irrigated cropland, today only one tenth of that is left to grow food. The rest grows houses.
Water will be in huge shortfall if this process continues. Instead, it is time for developers, home owners and businesses to adopt the water conservation attitude. We need to be considering our own personal water usage and finding the water wasters in our homes. We all love to have great tasting water. The one appliance that gives us this luxury is one of the biggest water wasters out there on the market. The reverse osmosis system is great in theory, but it wastes thousands of gallons of water to make one gallon of good water. This video will put it in perspective for you. If each household that has a reverse osmosis system changed to a drinking water with LINX® Technology there would be thousands of gallons of water that could be used in other homes down the street – or on food producing farms. This system has so many nice features that make it more environmentally friendly too. There is no need for filter pitchers or bottled water, this system will do it all for you.
To break it down in numbers the reverse osmosis system recovers as little as 4% of its water as drinking water, wasting the rest. The drinking water system with LINX® Technology recovers over 70% of its water as healthy, great-tasting drinking water. This means that using 1 gallon of water per day with the typical reverse osmosis system would waste as much as 9,855 gallons per year, with LINX you would waste as little as 255 gallons per year. The 9,855 gallons could be used on down the lane in other homes and not be flushed down the drain never to be used by another. We need to begin thinking further ahead and seeing the benefits of water conservation. We are seeing it in recycling and reusing, now it’s time to see it with water too.
06 Mar 11
Water exists on the face of the earth in both the drinkable form and the non-drinkable form. For example, we cannot drink salt water without removing the salt through desalination treatment, but we can drink water from fresh water sources and those sources are replenished through rain and snow. Water in its natural state flows down river beds – over, under and through rocks, and it is in this natural habitat that some natural elements are added to the water. Arsenic is a toxic chemical element that is unevenly distributed in the Earth’s crust in soil, rocks and minerals. Arsenic in ground water is mainly the result of minerals dissolving from weathered rocks and soils; however it is also found in agricultural and industrial waste.
The main problem with arsenic is the effect it has on the human body over time. Exposure to inorganic arsenic can cause various adverse health effects, such as irritation of the stomach and intestines, decreased production of red and white blood cells, skin changes and lung irritation. It is also a known carcinogen, especially linked to skin cancer, lung cancer, liver cancer and lymphatic cancer. Very high exposure to this arsenic can cause infertility and miscarriages with women, and it can cause declined resistance to infections, heart disruptions and brain damage in both men and women. And last but not least, arsenic can damage DNA.
This is one natural element that we certainly don’t want to mess with very much. Since we know what the full effects of it can be on our body and we know that it is naturally occurring, we also know we need to take it out of our drinking water. It is essential that we know what our drinking water contains and at what levels. In 2001 the EPA lowered the maximum level of arsenic permitted in drinking water from 50 micrograms per liter to 10 micrograms per liter. This new level mandate is for our health and safety.
Most residential areas are large enough to afford and have proper water treatment systems in place already that would remove arsenic from the drinking water. However, smaller municipalities and private wells may not have this problem under control.
For example, in the northwestern parts of Nueces County, Texas residents are paying for well water that has arsenic levels above the EPA limit. This is a low-income rural community of about 200 people that receive their water from a volunteer-run water system. In fact all across Texas and many other states in our country, there are other communities that are not in compliance with current EPA regulations. When the EPA lowered the allowable arsenic standard, the water systems serving fewer than 3,300 people were given an extension – that means they don’t have to comply with current regulations until 2015. It is because they are smaller communities with less money and less ability to procure the necessary filtering systems to provide safe water. In order to have the money to finance these changes, the residents would have to pay significantly higher water bills and in many places that is simply not feasible.
The real answer to this problem lies with each homeowner and resident of this great country. Whether we live in a small residential area or a large metropolis or simply have our own private well, it is essential that we know the condition of our water. Either by testing the water or by simply getting a current water quality report, we can find out what is present in our drinking water. Once we know the contaminants, we can begin finding out what is available to clean up our water.
We have several home water treatment systems available today to choose from, so we must know what we want to remove in order to determine which one is best. In this case, arsenic can be removed from drinking water using ion exchange systems, chemical filtration systems, absorptive media, and membrane separation. Of these choices we must decide which one fits our household budget and needs.
There is one water treatment system that is outshining all the rest when it comes to clean healthy great tasting drinking water. This system conserves water as well as giving the homeowner the privilege of choosing their flavor using the Dial-A-Taste® Control. And this system uses absolutely no chemicals in treating the water you drink. Instead it uses ion exchange through electricity to treat the water costing about 2 cents per gallon in electricity. It’s time to do the research and do the math, get the water you deserve and preserve your own health. Having great tasting healthy water available at your home tap is as easy as can be.
25 Feb 11
It seems like when it comes to the water supply in the Southwestern United States, there are a lot of things threatening its availability. The Imperial Valley has been a long-time agricultural powerhouse when it comes to the production of crops, responsible for about 80% of the nation’s winter vegetables. But as one article explains, this agriculturally rich area may suffer in the future on behalf of a number of reasons serious enough to threaten the agriculture, economy, drinking water supplies, and major water sources.
The article states that population growth, years of drought, and wastewater are major reasons causing concerns on the state of these current water supplies in the near future. The once “mighty” Colorado River is the sole water source for both the irrigation of acres of land and the drinking water for all residents. While the residents rely on the jobs, land, and crops produced in the arid lands, the residents also rely on their drinking water to survive, and the threat of sources drying up has brought up a lot of discussion on what could be done to relieve some of the dangers dried up water supplies could mean. Lake Mead, as mentioned in this article , is the reservoir holding this water from the river and has a 50% chance of drying up in as few as ten years according to climate researchers.
At the end of the article, it is recommended that all aspects of the situation do their part in conserving as much water as they can. Imperial farmers can look to reduce wastewater, but aren’t the only ones who need to change certain water habits – residents, too, can conserve water by changing habits or looking into a water treatment system that doesn’t waste water like most reverse osmosis systems tend to do. In fact, just as mentioned in one informative video, some drinking water systems will have 90% less wastewater than reverse osmosis. Consumers can find eco-friendly and affordable water systems with Dial-a-Taste® or water coolers which won’t waste gallons of water either. Whatever the choice might be, everyone in this dire situation should conserve water in whatever way they can as not to waste anymore of the valuable, yet diminishing water supply in the Southwestern U.S.
14 Feb 11
During a typical municipal water treatment process, water is moved through several filtration processes to remove the trash, metals, and microorganisms from the water. For example, the Phoenix municipal water system’s website describes a four-stage process where large contaminants are screened out, coagulants are added to help small contaminant particles cling together so that they are heavy enough to settle out of the water, filtration to produce clean drinking water, and finally disinfectant is added to prevent microbial growth that could occur between the treatment and the household faucet. By and large, these water treatment systems are very effective and have provided some of the cleanest, healthiest water in the world.
This last stage, the disinfectant stage, is very important. What would it matter if all the large, visible contaminants were removed if the water were filled with amoebas, algae, E. coli, and all sorts of other little organisms that could make you sick or even kill you? Water, obviously, cannot go straight from the last filtration step to your faucet. Instead, it is stored until it is needed, and then it must pass through water mains, valves, pump stations, and the pipes in your home. That is plenty of time for microorganisms to grow and multiply. Needless to say, many of us could not survive our water without chlorine.
Scientists have come to recognize that the benefits of disinfection, however, come at a cost. When chlorine comes into contact with substances in the water, pipes, filters, or any other surface, a chemical reaction sometimes creates a disinfection byproduct. Some of these byproducts have been shown to be carcinogenic in laboratory animals. Others have caused adverse reproductive or developmental effects in the animals. While a definite connection has not been made to humans, the EPA has stated that studies have suggested an association between bladder, rectal, and colon cancer and exposure to chlorinated water.
Since we can’t live with it and we can’t live without it, the best case scenario is to keep the disinfecting process in place and encourage homeowners, businesses, and restaurants to add one last step to the water treatment process with a point-of-use drinking water system such as a reverse osmosis or a drinking water system with LINX Technology. Drinking water systems are often mounted under the sink, but many are also available in convenient bottleless water coolers. These systems can take your municipality’s mostly-clean water and turn it into safe, healthy drinking water.
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