Contaminated Water: Protecting Yourself and Your Family
Ever wonder what is in your tap water? Most water utilities only skim the surface when monitoring for potential contaminants. Fortunately, there’s a way to keep them out of your home.
When you consider that the overwhelming majority of treated water is used for industrial purposes and will never have contact with humans, coupled with the cost of testing for every contaminant that could be in water (if that were even possible), it just doesn’t make sense to expect that your water provider will be able to provide perfect water.
5 reasons why to consider a high-quality whole house water treatment system for your home
1) Public utilities only monitor for the presence of about 100 water contaminants.
Unless there’s a good reason to test for other chemicals – like a chemical spill in your area – they won’t test for anything beyond these.
These requirements are designed to make monitoring for the most dangerous chemicals a priority and to make testing efficient, so your water bills are kept as low as possible. However, this can mean that occasionally chemicals can leak into the system and go undetected.
2) Not all contaminants in water are removed during treatment.
Public water utilities have very specific treatment equipment and processes, much of which is based on the local water supply and the age of the treatment plant.
Different types of filters are designed to remove different types of contaminants. This means that in the event of a water emergency, your local water treatment plant just might not have the materials or resources it needs to treat the problem effectively.
3) Set safety thresholds for tap water quality are usually one-size-fits-all.
Safety thresholds are set for the general population, but there’s no telling how your individual body will react to any given chemical. Those who are especially vulnerable to the effects of even the smallest concentration of contamination include:
- Pregnant women
- People who are immunocompromised
- Young children
- The elderly
4) Problems with your local water supply could occur at any time, without warning.
And can recur at any time – or not go away entirely.
5) The consequences of water contaminant combinations are unknown.
Any two chemicals in the water supply might be found to be harmless in low concentrations, but what happens when they mix? We can only know by testing – and we know that’s not being done.
Water companies just don’t have the resources to make sure your water supply is one hundred percent safe, one hundred percent of the time. That is what makes home water treatment so important. A complete home system that includes whole house high-quality carbon filtration, UV disinfection, and reverse osmosis (RO) for drinking will keep you covered from contamination throughout the year, including in the event of a water supply disaster.
