We all take our tap water for granted, most of us think it is totally safe to drink or wash in,
but is it really free of pollutants? Is our tap water slowly killing us or just making our lives unpleasant with unexplainable rashes, breathing problems and stomach upsets?
This is the question I asked after seeing my wife’s hands deteriorate over a number of years. It initially started a few months after moving to a new area. She first thought it was the gloves she used when using a powerful cleaner at her work but when she gave up that job her hands improved only slightly and over the years got steadily worse. Basically her hands became a mass of red blotches and flaky skin.
My wife tried a variety of gloves and barrier creams she also bought expensive ‘Eco’ cleaners but to no avail her hands where worse than ever. The only possible cause for her condition after eliminating all the cleaning chemicals, detergents and anything else her hands came in contact with was the tap water. We had been led to this idea after noticing that the condition improved whenever we visited relatives out of state.
When I started investigating the problem I was absolutely amazed at what I found there are literally hundreds of contaminants in our drinking water. For instance across America there are over 250 contaminants more than half of which are unregulated pollutants. Unregulated basically means that the water companies do not have to report the contamination and with new chemicals to the USA being dumped into our rivers and streams at over 700 a year the list of unregulated chemicals is growing all the time.
Some of these are carcenogenic Total trihalomethanes (TTHMs), Bromodichloromethane and Dibromochloromethane to name just three. Others are also known to cause skin and respiratory complaints including Selenium, Lead and Trichloroacetic acid. There also some very well known poisons in our tap water such as Arsenic, Cyanide and Mercury. There is even significant amounts of Asbestos in the water to make me worry.
Well after reading about all these contaminants I didn’t wait to buy a water filter for our kitchen. I got an under the sink type for about $120. Fitting it was really easy, the hard part was deciding where to put the faucet. In less than a week my wife’s hands were much improved the red blotchiness had gone and the open sores healing.
Today there is no sign of her skin problems and the water tastes much better as well.
A list of contaminants can be found here