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One-fourth of Americans drink water from systems that don’t meet standards
- elektor 8y agoWhat consumer products are available for us to be able to filter our water?
- fuckyah 8y agoI purchased a six stage water filter on amazon for 200$. Imo it’s with it
- bjelkeman-again 8y agoThere are lots of tech available. But depending on what the issue is with the water you have access to, you need to pick tech. It can be expensive to go overboard.
- neonate 8y agohttps://outline.com/BfUCs8 https://outline.com/BfUCs8
- em3rgent0rdr 8y agoMy understanding is water in US is generally very safe. I've been drinking tap my whole life. My understanding is human body can filter out or otherwise deal with small amounts of metals and other stuff, and that most city water systems are sufficient. I don't use a water filter at home, and drink from the faucet, and I seem to still be alive. I'll remain in the control group. But just my one data point. "The Environmental Protection Agency regulates more than 90 contaminants—but a hundred more that are tracked are so far unregulated." But are we supposed to worry about these other "contaminants"?
- rubicon33 8y agoI'd be careful with the assumption that just because you're doing fine now, means you will continue to when you're 50+. Watch this, if you haven't already: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84glf6F3b-Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84glf6F3b-Y "The Devil We Know". It's a documentary about the Ohio river valley polution by 3M and Dupont in the production of Teflon. There are many amazing parts in this documentary but one of the most eye opening, is the fact that Dupont understood the risks of dumping C8 into the water. Yet the continued to do it, because, profits. Who can say what companies are around you, polluting the ground water? Just be careful with assumptions that its always safe, is all I'm saying. I'm sure people in the Ohio River Valley thought the same.
- MrTonyD 8y agoThese guys like 3M and Dupont and Monsanto are doing worse things than tech to destroy our society - why aren't we hearing calls to break them up or take them over or stopping their operations in our society? (ie. Are you listening Elizabeth Warren?)
- xvf22 8y agoNot sure I see the link between the two and one doesn't preclude the other. Since you bring up Elizabeth Warren, she has brought up Monsanto a few times [0]. [0] ://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/12/elizabeth-warren-just-let-loose-on-trump-and-monsanto/
- darpa_escapee 8y agoDupont, Monsanto et al. have been the target of leftist rhetoric for many decades.
- bsanr2 8y agoThis is phrased as if it's supposed to be damning, and I'm not sure why. Both companies have been less than supportive of moves to determine if their practices and products are safe. As a business decision: yes, sound, but unfortunately, it's conceivable that their interests could encroach on what's necessary for the public good. Considering the breadth of their holdings and influence, it's important to be vigilant for even accidental missteps on their part.
- darpa_escapee 8y agoI'm only damning MrTonyD's ignorance of politics, you're preaching to the choir.
- bjelkeman-again 8y agoThe linked article just said the that 1/4 of the population drink water that doesn’t meet standards. So your first assertion is wrong. > Our analysis showed that 82 percent of public schools in New York had one or more taps that exceeded the state’s lead action level The above is just one example of what is going on.
- DrScump 8y agoThat stat has nothing to do with the water supply; it's due to crappy plumbing in school construction there.
- amaccuish 8y ago> My understanding is human body can filter out or otherwise deal with small amounts of metals Your body certainly struggles to filter heavy metals. Studies have shown that any amount of e.g. lead is harmful.
- Izkata 8y ago> I don't use a water filter at home, and drink from the faucet, and I seem to still be alive. A few years ago I tried out Brita water filters. The water tasted weird and a single glass of water didn't leave me feeling as hydrated as straight from the tap did.
- ithinkitsfunny 8y ago>> I'll remain in the control group. Sorry I chuckled https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_terrorism#LSD_threats_to_the_water_supply https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_terrorism#LSD_thr...
- honkycat 8y agoConvenient that "doing nothing and not worrying about it" is both what you believe after doing exactly 0 research, AND the correct response to drinking tap water! What are the odds? Depends on where you live. Chicago water is notoriously shitty and has been found to have a large amount of lead in it. Your body cannot filter out lead or other heavy metals, and it will build up in your system and lead to brain damage. I know it is macho to "not worry about those contaminants like some weak manlet" but you should actually know what is going into your body before making unilateral decisions.
- shrimp_emoji 8y agoAnd allowing a small percentage of Americans to own unlimited wealth (which they also use to disproportionately influence politics to maintain the status quo) is morally justifiable how?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- rb808 8y agoI'm starting to think that bottled drinking water is a simpler and more efficient method that getting people to drink tap water. It seems crazy that every drop from the tap is high quality water good enough to drink - when 99.9% of it is not used for drinking. Perhaps its more efficient just to deliver drinking water to everyone in office cooler type bottles, and lower our standards for the water system.
- MuffinFlavored 8y ago> when 99.9% of it is not used for drinking What is it used for? Cooking?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- clarry 8y agoShowering, bathing, washing hands, flushing toilet, washing dishes, washing clothes, washing surfaces or floors (i.e. wetting and washing the rag/mop you use for wiping said surfaces), maybe watering lawns & washing cars, if I had to guess. It's surprisingly easy and quick to run way more water than you could drink in a day just for some daily cleaning duties. Come to think of it, I drink around 2 liters per day; that's six mugs of coffee plus maybe a couple glasses of water. How much water do I spend when I flush the toilet once and then wash my hands? I do that quite a few times every day.
- viraptor 8y agoSome of those are handled more efficiently in Australia. Water tanks are required with new builds and they usually do rain collection. Those feed into toilets, lawn sprinklers, washing machine, etc. All car washes in the town also use some form of not drinkable water. I'm not sure about the water used for cleaning though. If you want your hands to be clean before eating, why would you clean them in something your can't safely drink?
- jcranmer 8y ago
- as-j 8y agoI’m curious where this 25% statistic comes from, and after a bit of googleing it seems to be a 2015 report from: https://www.nrdc.org/resources/threats-tap-widespread-violations-water-infrastructure https://www.nrdc.org/resources/threats-tap-widespread-violat... This does exlcude ~13 million private water systems (wells) which is good. On the link rhere’s a map you can click on and see what the health violations are. [edited to move into commentary comment]
- as-j 8y agoAs I thought about this, it annoyed me a the way the information was presented, esepcially as I put my engineering/critical thinking hat on. Water systems are large ditributed systems, they require maintenance, have parts underground, are regulated and have testing. If I click on San Mateo County, California for example, they have a water company “Ca Water Service - Bear Gulch” who reported 1 violation afecting 58,432 people for “Surface, Ground Water, and Filter Backwash rules.” This appears to be a leak, maybe some ground water got in and mixed with city water. You don’t want ground water mixing into drinking water since it carries a higher change of bacteria, etc. (aka you don’t want a bird pooping on a roof, then dripping into a water resevoir) But: 1. This is a transient problem, 54,000 people don’t have bad water. The company reported a leak/problem and presumably fixed it. 2. This is why we chlorinate water, it kills off bacteria that might somehow get in. 3. This problem may not have even reached consumers. Aka, this is a system working as designed to provide safe water. The other way of looking at this is, the systems were tested, violations were found reported, and it looks like in most cases resoled without formal enforcement action. (seems about 6-10% of cases went to formal enforcement)
- willj 8y agoAs someone who worked in this field for several years, and worked closely with EPA, the biggest problem is the politicization of funding for EPA. Year after year its funding gets slashed, or at the very least stays the same and so is eroded by inflation. A 2013 report on state drinking water resources [1] showed that state drinking water programs continually do more with less, and are barely able to maintain their infrastructure as they have to dig into their emergency funds to do routine maintenance, which leaves them in a bind when a true emergency does happen, such as the rupture of a water main. The legislation in place is solid, scientifically-sound, and thoroughly vetted from a cost-benefit analysis side of things. The problem is lack of funding, and visibility into the issue. Apart from high-profile incidents of sickness and water main breaks, people just assume their tap generates clean drinking water and give no thought to where it comes from, or the work that is required to make it happen. I wish people would think to what life must have been like in the 18th century, and how difficult it must've been to secure clean drinking water. The idea of having clean drinking water coming into your house via tap would've been a pipe dream (pun not intended), and a luxury only the most rich could afford. And now it's shunned in some crowds. The bottled water crowd thinks they're immune to these issues around drinking water systems, but in fact the bottled water companies generally get their water from the same public drinking water systems we use, and their standards are in fact lower than those surrounding your tap water (as it's policed by the FDA, not the EPA). All that said, we have amazing tap water in this country, and it is a testament to the people and agencies responsible for making that happen. I lived in Asia for over a year, and coming back to a country where I can drink what comes out of the tap, use it to brush my teeth, and not worry about getting it in my mouth while showering really puts things in perspective. [1] (pdf) https://www.asdwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/SRNAP-Analysis.pdf https://www.asdwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/SRNAP-Analy...
- jhoechtl 8y agoThe biggest problem is that water is treated as a commercial good instead as a public good the government should take care of. In those parts of Europe where water has been privatized prices rose and quality went down.
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- openloop 8y agoCool.
- forgotmypw 8y agoEPA standards are a joke, designed primarily to avoid panic in the masses and allow the polluters to continue doing their thing. Go ahead, get your "just fine" tap water tested by a lab, it only costs a couple hundred bucks to do a full array. Then, consider how misleading the "parts per million" metric is, considering Avogadro's number. Just because all this shit does not lead to immediate and perceptible illness doesn't mean that it is not putting a strain on our immune systems and causing DNA damage left and right. Each of those ppm requires an immune cell (or multiple) to bond with it, sacrificing itself, and transport it into the kidneys or liver, where it sits around also causing damage, and so on, until it is broken down into more hazardous substances, or finally leaves the body, if ever. If you are not frantically getting filters installed in all your loved ones' homes, I think are just not paying attention. And I'm not talking about Brita either.
- creddit 8y ago> Then, consider how misleading the "parts per million" metric is, considering Avogadro's number. What about Avogadro's number make a PPM metric (i.e. a ratio) misleading??? Because there are a lot of millions in Avogadro's number? How is that relevant to a ratio?
- forgotmypw 8y agoIt is misleading because "parts per million" is perceived like a very small number by the average human, while in reality one part per million is a rather substantial amount of a substance in the water.
- creddit 8y agoIt's exactly 0.0001% of the water no matter how much water there is. Context of what the substance is and its mechanism of action would determine whether or not that "is a rather substantial amount".
- rayiner 8y agoIt’s hand waving, and possibly orthorexia: https://www.eatright.org/health/diseases-and-conditions/eating-disorders/orthorexia-an-obsession-with-eating-pure https://www.eatright.org/health/diseases-and-conditions/eati.... Remember, the human immune system was designed to drink water out there in the world, which has animals pissing and shitting in it. Heavy metal pollution likewise occurs naturally. (Bangladesh, where I’m from, naturally has dangerously high levels of arsenic in the water.) Your immune system is designed to handle the “strain” of dealing with all that. We’re drinking the cleanest water humanity has ever drank (and have the highest life expectancies in human history).
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]