Water-contamination:

The long List of Dangers

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You may find that this page on Water-contamination has been rewritten to provide more benefits to the readers.

In this page a long list of official websites publishing information on the main subject had been published. Then I was advised that only a few of the readers are likely to browse through the many pages to extract the most important information.

Therefore only a synopsis of what can be found in those official pages is now presented here, to offer a short and clear summary easier to read and remember.

The list of documents on Water-contamination is still available. It will be sent by email to anyone interested, requesting it by filling the form in the Contact Us page.

Introduction

What knowledge on Water-contamination is important for the curious layperson?

• That contaminants are everywhere
• That every effort is invested in trying to remove them
• That notwithstanding those efforts some of them can still be found in drinking water.

Some elements like calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium and their salts, are not contaminants. They have an extraordinary importance in the building of bones and other tissues, are necessary to human well being and their presence in drinking water should be always assured.

Contaminants

The term Contaminants in this exposition is meant to indicate any substance, present in water, likely to have dangerous effects on human and animal health.

It should be understood that water pollution or Water-contamination is a major global problem in that it is believed to be responsible for a large daily number of deaths the world over.

Sources of pollution, both for surface water and for groundwater, can be categorized according to their source, discrete (point like) or diffused, if the contaminants are from natural causes or man made, if organic or inorganic.

Anyway lots of contaminants, discarded as waste by industrial and agricultural production, find their way from the environment into masses of water, called public water supplies. These are treated for the removal of contaminants to obtain drinking water.

Furthermore even waste water is recycled for domestic use in desert regions. This is a matter of serious concern.

A partial list of contaminants, likely to be found in untreated water, will include lead and other heavy metals. Mercury is of low toxicity. However microorganisms in water and elsewhere can transform it into highly toxic methyl mercury. It accumulates in fish in high concentrations and becomes dangerous.

Furthermore the presence of the following contaminants is also established:chlorine, pesticides, organic chemicals, and various microorganisms that prosper and propagate when the conditions are favorable.

Among the microorganisms the following are remarked: Viruses, Bacteria, Cists and Parasites.These are difficult to eliminate, and testing procedures that may last two weeks are not completely reliable.

The parasite Cryptosporidium affected in the past almost half a million people and contributed to one hundred deaths.

Chlorinated Hydrocarbons are the most ubiquitous and persistent of pesticides.

Although incomplete the above list gives an idea of the Water-contamination problem, of the mass and variety of contaminants to be found in raw and untreated water, dangerous for personal use.

Influence on Health

While the poisonous substances likely to be present in water are well known and instant lethal poisoning is quite rare, other contaminants may have tragic consequences even in tiny quantities, as they accumulate in certain organs and produce progressive irreversible damage with effects on growth and other essential life functions of the human body.

It is not necessary to try to name all illnesses and ailments likely to be promoted or spread by Water-contamination reaching the drinking water. This is a specialized medical problem, still highly debatable, and it is beyond the interests and understanding of lay people.

Along with a long list of known contaminants upon which EPA and other agencies put a maximum safe limit (Maximum Contaminant Level, MCL) that should not be exceeded, there are also hundreds of chemicals not yet regulated, but listed or monitored, whose health effects are unknown or not well understood.

Prevention

It is believed that the best prevention of Water-contamination should be done at the source, by eliminating its occurrence to avoid worsening the conditions of any body of water likely to be treated for human usage.

Knowing the dangers is the first step towards establishing drinking water standards. Then it is possible to deal with water treatment and provide safe drinking water to all.

Here it can be briefly anticipated that although treated drinking water distributed by municipal services is generally considered safe for use by grownups, it may still be dangerous for selected classes of people (infants, kids, feeble and sickly youth, pregnant women, elderly people) and may taste bad.

For improving taste and quality at the point of use (the kitchen tap of every household) it is generally recommended to use a home filter. This is much more economic and preferable than the expensive solution of resorting to bottled water, whose many problems are not usually examined with sufficient attention.

Readers are urged to look for an adequate filter solution as presented in our page on Filter Advice or to explore the website of my recommended filter supplier at the Aquasana Homepage.

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• Water Distribution
• Water Recycling

• Contaminated Water Health Effects
• Water Healing

• Chlorination
• Water Filters

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