What's Lurking in Your Water? Protect Yourself from Chemicals in Tap Water

Enlarge Image Image Gallery "The Healthy Home" takes readers on a tour of a specific home for a look at the surprising health risks posed by the everyday products and behaviors of a modern family. Photo Courtesy Vanguard Press

The following is an excerpt from The Healthy Home: Simple Truths to Protect Your Family from Hidden Household Dangers by Dr. Myron Wentz and Dave Wentz (Vanguard Press, 2011). The excerpt is from Chapter 9: Drink Up! 

Water Wasteland 

It’s ironic that the two most critical ingredients that create and sustain all life on earth—oxygen and water—are taken for granted as things to which we are entitled. We’ve been taught that the best things in life are free and, accordingly, we treat air and water as if they will be prefi ltered constantly and automatically by natural forces to maintain the quality required for us to live and grow.

In chapter 3, we discussed the importance of focusing on air quality in every room of the home—especially in the bedrooms, where much of our time is spent to replenish, repair, and renew our cells during sleep. Most of us are aware of the thousands of pollutants released into the atmosphere by our factories, power plants, and vehicles, and we are routinely notified by our TV weather commentators regarding the air quality or lack thereof for the coming week.

Air pollution, “the greenhouse effect,” and global warming dominate the primetime news. However, we almost never hear about the elixir of life itself: our water supply.

A Trace Too Much 

As alarming as many scientists find the levels of toxic chemicals and pollutants in our water supply to be, we consumers are mostly oblivious to the fact that our families are slowly being poisoned.

If water looks clean coming out of the tap, we assume it must be safe. The amounts of toxins may be small, but we need to drink as much water as we can to be healthy. It’s the ultimate paradox: With every life-giving sip, we accumulate more and more of the bad stuff in our systems.

Just like slow weight gain—that creep of just one or two pounds a year—subtle poisoning from our water supply will rarely gain our notice until we suddenly and very personally feel the effects. We need a wake-up call and a direct approach to avoid what’s unacceptable in our water while taking positive action to protect ourselves.

Water Wars 

How many of us are concerned about drinking water when we go camping or when we travel, but don’t give it a second thought in our own homes?

It might change your mind to know that the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974 covers only ninety-one contaminants, yet an estimated 60,000 chemicals are used within the United States. Make no mistake: Many of those chemicals find their way into our streams, rivers, lakes, and, ultimately, into our water supplies. According to an article appearing in the New York Times on December 7, 2009, the newspaper’s own research—conducted since 2004—found that the water provided to more than 49 million people had contained illegal concentrations of chemicals such as arsenic or radioactive substances such as uranium as well as dangerous bacteria often found in sewage.