How Safe is the Water in Your Home?
Should we assume that all our tap water is pure and safe to drink? This is a question that is too rarely asked, although the answer has to be negative. Most of the domestic supply is of excellent quality, but recent stories about methane contamination due to fracking and asbestos in older homes built before the 1977 ban, have to make you wonder whether your own home is safe. The water in many US cities can be polluted due to a variety of reasons. This may be because of old and deteriorating plumbing and the use of lead piping, but it may be that there are other local environmental factors such as the previous industrial use of the land now used for housing, chemical contaminants inside the home that can get into the water, or poor ventilation causing dampness and the growth of molds and fungus. A professional home inspection is the only way to assess conclusively what hazards are present.
The politics of water
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) 2003 report ‘What’s On Tap?’ studied the drinking water in 19 US cities and found a general picture of deterioration, pollution and outdated water treatment systems that could pose a health risk to many of these cities’ residents. It also concluded that the Clean Water Act rollbacks made by the Bush administration, which deregulated the dumping of mining waste into waterways, could only exacerbate the problem. The report assessed each city’s performance either as excellent, good, poor, fair or failing in three areas: water quality and compliance, right to know and source water protection. Boston scored good for source water protection, but poor in the other two. The only cities that scored excellent were Chicago for water quality and compliance, and Seattle for source water protection. Washington DC scored only fair on all three counts. The worst assessment went to Fresno, which scored only poor on two counts and failing in source water protection.
In 2010 the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its intention to revisit the question of the dumping of mining waste, but good intentions seem to have been lost amid President Obama’s vow to cut unnecessary federal regulations, and a Republican-led House of Representatives to whom deregulation seems to be a basic principle whatever the cost. All efforts to reverse the Bush so-called ‘fill rule’ by environmentalists and politicians have so far come to nothing.
Tap water has been shown to contain up to 700 chemicals, many of which are highly toxic and have been implicated as contributing to various health problems such as hypothyroidism, cancer, lupus, allergies and diseases of the immune system. Many of these chemical contaminants are not subject to regulations defining safe levels. Of the chemicals that are subject to federal guidelines, 49 substances have been found to exceed statutory levels, polluting the tap water in the homes of 53.6 million people in the US. No new standard of drinking water has been set by the federal government since 2001.
Hidden contaminants
Heavy metals such as cadmium and chromium (used in batteries), perfluorochemicals (used in the process of Teflon-coating), PCBs (used in fluorescent lighting), and a range of other chemicals such as lead, mercury, barium, zinc, arsenic and chlorinated hydrocarbons are present in the soil through various manufacturing processes or from the dumping of waste, which then leaches into the groundwater and eventually into our water supply. Municipal landfills are a source of many pollutants, particularly from substances that are dumped illegally, or if the landfill site was used before the 1970s when there was little control of hazardous substances. When heated, contaminants in water can turn into gases that can be readily inhaled, particularly in the shower. Chlorines and chloramines, used as disinfectants in the water supply, conform to EPA standards and are safe for all household uses, but when vaporized they can become toxic and raise the risk of developing allergies, hypertension or bladder cancer, or can damage the lungs. This can be prevented by the use of a showerhead filter.
Asbestos is one of the most toxic carcinogens to which we may be exposed in the home, more particularly those built before the 1950s. It was commonly used in roofing, shingles, textured paint, jointing compounds, insulation and as artificial embers in gas fires. It is most often found today in the lagging of old hot water and steam pipes. In itself it is not usually a hazard unless disturbed and the fibers are released into the air, and it should only be removed by a specialist company after it has made a comprehensive survey of the house. In 1987 high levels of asbestos were found in US water carried by an estimated 400,000 miles of water pipe made from asbestos cement. Today the use of asbestos has declined to an extent where most people will not be at risk from the water supply; however, in areas where there is a risk of flooding, which will disturb any asbestos present, it may be advisable to have your home surveyed.
Despite amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act in 1986 and 1996 enforcing measures to reduce contamination, exposure to lead is more widespread than previously estimated, and in 39 states, levels of lead in water have been found to be higher than standard health guidelines. When ingested or inhaled, lead is particularly harmful to the brain and nervous system of children under six years of age and can result in poor muscle coordination, high blood pressure, impaired hearing or vision and low sperm count. Even at low levels of exposure it can retard fetal development. Although lead pollution of water has declined since the 1990s, the EPA has criticized the monitoring of levels and the collection of data and suggested that this has undermined the degree of public protection. The level of risk will depend on individual circumstances and how much water is consumed, which is one reason for the increased risk for children as they generally ingest more water relative to their size than adults.
The safety of our water supply is so important to our health that it cannot be assumed to be fine – that rules to prevent contamination are always adhered to or have enough bite, and that even with the best of intentions of the suppliers, our water will always reach us in a fit state to drink. The complexity of the process that brings water from the reservoirs to our homes means that the system will inevitably have its flaws. Changes in our environment such as the growth of the fracking industry, which has been shown to cause problems with methane contamination, have to be constantly monitored – by politicians and environmentalists, by the water supply industry itself, and not least by ourselves when we turn on the tap.
BONSAI Inspection Company would like to thank Melissa Grace for authoring this article
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