Will Drinking Reverse Osmosis Water Turn Your Bones to Putty?

Come, Let Us Reason Together

by Gene Franks

Several years ago a leading Natural Hygienist and distiller merchant wrote an article praising the health benefits of low-mineral distilled water. He used as a negative example the spring water at Hot Springs, Arkansas, which, he said, was so high in calcium and other minerals that it clogged the arteries and joints of the the natives, causing severe arthritic crippling. He offered no evidence except his personal observation.

This caught my attention because I had been to Hot Springs several times and the native Arkansans seemed to me as supple of limb as people in Texas or California. They did not clank or creak or cry out in pain when they walked.

Then I read a short book by another health authority, also a distiller vendor, named Dr. B., who described a scientific experiment he did with goats. Dr. B. put out several bowls of water, all high in dissolved minerals except one. When some thirsty goats were brought to the area, they all went straight for the distilled water and ignored the high mineral spring water. Dr. B said that this proved natural creatures instinctively know that distilled water is best.

However, when I tried to replicate Dr. B’s experiment with my own lab animal, my dog Pu Ch’i, I found that she always drank from the bowl closest to her, whether is was low in minerals or high, whether it was clear or muddy, whether it was bottled water or tap.

Drinkers of reverse osmosis water often have bones that bend easily because of calcium deficiency. Photo Courtesy of Get Rich Marketing Corp.

When I started selling water filters in 1986 I was exposed to the opposite view. Those who sell filters, as opposed to distillers or reverse osmosis systems, take the view that minerals in water are not just good but necessary, and that drinking low mineral water not only fails to provide essential nutrients but actually leaches calcium from bones and organs. Filter sellers at the time, especially the MLMers, cited a popular book (now forgotten, even by me) which gave examples of populations who drank hard (calcium rich) water as having healthier hearts than those of people who lived in areas where the water was naturally soft (low in calcium).

Since that time the great mineral war has continued, usually fueled by one marketing program or another. The arguments have remained essentially the same over the years. The mineral war is fought mainly at MLM rallies and on commercial websites. Independent science has not been a big player.

On one side are vendors of distillers, reverse osmosis units, and, more recently, deionizing cartridges, backed by many alternative health experts, who advocate “pure” water, which is defined as water with very low “dissolved solids” (minerals); they view anything in the water other than pure H2O as sludge, an impediment to water’s main function as the body’s purifying solvent, and they blame high-mineral water for everything from arthritis to kidney stones. Many doctors appear to support this view by putting patients with kidney ailments on low-mineral reverse osmosis water.

The other side, more vocal, is comprised mainly of sellers of conventional drinking water filters and, more recently, the curious devices called “ionizers.” Their pitch focuses on the body’s need for minerals and they argue that low-mineral water actually removes (“leaches” is the favorite word) minerals from the body. With the arrival of “ionizers” to the market, the issue of pH has been added. Ionizer vendors preach that the body needs water that is sky- high in pH and alkalinity, and that low-pH reverse osmosis water is harmful.

My Take on All This

Since our company sells both reverse osmosis and conventional filters, we don’t have a dog in the fight. If someone asks my opinion, I give it, but we’re happy selling either a filter or an RO unit and we try to make the product’s ability to reduce known contaminants, not mineral content, the issue.

We do this because we believe that except in extreme cases (like sea water, which I don’t advise you to drink) the mineral content of water is not a big issue.

Consider that in some parts of the United States, the total dissolved solids (TDS) count in drinkable city water is 20 times that of other regions. Is there an ideal TDS? Is there a correlation between the health of the citizens and the TDS of the local water? The total solids count contains both calcium and sodium. Some natural water has almost no calcium, while some naturally hard water has almost no sodium. Does this matter?

If you live in a city in west Texas, the tap water you drink may have 500 ppm (parts per million) hardness (calcium and magnesium), but if you live in Bolivar, Texas, your tap water has 500 ppm sodium and virtually no hardness. Does this matter? My unscientific observation has been that people in Bolivar and people in Lubbock both do fine, as do people who live in northern California where the TDS of tap water may be 30 ppm with very little calcium or sodium. I spoke with a customer in Colorado this week whose natural TDS reading is 27. He has a reverse osmosis unit to protect against fluoride and arsenic that reduces the TDS to 2. Should he put a “remineralizing” device on his reverse osmosis unit to restore the water to its original TDS, although that TDS is less than 1/20 of the TDS of the natural water in many areas? Does the difference between 27 and 2 matter? Does the difference between 1000 and 50 (typical reverse osmosis reduction) matter?

The human body has evolved and learned to thrive on a planet whose water differs greatly in mineral content from place to place. When water is in the clouds it is distilled water—literally–because the earth’s recycling process is a giant water distiller. When the distilled water precipitates and falls to earth it picks up impurities from the atmosphere and becomes very much like reverse osmosis water in mineral makeup, having roughly the same Total Dissolved Solids count (around 10) as lake water that has been run through an undersink reverse osmosis unit in your kitchen. People who have rainwater collection systems to provide water for their homes have essentially the same water they would have if they pulled water from a well and processed it through a reverse osmosis unit.

Should we assume that drinking rainwater is unhealthy and that the only suitable drinking water is water that has filtered through dirt and rocks and picked up their impurities?

To me it seems obvious that the human body has exceptional ability to adapt to its environment. Just as we can adjust to cold climates and hot, we have a wide range of tolerance for food and water. If you drink water with 20 parts per million dissolved minerals or 400, the inner wisdom of your body will quickly adjust it to what it needs. When your body needs minerals, it takes them the easy way, from the organic minerals in foods. It does not waste its time trying crack open the inorganic minerals (rocks) dissolved in water unless no other minerals are to be had.

Although the pH issue raised by “ionizer” vendors doesn’t deserve an argument, I’ll make a single comment: Simply ask yourself–does it seem reasonable that the human body, which has evolved over eons and done extremely well drinking natural waters from a wide pH range, from very acidic to very alkaline, now in the the 21st century suddenly requires high pH water that can only be obtained from a $2,000 “ionizer?”

Boil Water Orders Are Increasing 

What This Means to Residential Water Users

 by Gene Franks

“Boil water” alerts are issued by water suppliers when the safety of the water they deliver is in question. The standard instruction is that water should be brought to a rolling boil for at least one minute (longer at higher altitudes) to kill waterborne pathogens.

Formerly, government agencies tracked boil water alerts in the US as public information, but as the number of alerts has increased dramatically in recent times record keeping is no longer done. In the absence of such information, Dr. Kelly Reynolds of the University of Arizona recently used a Google News search to identify boil water alerts across the US for a two-week period in August 2013. Dr. Reynolds found 29 alerts during the period.

Alerts are issued for a variety of reasons–bad weather, especially flooding, a break in a water main, low system pressure, finding of fecal coliform by testing, system leaks, system maintenance, detection of E. coli or cryptosporidium by routing testing, and general elevated bacteria counts—

Adding a “point of entry” ultraviolet system to the home’s incoming water does away with the need to “boil water.”

are the most common.

As pipes and pumps age, and as power outages and incidents of challenging weather become more frequent, it is certain that boil water alerts will become more common.

The boil water strategy for assuring micro-biologically safe water is at best a risky one. We have been conditioned to rely on the safety of our water systems to provide potable water, but this perception of safety is changing. Each time a pipe ruptures or pressure in the pipe goes down, microbes are drawn into the delivery system. A blanket “boil water” warning, even if given on time and received by all concerned, is a haphazard way to assure safety. Studies have shown that both reception of the alert and compliance with its recommendations are far below 100%.

It is certain that we have gone past the time of complete trust in the water delivery system to provide pathogen-free water. Just as more and more people are now relying on home treatment devices to provide chemical-free and more aesthetically pleasing water for drinking, cooking, and bathing, it is logical that “final barrier” devices to assure that water is free of bacteria, viruses and protozoa are becoming more common for city residents.

Fortunately, modern water treatment has developed many alternatives–from very tight filters for drinking water to whole house treatments like ultraviolet. These are certain to become prominent fixtures in US homes. As Dr. Reynolds says, “The inherent, unpredictable nature of the distribution system and the maintenance quality of the distributed water add credence to the need for routine POU [point of use] treatment.”

Reference: Water Conditioning and Purification, Sept., 2013.

Live In A Heavily Fracked Area? Watch Out For STDs

Editor’s Note: Fracking has been identified as the cause of much water waste, water contamination, general environmental degradation, air

If fracking is taking place near you, beware.

pollution, and more. Now you can add the spread of sexually transmitted diseases to the list of evils. — Hardly Waite.

Just in case news of the potential environmental damage didn’t scare you, anti-fracking advocates say you should be concerned about your social habits if you live in an area where fracking is practiced.

In 1850, near the beginning of the California Gold Rush, the female population was perilously low in Northern California. In mining counties, they made up less than 2% of overall inhabitants. According to Sierra Foothills Magazine, one man wrote at the time: “Got nearer to a woman this evening than I have been in six months. Came near fainting.”

It wasn’t long before women from all over the world began flocking to California in hopes of making some quick cash as sex workers. This was a situation ripe for STDs–men without long-term partners present having sex with all the same women. But this situation wasn’t unique to the Gold Rush.

The average annual number of cases of sexually transmitted infections was greater in heavily fracked rural counties.

Natural resource booms are generally accompanied by a wave of male workers who turn to prostitutes in the absence of a dating scene or their partners back home. And guess what: Today’s natural gas boom isn’t any different. If you live in a county where fracking is happening, there are probably a whole lot more STD-ridden people wandering around than in non-fracked areas, according to a new study. Keep those antibiotics handy.

In the “Social Costs of Fracking: A Pennsylvania Case Study,” the environmental group Food and Water Watch examines the social impact of fracking–an efficient but dirty process used to extract natural gas from the ground–in rural Pennsylvania counties, which are the epicenter of the growing fracking industry. Between 2005 and 2011, 5,000 shale gas wells were drilled in the state. As a not-so-obvious consequence, gonorrhea and chlamydia is now running rampant.

Food and Water Watch found that the average yearly number of chlamydia and gonorrhea cases rose by 32.4% in heavily fracked Pennsylvania counties between 2005 and 2010, while unfracked counties saw an uptick of just 20.1%. Once fracking began during these years, the number of cases rose an average of 8% per year in heavily fracked counties–and just 3.8% in unfracked counties.

While there’s no proof that fracking is actually causing the rise in STD rates, the study documents the correlation: “The increase in the average annual number of cases of sexually transmitted infections was greater in heavily fracked rural counties than in unfracked rural counties,” it says.

There are plenty of other social costs to fracking, such as increased disorderly conduct arrests and heavy truck crashes, but few things inspire fear in the heart of sexually active Americans like the threat of rampant STDs. So here’s a suggestion: Instead of warning people away from fracking with threats of environmental destruction (boring, right?), tell them instead that hydraulic fracturing will bring chlamydia to their doorstep.

Source: Fast Company.

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Post-flood vegetable likely to be risky

 Gazette Introductory Note: The article  raises the related question of how much produce from flooded fields is sold in public markets. –-Hardly Waite.

If you’re cleaning up your vegetable garden after the flood waters recede, consider the safety of eating produce from the garden. If rain, and only rain, fell on the garden everything is fine. But if your vegetables were touched by by or near floodwater, your produce is risky-to-dangerous to consume.

Floodwaters can contain sewage, pollutants such as oil, gasoline, solvents, etc., bacteria and parasites such as Giardia, Cryptosporidium, E. coli, Shigella, the virus for Hepatitis A, and a host of other unsavory contaminants. Young children, seniors, pregnant women and people with compromised immune systems are at highest risk for serious effects from consuming contaminated food and should not eat any produce that was in or near floodwater.

In every case where the edible portion of the plant came into contact with floodwater — submerged or splashed — there is risk, regardless of whether the plant was above or below ground. In many cases, there is no effective way for washing the contaminants off of the produce.

To help you sort through what to do for crops that were near floodwaters, here are quick tips:

All crops eaten raw should be discarded, such as lettuce, mustards, spinach, cabbage, collards, Swiss chard, arugula, or micro greens. Soft fruits such as strawberries, raspberries, or blackberries as well as leafy vegetables such as spinach, chard, beet tops, or kale may be impossible to clean well and must be cooked before eating; avoid eating them raw. Because rain or sprinklers can splash contaminated soil back onto these plants and contaminants can become embedded in the leaves, stems, petioles, etc., the area is not safe for growing for 90 days, minimum.

Root crops, including carrots, radishes, parsnips, beets, or potatoes should be washed and rinsed in clean, potable (safe for drinking) water, sanitized in a dilute bleach solution, and then rinsed in potable water. They should also be peeled and cooked before consuming.

Make your sanitizing solution by mixing a scant tablespoon of food grade bleach, without fragrances or thickeners, to one gallon of potable water. Wash the produce with clean, potable water, using a vegetable brush to clean in crevices. Rinse, then dip into the sanitizing solution for two minutes, then rinse in clean water.

Peas, beans, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, summer squash and other soft skinned crops that were present during the flood should be discarded. Winter squash, winter melons, and pumpkins, with their thick rinds, can be washed and rinsed in potable water, then sanitized in the dilute bleach solution described for root crops, and rinsed.

Questions on stage of plant growth versus potential for contamination can be summed up in this very good Purdue University response from Liz Maynard, Regional Extension Specialist, Commercial Vegetable and Floriculture Crops: Risks can be described as follows:

Edible portion of crop present: Very High Risk. Fresh produce is considered adulterated.

Plant emerged, edible portion not present: High Risk. The potential presence of microorganisms in the plant as well as in the soil could result in indirect contamination of the crop post flooding (splashing onto plant, etc.).

Planted but not emerged: Still High Risk for reasons given above from post flooding contamination in soil.

Pre-planting: Moderate Risk.

Soil contamination may be as dangerous as that of uncomposted manure. Tilling in the soil and a minimum of 90 days between the recession of waters and harvest are needed to reduce this risk from pathogens, but recovering soil from chemical pollutants may take longer.

To protect crops and areas not directly touched by floodwater, wash your hands before and after you’re in the garden, leave your garden shoes just outside your door, and change out of clothing you wore to work the vegetable patch.

For more information on post-flood issues, visit the Colorado State University Extension website atextension.colostate.edu/boulder/index.shtml orhttp://emergency.cdc.gov/disasters/disease/infectious.asp

Source: Daily Camera

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Mississippi River’s 1926 dead zone holds lessons for Gulf of Mexico today

by Matt Sepic and Elizabeth   Dunbar, Minnesota Public Radio

Gazette Introductory Note: We always believe that environmental problems were never worse.  The fact is, they usually were worse at one time.  Sceptics and naysayers notwithstanding, modern sewage treatment and laws like the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act have made our environment much better and healthier than in was in the “good old days.” — Hardly Waite.

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Here in the land of 10,000 lakes, zebra mussels and Asian carp have generally topped the list of recent marine environmental concerns. But in the 1920s, before wastewater treatment plants were built, there were far bigger problems.

A 1926 survey of the Mississippi River between Minneapolis and Hastings turned up three fish.

“Not three species of fish,” said Rebecca Flood, an assistant commissioner at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. “Three fish.”

Back then there was so much sewage in the Mississippi River that algae took over and just about everything else died off. The river in the Twin Cities is much cleaner today, and the fish are back. But there’s a similar, even larger problem festering now just past the river’s southern end, in the Gulf of Mexico.

This time, the pollution that feeds the algae for the most part is fertilizer from Midwestern farms — including Minnesota’s. Just as in 1926, oxygen levels have plummeted. The fish population, the ecosystem in general, and the industries that depend on it are all in peril.

Scientists call that part of the Gulf a hypoxic zone. It’s also known as the dead zone. And its the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island put together.

Flood says Minnesota can do a better job of reducing runoff into waterways that drain into the Mississippi and contribute to the dead zone. The MPCA is developing guidelines with the goal of cutting phosphorous runoff into the Mississippi River watershed 35 percent by 2025, and nitrogen runoff by 20 percent. Part of the strategy will be to work with farmers to help them reduce the amount of fertilizer they use — and money they spend.

“My experience with individual farmers is that they’re pretty cautious and stingy about wasting money, and this is a waste of money to have our fertilizers going down to the Gulf of Mexico,” she said.

Details of Minnesota’s nutrient reduction plan will be available for public comment in early October. The proposal is just one of many being drawn up by the 12 states that are part of a task force that’s trying to shrink the dead zone. But reducing nutrient runoff from farms isn’t as easy as reducing fertilizer, says Bill Northey, co-chair of the task force that met in Minneapolis Tuesday. He’s an Iowa farmer, and his state’s agriculture commissioner.

“When we’re talking about nitrogen, we’re talking about soil organic matter. It’s in the crop residue that’s there from last year. As our water goes through those soils it’ll pick up nitrogen — sometimes from the fertilizer, sometimes from the residue, sometimes from the organic matter,” he said. “We have to manage all of that to try to reduce the amount of nitrogen that’s leaving those farms.”

In 2008 the task force set a goal of reducing the dead zone to 5,000 square kilometers — an ambitious goal that so far has proved elusive. The zone measured roughly 15,000 square kilometers, or roughly 5,875 square miles, this year.

Nancy Stoner, the EPA’s acting assistant administrator for water, admits the agency can’t claim success.

“It’s a very difficult goal, and even if we put in all the practices by 2015 that are necessary to reduce the dead zone, there’s a lag time,” she said. “That’s one of the challenges we have: to continue to make progress, to continue to motivate people.”

And motivating people is about all the EPA says it can do. The task force recommendations do not carry the force of law. The EPA has said setting nutrient rules would be too complex, and it can better fight water pollution by working with states.

But Ann Alexander, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, says the dead zone will continue to be a problem until the EPA steps up to the plate.

“I imagine there is a lot of nervousness on their part given the intensity of the opposition that they’re getting from many different quarters,” she said. “They’re getting opposition from agriculture, from manufacturing industries, from sewage treatment authorities.

The NRDC has sued the EPA in an effort to force the agency to act. Last week, a federal judge gave the EPA six months to decide whether to set nitrogen and phosphorous pollution standards — or explain why they’re not needed.

Source: MPRNews.

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Arsenic in our Drinking Water

by Deborah Blum

 The baby with the runny nose, the infant with a stubborn cough — respiratory infections in small children are a familiar family travail. Now scientists suspect that these ailments — and many others far more severe — may be linked in part to a toxic element common in drinking water.

The element is naturally occurring arsenic, which swirls in a dark, metalloid shimmer in soil and rock across much of the United States and in many other countries. It seeps into groundwater, but because the contamination tends to be minor in this country, for many years its presence was mostly noted and dismissed by public health researchers.

They’ve changed their minds. Long famed for its homicidal toxicity at high doses, a number of studies suggest that arsenic is an astonishingly versatile poison, able to do damage even at low doses. Chronic low-dose exposure has been implicated not only in respiratory problems in children and adults, but in cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancers of the skin, bladder and lung.

Trace amounts in the body interfere with tumor-suppressing glucocorticoid hormones, studies show, which is one reason that arsenic exposure has been linked to a range of malignancies. Arsenic also interferes with the normal function of immune cells. It damages lung cells and causes inflammation of cells in the heart.

Researchers first became aware of these problems in so-called hot spot countries like Bangladesh, where arsenic levels in water can top 1 part per million. Decades ago, public health agencies there sought to replace microbe-contaminated surface water with well water. Only later did geological surveys reveal significant aquifer contamination from bedrock arsenic.

Scientists now report health risks at lower and lower levels of exposure in that country. In July, researchers at the University of Chicago found that residents of Bangladesh chronically exposed to arsenic at a mere 19 parts per billion showed signs of reduced lung function. At levels of 120 p.p.b. or higher, their ability to take in oxygen resembled that of long-term smokers.

“Bangladesh is unfortunately a living laboratory for the health effects of arsenic,” said Habibul Ahsan, the lead author of the study and director of the Center for Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention at the University of Chicago.

Dr. Ahsan, a native of Bangladesh, is one of the organizers of a long-term study of arsenic and health in that country, which now has 30,000 people enrolled. In 2010, he reported that 24 percent of all deaths from chronic disease in his study population could be attributed to drinking arsenic-contaminated well water.

“We need to take arsenic exposure very seriously,” Dr. Ahsan said.

That seems to be today’s watchword. Researchers have begun a widespread re-evaluation of arsenic as a public health threat not only in water, but in the food supply. The Food and Drug Administration recently set a limit of 10 p.p.b. for arsenic in apple juice, and the agency is now evaluating the risks posed by foods like rice, which tend to pick up arsenic from the soil. At the request of the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Academy of Sciences has begun an intensive review of arsenic risks. The academy study group is chaired by Joseph Graziano, a professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University who researches the link between arsenic in drinking water and cognitive deficits in children.

Researchers also are taking a much closer look at drinking water, from Southwestern states like Nevada, where wells sometimes contain arsenic at more than 500 p.p.b., to the upper Midwest and New England, where a belt of arsenic-infused bedrock taints aquifers in stretches from the coast of Maine to a point midway through Massachusetts. Water in parts of the Central Valley of California, America’s breadbasket, has been found to be tainted with arsenic as well.

While municipal water suppliers are required to meet the E.P.A.’s safety standard of 10 p.p.b. for arsenic in drinking water, no such regulation exists for private wells. Nationwide, researchers say, about 13 million people get drinking water from private wells with arsenic levels above the federal standard.

And studies here are beginning to show a pattern of harm not unlike that seen in Bangladesh. One study of private wells in Michigan, tainted with arsenic in the 10 to 100 p.p.b. range, found increased mortality rateslinked to everything from diabetes to heart disease. Another focusing on cardiovascular disease in small communities is due to be published next week.

At Dartmouth College, the New Hampshire Birth Cohort Study is following women through pregnancy into parenthood, comparing the health of children in families drinking from private wells with those who rely on municipal water supplies.

In a study published in July in Environmental Research, researchers measured arsenic exposure during pregnancy and then tracked respiratory infections in infants up to four months of age. The higher the arsenic exposure in the mother, the scientists found, the greater the number of respiratory infections in their infants, especially ones that required a visit to the doctor or prescription medicine.

The results describe a pattern similar to that seen in Bangladesh, where scientists have found a greater than 50 percent increase in severe lower respiratory infections among infants of mothers with high levels of arsenic, compared with those with the least exposure.

“We were surprised to find the connection so visible at the lower exposures seen here,” said Margaret Karagas, a Dartmouth epidemiologist and the senior author of the study. The Dartmouth pregnancy cohort study has also found a link between low-level exposure to arsenic and low birth weight in infants.

“If people have private wells, they need to have them tested for arsenic,” she said. “You want to know what’s in your water.” Meanwhile, Dr. Karagas and other experts are looking at the ways that arsenic in the food supply might add to an individual’s cumulative exposure.

“We need to start looking at all the sources,” Dr. Ahsan said.

Source: New York Times Health/Science.

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More information: Arsenic. 

Ultraviolet Can Be Used to Reduce Chlorine and Chloramines

As a footnote to a recent article we published about removing chloramines with ultraviolet, here is a quote from water treatment expert David Bauman, writing in Water Technology:
Ultraviolet (UV) treatment is another dechlorination alternative.

UV is often promoted as a pretreatment method for reverse osmosis (RO), to reduce chlorine that could degrade certain RO membranes.

An advantage of UV, as with certain activated carbons, is that it can reduce both free chlorine and combined chlorine compounds (chloramines). At the right wavelengths, the UV light dissociates chlorine in water to form hydrochloric acid. Or, to phrase it in a less negative way, hydrogen and chloride ions are formed.

Different peak wavelengths have been published for dissociation of free chlorine, so a UV manufacturer would have to be consulted. Manufacturers say that up to 15 parts per million (ppm) of free chlorine can be removed.

The UV dosage required for dechlorination depends on total chlorine level, ratio of free versus combined chlorine, background level of organics, and the desired reduction level.

To our knowledge, there are no residential UV systems yet on the market for chloramine reduction.

Water harvesting helps Kenya’s women cope with failing rains

by James Karuga

NGURUBANI, Kenya (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – When Rose Wanjiku first moved to her home in Central Kenya province 14 years ago, the region received four months of rain every year. The rains began in April and again in October, and were sufficient for a small-scale farmer such as herself to grow staples like maize and beans to feed her family and sell the surplus at local markets.

Today the Ngurubani area gets only two months of rain a year. Because of the growing scarcity, Wanjiku has resorted to irrigating her crops with water pumped from the Thiba River when rains fail in mid-season. Even though the river is just a stone’s throw away from her house and fields, the water pump means extra expenses for her household.

“Farming has become very expensive for us these days. We hardly make profits,” said her husband Munene. His wife added that the river water cannot be used for household purposes because it is too muddy.

To counter the water shortages, Wanjiku, 45, has begun harvesting rainwater. Her roof is fitted with gutters and through a loan fromSMEP, a Kenyan microfinance programme, she has bought a 2,300-litre (600-gallon) water tank to store the harvested water.

Rainwater gathered since April has been sustaining her household until the rains are due to begin again next month.

Wanjiku began making loan payments of 1,000 Kenyan shillings (around $11) a month in February, and aims to clear the loan by November.

The frustrations of poor rainfall also have taken a toll on Margaret Njeri Muthee, 38, another farmer and secretary of the 12-member Wendani Women’s Group, which also counts Wanjiku as a member.

Njeri recalls that when she first moved to Ngurubani 15 years ago, rains were regular and she was able to harvest up to two 90kg bags of beans per acre of land.  Today she gets half a bag of beans at most.

“The weather has really changed here – there is a chill I never saw before, destroying our staples,” Njeri said. Because of the unpredictable weather and poor crop yields, Njeri now rears pigs, in addition to chickens and cattle.

“I’m tired of farming maize and beans,” she added.

As a result of increasingly short rainfall, Njeri was spending 400 shillings (nearly $5) every week to pay for a donkey-drawn cart to fetch water from the Thiba River, over a kilometre away from her home. But now she, too, has a water tank, bought on credit from SMEP.

Njeri and Wanjiku are among over 7,000 Kenyan recipients of an ongoing water credit scheme accessed through microfinance institutions such as SMEP. The scheme enables households to buy tanks to capture and store clean rainwater that runs from rooftops along the gutters.

Widespread Water Stress

UNESCO reports that 17 million of Kenya’s 41 million inhabitants lack access to safe water.

Of the loan recipients, 92 percent are women. According to Patrick Alubbe, East Africa regional director of Water.Org, a nongovernmental organisation, it is the women in households who must spend hours searching for water, and this makes them appreciate the scheme, as it saves them time.

SMEP has given 821 water-related loans so far, with repayment rates of more than 90 percent, according to Fridah Njeru, SMEP’s senior programmes coordinator.

Kenya has 29,000 beneficiaries of water-related loans countrywide, with some funds going to building latrines or fix sewer systems to improve sanitation. The scheme also operates in Uganda, Bangladesh and India.

With a tank to harvest rainwater, Wanjiku says she no longer needs to wait for mud in collected river water to settle at the bottom of her containers so that she can use it at home.

Kenya’s average annual rainfall is 630 mm, which qualities it as a water-scarce country, according to a study published by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. However, a study by the Southern and Eastern Africa Rainwater Network notes that large groundwater aquifers represents a valuable water resource not directly related to or dependent on rainfall patterns.

Experts are pointing to aquifers as the country’s next important source of water. This comes following the recent discovery of aquifers in the drought-hit Turkana region in Kenya’s north, where rainfall does not exceed 450mm annually.

The aquifers are reported to hold 250 billion cubic metres – enough to supply Kenya’s needs for 70 years at the current rate of consumption of 3 billion cubic metres a year.

Source: Reuters.

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Warning raised about ’emerging contaminants’

by Cynthia McCormick

A new study by the Silent Spring Institute in Newton (MA) shows that sewage treatment plants aren’t any better at removing a new class of contaminants from treated water than septic systems.

Researchers found that antibiotics and chlorinated flame retardants, for instance, pass through both systems relatively unscathed.

The results weren’t surprising because wastewater treatment systems are made to remove pathogens and solid waste, not the chemicals contained in medicine, herbicides, plasticizers and other products, Silent Spring Institute research scientist Laurel Schaider said.

But the study shows that systemsbeing developed to protect the Cape’s coastal waters from nutrient overloading and algae blooms should also take steps to protect drinking water from what scientists call “emerging contaminants,” she said.

Many of the chemicals are considered hormone disrupters that act like estrogen, which has caused breast cancer cells to grow in a laboratory setting.

For the report — available at www.silentspring.org — the Newton-based research institution analyzed 16 already existing studies of wastewater and septic system treatments, including two originating on Cape Cod.

In recent years, Silent Spring has released studies showing the presence of dozens of emerging contaminants in public and private wells on the Cape. The Cape now has “a critical moment” in deciding the future direction of wastewater treatment and how it affects drinking water, Schaider said.

“It is a concern, and the county will be looking at how best to deal with the issue,” Tom Cambareri, water resources program manager for the Cape Cod Commission, said. “We’re evaluating all possible alternatives.”

Bacteria break down some chemicals and use them as a food source, removing them from the water supply, Schaider said. Both sewage treatment systems and septic systems do a good job removing chemicals such as caffeine and acetaminophen, for instance, she said.

Other chemicals such as the antibiotic sulfamethoxazole and TCEP, a chlorinated flame retardant, pass through both systems largely unchanged, Schaider said.

Next, Silent Spring will look at whether ecological toilets of the type being evaluated for use in Falmouth remove the contaminants from treated water, Schaider said.

Source: South Coast Today.

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 Acidic Water

by Pure Water Annie

 Gazette technical wizard Pure Water Annie offers a nutshell view of treating acid water.

Acidic water is, by definition, any water with a pH of less than 7.0.

Water that is low in pH can have undesirable effects on plumbing fixtures and piping. Green staining of fixtures is a common indication of acidic water. Copper pipe can be ruined by water low in pH.

Low pH is also an issue in water treatment. Sometimes it is necessary to raise the pH of acidic water in order for other treatment strategies to apply. For example, oxidizing iron to prepare it for filtration is difficult if the pH of the water is low, so raising the pH of the water is often the first step in removing iron from well water.

Almost all water treatment issues involve pH in some way. Water constituents change in nature as pH changes, so many treatments can be applied only if pH is within the desired range.

Although the sales strategy of a class of drinking water products called “ionizers” is based on raising the pH of acidic water, there is no evidence that drinking water low in pH has any negative effect on health. Taste, of course, can be an issue if the pH is very low.

Treating Acidic Water

The pH value of water decreases as the amount of carbon dioxide, CO2, increases, and pH increases as the amount of bicarbonate alkalinity increases. The ratio of carbon dioxide and bicarbonate alkalinity within the ranges of 3.6 to 8.4 is an indication of the pH value of the water.

Acidic water can be corrected by several water treatment strategies. A common treatment is injection of soda ash, and a more aggressive treatment is the injection of caustic soda (sodium hydroxide). This is usually accomplished by injecting a solution of the soda ash or caustic soda directly into the water pipe.

A second strategy is to run the water through a bed of calcite (the most common treatment mineral) or corosex. As the low pH water passes through the bed, the mineral dissolves into the water and raises its pH.

Calcite treatment raises the pH by adding calcium carbonate to the water. This has the sometimes undesirable effect of increasing the hardness of the water slightly. Calcite and corosex are most commonly used in backwashing filters, but calcite alone can be used with simple upflow filters if the water is reasonably clean. Calcite is also commonly used in cartridge form as a postfiltration treatment for undersink reverse osmosis units. RO lowers pH, and calcite filters are used to bring the pH back to neutral.

Go here for more information about calcite filters or soda ash feeders.

Also, more about pH and water.