ANSI/NSF: What’s it all about?

by Gene Franks

Editor’s Note:  This article first appeared in the Pure Water Occasional for April 2010. It has since been expanded.

A standard question about water treatment products these days is to ask if they are “NSF certified.” For our products, the answer isn’t simple. Some of them carry full third-party certification obtained by the manufacturer, some have certification on some of their components, and some aren’t certified at all. And some have certification from third parties that have no affiliation with NSF.

“Is your product NSF certified?”  implies–and most take it to mean–that there is some federally sponsored (N for national) certifying agency, probably a branch of the EPA, that  “certifies” products the way that USDA puts its stamp on the rump of a dead pig making it an officially edible ham.  That isn’t the way it works at all.

Why  would KX Industries not just have its PB1 cartridge NSF/ANSI certified? Well, cost for one thing. It costs literally tens of thousands of dollars to obtain and maintain NSF/ANSI certification on a single product.  But also because it is a “component” rather than a full product, like an RO unit.  Common sense tells you that no matter how good the filter cartridge or the RO membrane, if you put it into a poorly manufactured, defective end product it will not produce a good result.  As a single example, no matter how good a filter cartridge is, if it is put into an inferior undersink water filter with a cheap faucet that leaches lead into the water, the cartridge certification means nothing. Performance certification has to be done for the entire device, not the individual components.

Many manufacturers use certification as a selling tool.  They spend  large amounts maintaining product certification and they advertise their products accordingly, often with the implication that uncertified products are not to be trusted.  Other manufacturers–KX Industries, for example, as well as many other highly respected manufacturers–rely as much on their own reputation and experience as third-party certification to sell their products.  The lower price they are able to charge because of the the money saved on certification gives an added selling advantage.

Certification is important.  It gives the customer confidence that the product meets a certain standard–either in materials it is made from or in its performance.  But if you limit yourself to products that are NSF/ANSI certified you may be depriving yourself of some really superior products as well as spending more than you need to.

“Let the buyer beware” is a two-edged sword.  It isn’t good to buy an inferior product, but no one likes the idea of paying an extra $30 for a filter cartridge to support the manufacturer’s advertising campaign.

Source: Pure Water Occasional.

  Molasses Spill Could Cause Substantial Damage to Marine Life

State officials are rushing to head off an environmental and health disaster in Honolulu Harbor, where nearly a quarter million gallons of molasses from a ruptured pipeline have caused a massive marine die-off.

On Wednesday, colorful surgeonfish, pufferfish and eels were swaying limp or lifeless in the currents.

How much damage the molasses spill has caused was still being assessed. But health officials estimate that it’s killing thousands of fish and damaging coral reefs.

State officials also warn there could be even more problems if they don’t quickly remove as many fish as possible from the contaminated waters. They worry that the dead fish could lure sharks into the harbor and Keehi Lagoon, where the plume of molasses has spread.

And the decaying fish could cause even more harm to the marine ecosystem.

“As fish die, oxygen is further sucked out of the water, leading to a domino effect of environmental impacts,” said Gary Gill, deputy director for environmental health for the state Department of Health.

The massive numbers of dead fish could even cause algae blooms that further deplete the water’s oxygen levels. Algae blooms can sicken or kill fish, as well as create elevated toxins and bacterial growth that can make people ill, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Source: Honolulu Civil Beat

Pure Water Gazette Fair Use Statement

Avon Park stops water fluoridation

 by Marc Valero

Published: September 5, 2013

Editor’s Note: The piece below illustrates one of the overlooked issues of fluoridation: the lack of “quality control” in dispensing it, especially at small city water plants. Fluoride is a powerful poison. Adding it to a public water system it in a haphazard fashion is beyond irresponsible.  The story below describes the folly of dispensing a power full drug in widely varying dosages strengths to patients who take as little or as much as they choose. Please keep in mind as you read this that fluoride is a much more powerful poison that virtually any drug prescribed in carefully controlled doses by physicians. – Hardly Waite.

AVON PARK – Citing “no quality control,” City Manager Julian Deleon has stopped the injection of fluoride into the city’s drinking water.

Deleon said he contacted the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to request permission to discontinue the fluoridation practice. The fluoride injection system has technology problems, he said.

The water demand drops off “drastically” during the very early morning hours such as around 2 a.m., Deleon noted.

The problem is that the fluoride injection pump has a fixed speed so when water demand is low it continues to pump the same amount of fluoride as during the periods of peak demand, he said.

“Based on my evaluation, we have no quality control over fluoride injection into the water,” Deleon said.

Adding fluoride to drinking water to fight tooth decay has been a controversial issue in many parts of the world for years. There have been recent news reports over the fluoride debate from Alberta, Canada (Lethbridge Herald) and New South Wales, Australia (Sydney Morning News).

A “concerned constitute” contacted State Rep. Cary Pigman, R-Avon Park about the Avon Park fluoride issue.

An email from Pigman’s office to Deleon asked if it was true that the water would no longer be fluoridated?

Avon Park’s Fluoride Injection System

Deleon replied to Pigman’s office, “As a professional engineer in the State of Florida, I did not deem the system capable of providing adequate quality control and safeguards in the injection of fluoride into the water supply.”

Deleon’s email included a link to 50 Reasons to Oppose Fluoride by the Fluoride Action Network at fluoridealert.org.

The network states that the dose cannot be controlled.

Once fluoride is put in the water it is impossible to control the dose each individual receives because people drink different amounts of water. Being able to control the dose a patient receives is critical, according to the FAC. Some people, such as manual laborers, athletes, diabetics and people with kidney disease, drink substantially more water than others.

Deleon explained to Highlands Today that the city operates three water treatment plants, but only the plant at the airport was injecting fluoride into the water.

It would take a hydraulic modeling study to determine what areas of the city received the fluoride, but based on his “best judgement” it appears that everyone north of Main Street was getting fluoride, Deleon said.

Everyone south of Main Street probably was not getting fluoride because there is no fluoride injection at the Glenwood Avenue nor the Crystal Lake water plants, he said.

Deleon briefed the city council last night on his concerns about the fluoride injection system.

The fluoride issue was added to the Sept. 4 city council agenda for the meeting between the council and the police pension board.

The City of Sebring injects fluoride into the drinking water at five of its seven water plants. Water Production Supervisor Jay Angell said they try to maintain a fluoride level of 0.80 parts per million.

The system has a 100-gallon bulk tank of fluoride, which feeds into a 10-gallon “day tank,” he explained.

“The pump itself feeds out of the day tank so that if there were ever to be a malfunction, the most it could ever pump out in a 24-hour period would be that 10 gallons,” Angell said.

Each of the five water plants uses about 1 1/2 to 2 gallons of fluoride per day, he said. There are no fluoridation facilities at the Highlands Ridge nor the Sebring Regional Airport water plants, which were private facilities the city purchased about a year ago.

“We just haven’t gotten around to incorporating the fluoride into that yet,” Angell said.

The Town of Lake Placid has never added fluoride to its water.

Utility Director Gary Freeman said, “There is no particular reason why we don’t do it, but it has never been done. It hasn’t been pursued.”

No one has suggested that the city should treat the water with fluoride, he said.

Source: Highlands Today.

Pure Water Gazette Fair Use Statement

What’s in Urine? 3,000 Chemicals and Counting

by Gahar Gholipouor

Looking for an encyclopedia of pee? Scientists have laid out the entire chemical composition of human urine, revealing that more than 3,000 compounds are found in the fluid, and have published it all in an online database.

In the study, which took seven years to complete, the researchers found that at least 3,079 compounds can be detected in urine. Seventy-two of these compounds are made by bacteria, while 1,453 come from the body itself. Another 2,282 come from diet, drugs, cosmetics or environmental exposure (some compounds belong to more than one group).

“Urine is an incredibly complex biofluid. We had no idea there could be so many different compounds going into our toilets,” said study researcher David Wishart, professor of biology and computing science at the University of Alberta.

The complete list of all metabolites that can be detected in human urine using current technologies has been placed into an online public database called the Urine Metabolome Database.The word metabolome refers to the complete collection of metabolites, which are the products of metabolism and include hormones, vitamins and other molecules.

A favorite among fluids

“Urine has long been a ‘favored’ biofluid among metabolomics researchers,” because it is sterile and can be obtained easily in large volumes, the scientists wrote in their study published September 4 in the journal PLOS ONE.

However, the chemical complexity of urine has made it a difficult substance to fully understand, the researchers said. As a biological waste material, urine typically contains metabolic breakdown products from a wide range of foods, drinks, drugs, environmental contaminants, waste metabolites of the body and bacterial by-products.

Compared to other body fluids such as saliva or cerebrospinal fluid, urine contains about five to 10 times more compounds, and shows a larger chemical diversity, the researchers found. The compounds found in human urine fall into 230 different chemical classes.

“Given that there are only 356 chemical classes in the entire human metabolome, this certainly demonstrates the enormous chemical diversity found in urine,” the researchers said.

The researchers also found that more than 480 compounds in urine were not previously reported to be in blood, contrary to the long-standing idea that the collection of chemicals in urine is a subset of compounds found in the blood.

Why so many chemicals?

“The fact that so many compounds seem to be unique to urine likely has to do with the fact that the kidneys do an extraordinary job of concentrating certain metabolites from the blood,” the researchers said.

To find the chemicals in urine, the researchers used a variety of techniques, including nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, gas chromatography, mass spectrometry and liquid chromatography. They analyzed urine samples from 22 healthy people, and scoured more than 100 years of scientific literature about human urine to supplement their findings.

The chemical composition of urine  may be of interest to physicians, nutritionists and environmental scientists because it reveals medical conditions, as well as information about what a person has consumed, and what chemicals he or she as been exposed to in the environment.

The database of urine chemical composition will continue to grow as new techniques and instruments are developed to identify additional compounds, the scientists said.

“This is certainly not the final word on the chemical composition of urine,” Wishart said.

Source: Live Science.

Pure Water Gazette Fair Use Statement

Drugs found in Lake Michigan, miles from sewage outfalls

By Brian Bienkowski

Environmental Health News

Prescription drugs are contaminating Lake Michigan two miles from Milwaukee’s sewage outfalls, suggesting that the lake is not diluting the compounds as most scientists expected, according to new research. This ability of the drugs to travel and remain at relatively high concentrations means that fish and other aquatic life are exposed, so there could be “some serious near-shore impacts,” said Rebecca Klaper, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In addition, Milwaukee draws its drinking water from Lake Michigan, although no pharmaceuticals have been detected in the city’s water. The researchers reported that 14 of the chemicals “were found to be of medium or high ecological risk,” and that the concentrations “indicate a significant threat to the health of the Great Lakes.” Nevertheless, it is not clear what, if any, effects the drugs are having on fish and other creatures in Lake Michigan.

September 5, 2013

Prescription drugs are contaminating Lake Michigan two miles from Milwaukee’s sewage outfalls, suggesting that the lake is not diluting the compounds as most researchers expected, according to new research.

“In a body of water like the Great Lakes, you’d expect dilution would kick in and decrease concentrations, and that was not the case here,” said Dana Kolpin, a U.S. Geological Survey research hydrologist based in Iowa.

It is not clear what, if any, effects the drugs are having on fish and other creatures in Lake Michigan. But this ability to travel and remain at relatively high concentrations means that aquatic life is exposed, so there could be “some serious near-shore impacts,” said Rebecca Klaper, an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and senior author of the study published in the journal Chemosphere.

In addition, Milwaukee draws its drinking water from Lake Michigan, although no pharmaceuticals have been found in the city’s water, according to Milwaukee Water Works.

The scientists tested effluent from two sewage outfalls and water and sediment from Lake Michigan (up to two miles from the outfalls) for 54 chemicals used in pharmaceuticals and personal care products.

Twenty-seven chemicals were found in the lake, with four found most frequently: an antidiabetic drug called metformin, caffeine, the antibiotic sulfamethoxazole and triclosan, an antibacterial and antifungal compound found in some soaps, toothpastes and other consumer products.

“Wastewater treatment plants are simply not designed to remove these chemicals,” Klaper said. “This tells us we shouldn’t assume that dilution solves the problem of putting these into the environment.”

Metformin was detected at the highest levels – up to 840 parts per trillion one mile from the outfalls, and up to 160 parts per trillion two miles away.

The researchers reported that 14 of the chemicals “were found to be of medium or high ecological risk,” and that the concentrations “indicate a significant threat to the health of the Great Lakes, particularly near shore organisms.”

Of those, triclosan has been the most researched; it has proven acutely toxic to algae and can act as a hormone disruptor in fish.

“You’re not going to see fish die-offs [from pharmaceuticals] but subtle changes in how the fish eat and socialize that can have a big impact down the road,” said Kolpin, who did not participate in the study. “With behavior changes and endocrine disruption, reproduction and survival problems may not rear their ugly head for generations.”

Previous research has linked other pharmaceutical drugs in fish to slower reaction times to predators, altered eating habits and anxiety.

There is a lot of research measuring pharmaceuticals in water, so “now we need to figure out what impact they may have,” Kolpin said.

“The problem is the effluent and water don’t have one compound but a chemical mixture soup,” Kolpin said. “It’s going to be hard to tease out which of these compounds may do harm” to people or fish.

Pharmaceutical and personal care product compounds are found in wastewater around the world. Studies have consistently found prescription drugs in drinking water at parts-per-trillion levels. U.S. Geological Survey scientists sampled 74 waterways used for drinking water in 25 states in 2008 and found 53 had one or more of the three dozen pharmaceuticals they were testing for in their water. The compounds mostly get into sewage through people excreting them.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers pharmaceuticals an “emerging concern,” and has concluded that the chemicals may pose risks to wildlife and humans. There are currently no federal regulations of the compounds in waste or drinking water. However, 12 pharmaceuticals are currently on the EPA’s Contaminant Candidate List, which are chemicals that may require regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

“You cannot blame the wastewater plants, they’re not out of compliance and there’s no incentive to start changing their technologies,” Kolpin said.

Klaper said the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District does a much better job than other plants at removing many compounds. But they’re just not equipped to handle the volume.

“For example, we found quite a bit of caffeine in the lake, and they’re removing about 90 percent of the caffeine that comes in for treatment,” she said. “They can’t remove everything.”

With pharmaceuticals increasingly flowing into plants, capturing the compounds is going to be a challenge for not only Milwaukee but for treatment plants across the country, said Kevin Shafer, executive director of the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District.

“At the time wastewater treatment plants were developed, these compounds were just not an issue,” Shafer said.

Shafer and colleagues are researching ways to bolster their pharmaceutical capture, including testing carbon filter technology.

Shafer said the carbon filters have a “good response but are very expensive and geared toward lower flows at smaller treatment plants.” The department also has collected 21 tons of unused medicines since 2006 so people don’t flush them down toilets.

There won’t be a silver bullet to tackle pharmaceuticals in wastewater, said Olga Lyandres, a research manager with the Alliance for the Great Lakes organization. But, with about 40 million people relying on the Great Lakes for drinking water, there needs to be more urgency in keeping these compounds out of the lakes.

“The development and use of new technologies needs to be a priority,” she said. “And we really need increased monitoring by the facilities and the EPA to keep tabs on what’s there.”

The new study hopefully will spur awareness of the water cycle in the region, Lyandres said.

“People should reconsider the notion that the Great Lakes are so large that this stuff cannot hurt us,” she said. “The stuff you excrete and wash down the drain ends up in the same bodies of water that you drink out of.”

Article Source: Environmental Health News.

Pure Water Gazette Fair Use Statement

 Pollutants from Plant Kill Thousands of Fish in Chinese River

HONG KONG — Thousands of dead fish floating along a 19-mile stretch of a river in Hubei Province in central China were killed by pollutants emitted by a local chemical plant, provincial environmental officials said Wednesday.

Environmental protection officials said tests on water taken from the Fu River upstream from the metropolis of Wuhan revealed that extremely high levels of ammonia in the water were caused by pollution from a plant owned by the Hubei Shuanghuan Science and Technology Company.

The tests, conducted by environmental officials from Xiaogan City, revealed ammonia concentrations downstream from the plant as high as 196 milligrams per liter. The World Health Organization notes that naturally occurring ammonia appears in surface water at concentrations of about 12 milligrams per liter, while the similar figure for drinking water is around 0.02 milligrams per liter.

Shares in Hubei Shuanghuan were suspended from trading on the Shenzhen stock market Wednesday pending the release of an announcement. Calls to the company’s headquarters were not answered on Wednesday. Provincial officials ordered the company’s plant to cease production while the cause of the leak was investigated.

The plant produces sodium carbonate, used in making glass, and ammonium chloride for fertilizer, according to local news media reports. It has been cited for environmental violations four times since 2008, said Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, a Chinese nongovernmental organization that tracks air and water pollution.

“Each time it was ordered to be corrected, but this demonstrates that enforcement is way too weak and the cost of violations way too low,” Mr. Ma said.

People living along the river said they first noticed fish dying on Monday morning, and a sickening stench began to fill the air, China National Radio reported. About 110 tons of dead fish have been cleared from the river, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported Wednesday.

Environmental officials said the river was not used as a source of drinking water, and they urged residents not to panic. Spills in China have often set off runs on bottled water because of fears of contaminated supplies.

China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection said water pollution was a serious concern, with industrial spills, farm runoff and untreated sewage all factors in degrading water quality. As of last year, nearly a third of the sections of major rivers it monitored were so degraded that the water was unfit for human contact, the ministry said in its annual State of Environmental Quality report, released in June.

The Fu River flows into the Yangtze, China’s longest river and the source of drinking water for millions. Spills into the Yangtze and its tributaries remain a continuing problem despite huge investments in reducing pollution, Mr. Ma said.

“Even though it has a large volume of water, with 40 percent of China’s wastewater dumped into this watershed we are concerned about the health of this river and the quality of its water,” he said.

Source: NY Times.

Pure Water Gazette Fair Use Statement

One Tank Aeration Treatment for Iron and Hydrogen Sulfide

by Gene Franks

Closed-tank aeration is a well established method for preparing iron, hydrogen sulfide, and manganese in well water for removal by a filter.

Standard closed-tank aeration systems consist of a method for introducing air into the water and a closed aeration tank where the actual treatment (oxidation) of the contaminant takes place. The treatment tank is then followed by an appropriate filter to actually strain out the oxidized particles.

Dual Tank Venturi Systems

The earliest closed air systems relied on a small venturi installed in the water pipe to draw air into the water stream.

Venturi injects air into water stream.

The air-rich water was then sent to a small treatment tank where oxidation of the contaminant took place, turning “clear water” (ferrous) iron to “red water” (ferric) iron which is easily caught by a filter in a separate tank. The process works the same for manganese and hydrogen sulfide, which, like iron, are “oxidized” to more basic substances with a physical form that can be trapped by a filter.

Dual Tank Air Pump Systems

More aggressive compressor-driven aeration systems use a small air pump to pack compressed air into a closed treatment tank. The compressed then forms a pocket in the top third of the tank. As water enters the tank, it falls through the pocket of compressed air and oxidation of contaminants takes place. These systems are very effective and can be used to treat large amounts of both iron and hydrogen sulfide.

Both systems described above require a separate treatment tank where oxidation of the contaminant takes place followed by a filter tank where the contaminant is removed. Both can be very effective, but they have drawbacks. The venturi system restricts water flow considerably, so it is best used only on small residential systems. The air pump system is very effective but it is also fairly elaborate to set up. It requires electricity to power the pump, and in most systems, to control the venting system that provides air turnover in the treatment tank.

The small air pump is usually used to inject air directly into the aeration tank.

Single Tank Systems

A more recently developed treatment style performs both functions, aeration and filtration, in a single tank. Single tank systems use the filter tank itself to perform aeration and the filter’s control valve to draw in air for the process.

In the more passive, single tank system no air pump is used. Air is drawn into the treatment tank with a venturi system similar to the one used by water softeners to draw in brine. Air is taken in only during the nightly regeneration phase. During regeneration, air is pulled into the tank and all water is expelled. When the tank refills, the air is compressed into a tight pocket that sits above the filter media. As water to be treated enters the tank, it sprays down through the air pocket where the contaminant is oxidized and prepared for removal by the filter media in the bottom 2/3 of the tank. Actually, the entire tank becomes an oxygen rich atmosphere favorable to optimal performance by the filter media.

Versatility of Single-Tank Aerators

A great advantage of single-tank aeration systems is that they can be used with a wide range of treatment media and strategies. Almost all the standard iron/manganese/sulfide media work well when aerated. Birm, standard filter carbon, and catalytic carbon have long been used with aeration. When coupled with aeration, Filox, the premier iron remover, is a star performer. Filter Ag and other granular turbidity reducers like ChemSorb and Micro Z become excellent iron filtration media when housed in an oxygen-rich treatment tank. Calcite can play the double role of pH neutralizer and iron remover when used in a single-tank aerator.

Here are some examples of very effective single-tank applications.

Although this is a bit of an oversimplification, manganese is removed by the same methods that are used to remove iron. Manganese is more difficult to remove, however, and the pH of the water must be higher than that required for iron removal. Most iron media work well when the pH is at or slightly below 7.0, but manganese removal may require a pH as high as 8.5.

The 10″ X 54″ single tank aerator from Pure Water Products can be used with a variety of media to treat iron, hydrogen sulfide, or manganese. The almond tank allows viewing of the air pocket when a flashlight is shined on the tank wall.

The easy-to-program electronic control allows the user to select duration of backwash, rinse, and air draw as well as regeneration frequency.  

Air is drawn into the unit through the dome-shaped screen and a check valve maintains the air pocket by preventing air from migrating backward through the inlet.

The unit comes with a stainless steel bypass valve for easy installation.  

See How Does Aeration Work?  and How Aeration Systems for Water Treatment Work.

Removing Fluoride from Drinking Water 

by Gene Franks

 The best ways to remove fluoride from drinking water are with any good reverse osmosis unit or steam distiller. Both products remove a high percentage of fluoride by their nature and do not need specialty filters.

At Pure Water Products we say that the second best way to remove fluoride from drinking water is with our “Enhanced Performance Fluoride Filter.” (Sorry, the name isn’t sexy, but it’s the best we could manage.)

The Enhanced Performance Fluoride Filter uses the best fluoride resin we can find (Resin Tech’s SR-900) and puts it to work under the very best of conditions. For fluoride filters to be effective, it is necessary that water pass through the fluoride medium very slowly. Slowly, as in no more than 1/4 gallon per minute. That’s about a third the normal delivery speed for a standard countertop or undersink water filter.

The Enhanced Fluoride Filter slows the water down in the fluoride cartridge, then allows it to run full speed through the carbon filters that accompany it. The result is optimal fluoride performance and normal delivery speed at the faucet.

The Enhanced Performance Fluoride Filter uses a standard reverse osmosis tank to store fluoride-free water for fast delivery to the faucet. 

Third best fluoride removal strategy, and certainly not a bad choice, is with standard undersink or countertop filtration units with the same high quality cartridge as the fluoride filter. Fluoride treatment, to be done well, requires at least a double canister filter—one for fluoride and the second for chemical/taste/odor reduction. We have a single cartridge that contains half fluoride resin and half coconut shell carbon for our Model 77 countertop, but a double filter with full carbon and full fluoride cartridges is much preferred. With conventional fluoride filters,both countertop and undersink, the user can, of course, run water slowly and achieve “enhanced performance” as with the special filter described above.

A double countertop filter can be an effective fluoride remover when one housing contains a fluoride removal cartridge and the second contains a carbon block cartridge.

We use only two fluoride removal methods—reverse osmosis, the best, and standard fluoride resin (activated alumina). We do not use bone char carbon that is sold on some internet sites. We like to think we have too much class.

A study has found that drinking arsenic-laced water is like smoking for decades.  

Adapted from a article by Francie Diep.

 Bangladesh’s water situation is “the largest mass poisoning of a population in history.”

Drinking water contaminated with unsafe levels of arsenic harms the lungs as much as decades of smoking, a new study has found.

Arsenic is a notoriously poisonous element that occurs naturally in the Earth’s rocks, water and soil. Industrial activity can also concentrate arsenic in certain places. For their study of arsenic’s effects on lung health, researchers looked at arsenic levels that were at least twice as high as what the U.S Environmental Protection Agency considers permissible for drinking water. Those levels appeared in drinking water in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh isn’t the only country where the water supply contains unsafe levels of arsenic, however. Groundwater in parts of Argentina, Chile, China, India, Mexico and the U.S. is naturally high in arsenic.  Arsenic levels in groundwater vary greatly according to location because of variations in natural rock formations and the pH of water.

In 2000, one study found that tens of millions of Americans had unsafe levels of arsenic in their tap water. The Environmental Protection Agency has adjusted the maximum allowable for arsenic, but surveys have found continuing problems in private and public wells. Just last year, Consumer Reports found high levels of arsenic in many American foods,  especially in rice products. Arsenic can get into crops from the soil it grows in and the water used to grow it.

Doctors already know that people who drink water with dangerous levels of arsenic are at higher risk for a gamut of health problems: Damage to their nerves, gastrointestinal system, kidneys, livers and immune system. Increased risk of diabetes and heart disease. And arsenic is one of the few chemicals that appears in water that’s been definitively linked to cancers, including lung cancer.

In this new study, a team of public health researchers from the U.S. and Bangladesh sampled the drinking water of 20,000 study volunteers who live in a part of Bangladesh with varying levels of arsenic in the well water. They also took urine samples from the volunteers, to determine how much arsenic each volunteer had in his or her body. Then they tested subjects’ lung capacity by asking them to blow into a spirometer.

The researchers found that people drinking water with dangerous levels of arsenic had decreased lung capacities. The effect appeared even when the researchers controlled for people’s ages, genders, smoking habits and other traits that affect lung capacity. The more arsenic the researchers found in the volunteers’ bodies, the smaller the volunteers’ lung capacity.

The researchers first started seeing slight effects among people whose water had between roughly twice as much and 10 times as much arsenic as the Environmental Protection Agency says is okay. A third of the volunteers were exposed to more than 10 times as much arsenic as the U.S. drinking water standard, and they had significantly reduced lung capacities. The reduction was comparable to the effects of long-term smoking,

The problems with arsenic in Bangladeshi drinking water are both relatively new and sadly persistent. Humanitarian groups first dug deep wells in the country in the 1970s because, at the time, hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshi children died each year from waterborne diseases such as cholera. Aid groups were looking for a source of “cleaner” water than the stuff nearer the surface. Researchers first realized that the wells had high levels of arsenic in the 1990s, but the wells are still in use.

The Environmental Protection Agency recognizes several effective ways of removing arsenic from drinking water, but they haven’t been applied to Bangladeshi wells. In a statement from the World Health Organization, U.S. epidemiologist Allan Smith has called the Bangladesh situation “the largest mass poisoning of a population in history.”

The lung-capacity research team published its work in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Much more about arsenic and how to remove it:  Pure Water Products.

Detailed information about arsenic reduction: The Pure Water Occasional.

Main Source:  Popsci.

Pure Water Gazette Fair Use Statement

Copper is a reddish naturally occurring metal. In water it typically is dissolved as a divalent cation (Cu +2). In small amounts, copper is an essential element for living organisms.

Copper is obtained by mining copper ores. It is widely used to make copper pipe and tubing. Copper compounds are used as pesticides and herbicides. In water treatment it is widely used as an ingredient in a “redox” process in a product called KDF.  Copper is also used as a mild swimming pool disinfectant in the form of electronically generated copper ions.

Native copper. As you would expect, it’s copper colored. It’s good to make wire with, but bad for your liver if you ingest too much.

Corrosion from copper plumbing fixtures may cause high levels of copper in drinking water. The presence of copper corrosion is often indicated by blue-green staining of fixtures.

Regarding Health Effects, too much copper can cause nausea and vomiting, and long-term exposure can lead to liver damage and kidney problems.

Copper is a necessary nutrient, but USDA says adult intake should be no more than 10 milligrams per day.

Recommended adult intake is 1.0 to 1.6 mg/day.
US EPA Primary Drinking Water maximum contaminant level goal: 1.3 ppm. Secondary maximum (recommended to avoid metallic taste or blue-green staining): 1.0 ppm.

Water treatment:

Copper can be controlled in whole house (POE) applications and plumbing fixtures protected by cation exchange (water softener), pH control, and film-creating compounds such as polyphosphates.

Point of use treatment. Reverse osmosis removes copper handily–usually around 97%. Copper can also be removed by distillation and activated carbon adsorption.

Sources: Water Technology Volume 32, Issue 11 – November 2009. Enting Engineering Handbook. Pure Water Occasional.