Water Quality
Poor water quality can contribute to poor
indoor air quality. Health concerns with city
water focus on chlorine, fluoride, trace
chemicals, heavy metals and micro-organisms.
Of the over 2,000 contaminants found in
potable water, Health Canada and the EPA has
established standards for only 82 of them.
Municipal water treatment plants are
primarily set up for disinfection rather
than water purification.
The problems associated with polluted water
is not only concerned with drinking. Polluted
water can also enter your body through:
- Bath - when an adult takes a 15 minute
bath toxins are absorbed through the skin.
For children the absorption rate is much
faster.
- Shower - showering at normal
temperatures can cause chloroform to escape
into the air where it is breathed into the
lungs.
- Brushing Teeth - same as drinking
non-filtered water.
- Cooking - same as drinking non-filtered
water.
One of the biggest problem with municipal
water is that testing is often done only at the
source or treatment plant. From there the water
will travel through hundreds of kilometers of
underground pipes that may contain asbestos,
lead, as well as biological contaminants. The
chlorine used to treat the water may react with
naturally occurring organic compounds creating
potentially harmful organochlorides and
trihaliomethanes. Increasingly, industrial and
hazardous wastes are not filtered out of the
municipal water supply.
Every home should have a whole house water
filter to remove chlorine, iron, rust, sediment,
chemicals, and particulate. Additional water
filters are needed for drinking water such as
reverse osmosis or distillation to further
remove lead, trace chemicals and extra fine
particles.
Common Water
Contaminants
|
Contaminant |
Source |
Health Effect |
|
Asbestos |
piping |
lung cancer |
|
E.coli |
human or animal waste |
gastrointestinal - death |
|
Fluoride |
fertilizer / additive |
skeletal/dental fluorosis |
|
Giardia |
human or animal waste |
gastrointestinal illness |
|
Hydrogen Sulfide |
natural |
rotten egg smell/taste |
|
Iron |
natural |
laundry/appliance staining |
|
Lead |
piping |
toxic lead poisoning |
|
Mercury |
runoff, batteries, waste sites |
kidney and nervous system |
|
Microbial contaminants |
animal and human waste |
various |
|
Nitrate / Nitrite |
fertilizer, sewage |
Blue baby syndrome |
|
PCB |
coolants |
cancer |
|
Prescription Drugs |
hospital waste |
unknown |
|
Radium |
natural |
cancer |
|
Radon |
natural |
cancer |
|
Selenium |
mining, oil and coal combustion |
liver damage |
|
TDS Total Dissolved Solids |
natural mineral deposits |
gastrointestinal illness |
|
Toxaphane |
insecticide |
cancer |
|
Trihalomethanes |
bi-product of chlorine |
cancer |
|
Turbidity |
soil runoff |
affects water filtration |
|
Uranium |
natural |
cancer |
|
Viruses |
animal and human waste |
various |
|
