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You seriously can't live without this stuff - it's the majority of your body and the world, but only a small percentage of water supply is fresh - meaning not full of saltiness which will not be of great benefit should you consume it in great amounts. Fresh is the way to go!
Their are a few ways that fresh water gets to your tap. For my city's 2010 Water Quality Report, 62% of its water comes from groundwater wells owned by the Department of Water and Power. 32% comes from the Colorado river by way of Lake Matthews and the last 6% comes from Northern California by way of the California Aqueduct. In recent news, by the end of 2012 another water source will be added by a partnership with the Western Municipal Water District which is expected to bring better "water reliability."
As of 2010, I learned that the water quality of my tap water can still contain a few nasty lil' stinkers. For instance, in the water quality report it said that water could still contain viruses and bacteria from sewage treatment plants, salts and metals from natural sources and urban stormwater runoff, and pesticides from various sources - just to name a few! According to the EWG tap water database 2009, my city was tested for over 18 thousand tests when the average national amount of tests was 420! That among other results shows how low of quality my city's water was from 2004-2009 when the tests were conducted.
Who's in charge of water quality anyway? Not just local - but across the United States? Well - I have the answer for you! The federal agency that places standards for tap water is the EPA which stands for Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA lists an extensive number of contaminates and regulates their maximum levels that is allowed in drinking water (See basic listing here) and requires cities (like mine) to submit yearly water quality reports.
The EPA is pretty strict in it's drinking water regulation. An interesting subject to digress (but not really - it's also a part of my homework assignment) to is bottle water and its regulations. It may surprise you, but the EPA does not regulate bottled water. "Who does" you ask? Why, the FDA does! FDA stands for Food and Drug Distribution. The trouble with the FDA in regulating bottled water is that it is not as strict as the EPA and does not require the annual water quality reports. This sets bottle water up for poorer quality and safety.
Let's dig deeper into the subject of bottled water! Not many people are aware of the fact that the quality of water is less regulated. Some may just think that bottled water is safer or convenient, when the case is the complete opposite. Shouldn't tap water be the convenient distributor of water? The production of bottled water with it's various materials, transportation and large costs should be the categorized far from convenience in our minds.
The environmental impacts of the bottles themselves should sway the common bottled water buyer from further purchasing. According to storyofstuff.org's myths and reality article about bottled water, the bottles themselves can take up to ONE THOUSAND years to degrade in a landfill. Don't want to throw them into a landfill? How about incinerators? The article continues explaining that yucky toxins are released when these bottles are burned. If you wanna check out more about bottled water, check out storyofstuff's video (yay for visual aids!) of the Story of Bottled Water.
While looking for a fancy water picture, I came across Charity: Water. This non-profit organization aims to bring clean water to developing nations around the world. One thing that caught my attention was that they said that 100% of public donations truly goes towards clean water projects. They make sure to take care of any other expenses in order to put their public donations to their aimed tasks. I highly encourage checking them out and consider supporting their aims!
Happy Trending Everyone!
