Water Quality - How Are Drinking Water Quality Standards Determined?

How are drinking water quality standards determined? This article discusses what type of person is kept in mind when establishing how much of each contaminant is "safe" when ingested.

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To determine maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) and drinking water quality standards, the government and it's agencies establish a level that "safe" for a 175-pound adult. They also assume that the contaminant in question is the only one that's present in the water.

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But it's clearly been proven that there's usually more than one contaminant found in a glass of tap water. In fact, 90% of all public tap systems contain traces of at least 10 synthetic chemicals and lead. Now this doesn't mean that every single glass of water you drink contains all of these contaminants, but it's certainly possible and it could happen.

One of the fuzzy areas when determining drinking water quality standards is determining how safe synthetic chemicals are when consumed. They do their best to determine the levels that individual chemical is safe at. But they fail to take into account when multiple chemicals come into contact with each other. When this happens, compounds are created that are exponentially more dangerous.

For example, when many synthetic chemicals react with chlorine (the major disinfectant used is treatment plants), they can form compounds called THMs that are highly dangerous and even carcinogenic! And what's worse is these kind of compounds aren't removed in most treatment plants!

One of the other major flaws of current drinking water quality standards is that MCLs are way too high for children. Since there immune and defense system is not fully developed yet, they are much more vulnerable to adverse health effects from drinking water contamination. Plus, they absorb 3 times as much water per pound of body weight than humans do, which means they get much bigger doses of contaminants.

If you're concerned like I am about drinking water quality standards, you can take matters into your own hands and install a simple water filtration system in your home. After much comparison and research, I invested in one that only cost 0 and it removes over 99% of most contaminants found in water. It hooks right to my kitchen sink, and it costs roughly 9 cents to filter a whole gallon of water. I use to spend a month on bottled water for my whole family, so pennies a day is a bargain for me!

But more importantly, I can set my own drinking water quality standards and assure that all the water my family and I drink is safe, pure, and healthy. And in my opinion, it's the only way to guarantee the quality of drinking water.

Water Quality - How Are Drinking Water Quality Standards Determined?

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