H2OKits.com Water Blog

Green Talk Radio host Sean Daily speaks with Ryan Hreljac, of Ryan’s Well. At the age of 6, he began his active life of advocacy for water-poor communities in 1998 when he determinedly focused his sights on building a single well for a dry village in Africa. The story touched hearts and launched an avalanche of media reports, films, inspirational book chapters, and speaking requests that resulted in more donations and attention to water issues than he could have imagined. In 2001, with support of family and other volunteers, Ryan established the Ryan’s Well Foundation, a registered Canadian charity that helps build wells, educates children about water and sanitation, and motivates people of all ages and backgrounds to perform their own “power of one” miracles. Blue Living Ideas

Fluoride is added to drinking water and toothpaste to prevent tooth decay. Since fluoride was first introduced into drinking water, our consumption of fluoride has increased considerably. You and your children may be ingesting more fluoride than you realize.

The jury is still weighing the benefits of fluoride against its risks. No one questions that fluoride has significantly reduced tooth decay. No one questions that too much fluoride is a health risk. The concern today is whether the risks of fluoride use are completely known, and whether those risks justify the benefits of reduced tooth decay. Some researchers say, “Fluoridation could turn out to be one of the top 10 mistakes of the 20th century.” On the other hand, the Center for Disease control said that the fluoridation of community water was one of the top 10 public health achievements of the 20th century.

Fluoride is a Poison

Did you know that only 2/3 of U.S. cities and towns add fluoride to their drinking water. The other 1/3 of all cities and towns oppose the use of fluoride. About 60% of all public drinking water is fluoridated.

There are serious health risks from water fluoridation. Too much fluoride can actually damage tooth enamel and cause dental fluorosis, which is the yellowing and mottling of tooth enamel. Excessive use of fluoride has also been linked to bone cancer, lower IQ and osteoporosis. Adverse thyroid functioning is also linked to fluoride.

Have you read the warning label on every tube of fluoridated toothpaste? It says: "Keep out of reach of children under 6 years of age. If more than is used for brushing is accidentally swallowed, get medical help or contact a Poison Control Center right away." If you use fluoride toothpaste, teach your children to use only a pea-sized amount and never to swallow it.

Fluoride is a poison.In high concentration, forms of fluoride are used to kill rats and crop-eating insects. City employees who work with water fluoridation must wear protective clothing and respirators. Long-term exposure to fluoride causes bone disease, skin lesions and death.

Most cities do not use pharmaceutical grade sodium fluoride in their drinking water. They use instead hydrofluorosilicic acid (or its salt). This is concentrated directly from the smokestack scrubbers during the production of phosphate fertilizer. It is shipped to water treatment plants and trickled directly into the drinking water. It is an industrial grade fluoride and it is contaminated with trace amounts of heavy metals such as lead, arsenic and radium. Many scientist feel that these heavy metals are also harmful to humans at the levels that are being added to fluoridate the drinking water. In addition, using hydrofluorosilicic acid has an added risk of increasing lead accumulation in children.

Which works better: fluoride in drinking water or fluoride in toothpaste?

Fluoride in drinking water was successful in reducing cavities, often by 70% over a span of 15 years. However, when the decision was made to add fluoride to drinking water, fluoride toothpaste was not available. Scientists now know that fluoride does not have to be ingested to prevent cavities. They believe that fluoride works as well when it is applied directly to the teeth, as in toothpaste. The use of fluoride in drinking water is only slightly more successful than use of fluoridated toothpaste alone. In the drinking water, it accounts for 18% less tooth decay in children, which represents ½ of a cavity. Fluoride serves no known nutritional purpose and is not required for human growth.

The EPA Sets Standards for Fluoride Exposure

The Environmental Protection Agency says that the maximum limit for safe exposure to fluoride is 4 mg/L, which is 4 parts per million. The recommended use of fluoride in water depends on the climate. In warm weather the fluoride limit is lower, because people drink more water. The fluoride limit averages about 1mg/L, which is 1 part per million. Does your drinking water exceed that standard of 1 part per million? Check your city at the Center for Disease Controls My Waters Fluoride.  If the fluoride in your city drinking water is more than 2 parts per million, it is recommended that you find an alternate source of water for your children. Distilled water contains no fluoride. Reverse-osmosis water filters will remove most of the fluoride from your tap water. However, many other household water filters do not remove fluoride.

Are your children getting too much fluoride?

There are many sources of fluoride in our diet. Fruits and vegetables naturally contain some fluoride, depending on the level in the soil where they grow. Because fruits and vegetables are also processed with fluoridated water, their fluoride levels have increased. Fluoride is in the teeth and bones of fish and animals. Processed food containing fish bones and chicken bones is high in fluoride. The chicken in baby food that has been mechanically boned contains bone dust and is thus high in fluoride. A single serving of chicken sticks alone would provide about half of a child's upper limit of safety for fluoride. Baby food made from chicken has over 4ppm of fluoride.

Beverages, such as soda pop, fruit juice, beer and wine, also contain fluoride. Grape juice, for example, has 2.4ppm fluoride. Some instant tea contains 6.5ppm of fluoride, well over the 4.0ppm recommended maximum. You can find more data on Fluoride Concentrations of Foods & Beverages table. Pesticide residues on fruits and vegetables contain fluoride. However, organic fruits and vegetables are grown with a minimum of such pesticides. Whenever possible, use organic fruits and vegetables to reduce fluoride intake. It is important to prepare powdered baby formula with non-fluoridated water. Fluoride pills and drops are generally felt to be an unnecessary risk, although they are often prescribed for children who live in communities with non-fluoridated water. In conclusion, there are valid concerns that the fluoridation of drinking water is more harmful than beneficial. Surfer Sam

Rowan Hooper New Scientist Mon, 12 Jan 2009 A comprehensive survey of the drinking water for more than 28 million Americans has detected the widespread but low-level presence of pharmaceuticals and hormonally active chemicals. Little was known about people’s exposure to such compounds from drinking water, so Shane Snyder and colleagues at the Southern Nevada Water Authority in Las Vegas screened tap water from 19 US water utilities for 51 different compounds. The surveys were carried out between 2006 and 2007. The 11 most frequently detected compounds - all found at extremely low concentrations - were: - Atenolol, a beta-blocker used to treat cardiovascular disease - Atrazine, an organic herbicide banned in the European Union, but still used in the US, which has been implicated in the decline of fish stocks and in changes in animal behaviour - Carbamazepine, a mood-stabilising drug used to treat bipolar disorder, amongst other things - Estrone, an oestrogen hormone secreted by the ovaries and blamed for causing gender-bending changes in fish - Gemfibrozil, an anti-cholesterol drug - Meprobamate, a tranquiliser widely used in psychiatric treatment - Naproxen, a painkiller and anti-inflammatory linked to increases in asthma incidence - Phenytoin, an anticonvulsant that has been used to treat epilepsy - Sulfamethoxazole, an antibiotic used against the Streptococcus bacteria, which is responsible for tonsillitis and other diseases - TCEP, a reducing agent used in molecular biology - Trimethoprim, another antibiotic The concentrations of pharmaceuticals in drinking water were millions of times lower than in a medical dose, and Snyder emphasises that they pose no public health threat. He cautions, though, that “if a person has a unique health condition, or is concerned about particular contaminants in public water systems, I strongly recommend they consult their physician”. Christian Daughton of the EPA’s National Exposure Research Laboratory says that neither this nor other recent water assessments give cause for health concern. “But several point to the potential for risk - especially for the fetus and those with severely compromised health.” Daughton says the contamination surveys help people realise how they are intimately and inseparably connected with their environment. “The occurrence of pharmaceuticals in the environment also serves to make us acutely aware of the chemical sea that surrounds us,” he says. Modern life While the US government regulates the levels of pathogens in US drinking water, there are no rules for pharmaceuticals and other compounds, apart from one: the herbicide atrazine. The atrazine levels measured by Snyder and colleagues were well within federal limits. Snyder says water utilities could make drinking water purer. But the costs of “extreme purification” - far beyond what is needed for safety alone - are huge in terms of increased energy usage and carbon footprint. Ultra-pure water might not even be safe, adds Snyder. The widespread occurrence of pharmaceuticals and endocrine disruptors reflects improved detection techniques, rather than greater pollution, says Snyder. Contamination is a fact of modern life, he adds. “As we continue to populate and aggregate, our wastes will certainly accumulate where we live,” he says. “We as a species have decided to live a modern life, with pharmaceuticals, plastics, transportation - therefore we must accept that there will be a certain degree of contamination.”

By Jim Thebaut and Erik Webb

Those Americans even aware of Zimbabwe’s recent fight against the disruption and death caused by cholera, a highly treatable water-borne disease, carry an unfounded confidence that clean, abundant water will always be available and a similar water-borne disease epidemic could never occur here. However, many areas of our nation aren’t far from the conditions facing third-world countries in ensuring adequate, clean drinking water for their people. Various regions of our country face problems including dwindling surface and groundwater supplies, non-existent water and sanitation infrastructure, closely packed septic systems, inadequate reinvestment in existing water treatment infrastructure, and expanding contamination of surface water including both biological and new chemicals (including pharmaceuticals) that all increase our risk of water-borne illness outbreaks. 

Like the proverbial frog in slowly heated water, we are rapidly reaching crisis levels without truly being aware of the risks.  This crisis is curable if the United States chooses to establish a modern, integrated, national water policy framework, implements sustainable water use planning, invests in the changes needed to pursue water resource sustainability, and provides leadership to assist the rest of the world meet similar goals.

The region of the country closest to the breaking point is the Colorado River basin, which provides drinking water for 30 million people in the American Southwest. Although most of the region’s residents still have adequate, untainted water, portions of the Navajo and Hopi reservation communities of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado – about 80,000 people – live with inadequate plumbing and sanitation and regularly drink untreated water. This portion of the Native American population suffers from birth defects and skin diseases out of proportion to the rest of the country. Additionally, it is anticipated that as climate change causes rising water temperatures greater disease risk will occur.

Creating plentiful, clean water for the Southwest’s Native Americans is one small part of a bigger picture. Similar water supply and sanitation challenges are emerging throughout the nation.  Over two thirds of state’s chief water managers anticipate drought and other water crisis in the near future. Infrastructure investment is grossly inadequate to maintain current systems, let alone meet the demand anticipated by another 100 million people over the next 3-4 decades.

We’ve faced these issues before and started down a path of coordinated policies.  In the post-World War II era, the nation faced a decade of drought that triggered intense national pressure to coordinate expansion of water supplies.  Congressional committees and White House offices were coordinated in order to address water supply issues allowing water development to proceed at an accelerated pace. We then realized and began to face the environmental consequences of expansion with greater national emphasis on protection of natural resources.  Unfortunately, while addressing environmental issues our over-reaction to development allowed us to sweep away the essential coordination functions embodied in the White House Water Resources Council. The consequence is that our nation’s water policy has devolved into a tangled mess of competing initiatives and policies intended to govern increasing demands, managing runoff, pollution abatement, improving quality, using reservoirs and underground water storage, conservation and efficiency improvements, all overseen by a complex infrastructure of federal, state and local bureaus, departments and agencies with overlapping and competing responsibilities. As a result, we have a hodgepodge of laws and regulations that benefit some at the expense of others. At best, our nation’s water use and planning structure is fractured and inefficient. At worst, it’s headed for complete breakdown.

Presently, at the federal level alone, 20 agencies and bureaus, under six cabinet departments, directed by 13 congressional committees with 23 subcommittees and five appropriations subcommittees are responsible for water-resource management. Consolidation of these responsibilities would make the job of managing water resources easier, but such consolidation of power and control is unlikely. A more likely approach might involve White House coordination of partnerships between federal agencies and coordination with state and local agencies to create integrated water policies as part of a national framework.

Additionally, decision-makers at every level must learn to embrace the principles of integrated water resources management, the concept of considering multiple viewpoints before making decisions. While this practice is gaining acceptance and application, it is woefully under-used in our highly fractionated U.S. water management system.

Integrated management would be based on clear principles.  For example, as a nation, we must begin to treat water as we would any other scarce resource and learn to live within our means. This requires efficiency and planning for sustainable use in the face of increasing demands for water, particularly in agriculture, industry and power production.

One of the best ways to promote sustainability is to make consumers aware of the true cost of water. What we pay to the water company each month only reflects the price to bring clean water to our taps and does not reflect the value of the resource in each of its various uses. Water management, resource expansion, environmental protection, and infrastructure maintenance is expensive, and much of the cost is redistributed through state and federal taxes and local and regional bond measures. Transparency about the real cost of water should be a fundamental principle, irrespective of the source of funds that underwrite the supply.

The good news is that the United States has experience with integrating national water policy. The Water Resources Planning Act of 1965 created the Water Resources Council, empowered to assess the adequacy of the nation’s water supplies, to establish principles and standards for federal participants in water projects, and to review agricultural, urban, energy, industrial, recreational and fish and wildlife water needs. The Act also established a grant program to assist state development of comprehensive water and land use plans.  This law was passed in an era before we understood the full environmental impact of our water resource management actions, and therefore needs to be strengthened to be effective. Nevertheless, the law creating the Council was never repealed.

It is now time that we re-empower and revise the Act to coordinate the nation’s efforts toward sustainable water resources development. 

This revision could benefit by incorporating the much stronger policy framework for international water policy objectives embodied in the Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act, signed into law in late 2005, which establishes access to safe water and sanitation as a major U.S. foreign policy objective. Merging our domestic and international water policy framework, and placing its operation directly under the umbrella of the White House, would unite and organize our national and international efforts and help solve both domestic and international water problems.

When it comes to drinking water, our nation and the planet are clearly at a crossroads.  Ensuring each member of our nation and the world community access to clean water is a humanitarian mission that will assure a safer world and avoid environmental calamity. Population growth, increased demands and changes in our hydrological systems caused by climate change make addressing the water crisis an imperative.  The United States can assume global leadership by setting a viable example in solving our own drinking water and sanitation issues, finding a viable way to coordinate our national water policy, and coupling our domestic efforts with our international policy.

It's hard to believe that Christmas is over and a new year is around the corner. I was just thinking about how blessed my company has been this year and myself. That made me think about how blessed Americans are in that we have safe drinking water at the turn of the tap. Think about it, a homeless person has access to safe, clean drinking water. Doesn't every public building have a water fountain or some type of drinking water supply for public use? This is not so for the rest of the World. Publisher Tom Bell has a wonderful editorial, Water professionals are obligated to support charitable water causes, on page 9 of the December 2008 issue of U.S. Water News. It’s about non-profit water organizations that make it possible for people in developing countries to have safe drinking water. Bell states that the World spends $300 billion a year on agricultural subsidies, $50 billion a year on bottled water, and only $3 billion a year in foreign aid for water supply and sanitation projects. Yet $10 billion to $20 billion a year would be enough to provide a basic human needs for water for all. Bell provides some non-profit water charities in which you may give to: Lifewater International Waterlines Water For People Water For Life WaterPartners International The H2O Project Here is a complete contact list: List of Water Charities. Our company, H2OKits.com has partnered with Blood Water Mission which exists to promote clean blood and clean water efforts in Africa, tangibly reducing the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic while addressing the underlying issues of poverty, injustice and oppression. Blood:Water Mission is building clean water wells, supporting medical facilities, and focusing on community and worldview transformation, both here in America and in Africa. We give 10% of our sales to Blood Water Mission through the sales of our water test kits, bath filter, and shower filter. What is your favorite water charity? Tell us about it by commenting. “Our failure to help those in the developing world gain access to clean water must surely rank as one of the greatest development failures of the last century.” – Dr. Peter Gleick