[Summit] more water chemistry

[Hope for Health]

It is truly sad that we have contaminated our water 
and changed our water containers to toxic plastic,
so that you appear to be stuck with the choice
between possible mold or drinking unhealthy
chemicals!  So sorry!  I wish I had a better
answer for you.

Blessings,

Liberty G

--- On Tue, 3/16/10, Breslers <breslerfamily at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Breslers <breslerfamily at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Summit] more water chemistry
To: "Summit Neighborhood" <Summit at sna.providence.ri.us>
Date: Tuesday, March 16, 2010, 8:59 PM

Poland Spring is close to pH 7. Most of the other bottled waters I tested were closer to 8.  
Things like molds grow in water filters, to which I am very allergic/sensitive, and also I do not think they will correct pH. 

One filter housing I saw had a blown in filler, which is formaldehyde!!
For now I am doing bottled, although it's not perfect.

Elianna


On Tue, Mar 16, 2010 at 10:56 AM, Hope for Health <libertyliterary at yahoo.com> wrote:

Charlotte,



Below is a link to the best source of info on this I could

quickly find.  They start with water filter pitchers, but

go on to discuss faucet, under-the-counter and whole-house

filters.  They mention that some faucets may need an

"adaptor" - perhaps such is available for yours.  I'd suggest

contacting these folks to ask.  Otherwise, my main comment

is that the water filter pitchers are plastic, which I'm

not happy about.  However, if none of the other options is

possible for you, they would be better and cheaper than

bottled water (also in plastic) - as long as you keep them

in the refrigerator and don't let them get warm.  Plastic

leaches chemicals into food when heated, which is why you

should never put it in the microwave.



See: www.consumersearch.com/water-filters/water-filter-pitchers



Please let me know how you make out!  We used to have great

water here, but they had a problem a few years back and now

chlorinate the heck out of it.  This doesn't remove the

many chemical contaminants already in the water, but adds

chlorine chems to the mix.  Yukkh! :-(



Blessings,



Liberty G



--- On Tue, 3/16/10, O'Kelly, Charlotte <COKELLY at providence.edu> wrote:



> From: O'Kelly, Charlotte <COKELLY at providence.edu>

> Subject: RE: [Summit] more water chemistry

> To: "Hope for Health" <libertyliterary at yahoo.com>

> Date: Tuesday, March 16, 2010, 8:29 AM

> the new style faucet I have on my

> kitchen sink won't accept a filter. Is there any other way I

> can filter my drinking water?

> Charlotte

>

> ________________________________________

> From: summit-bounces at sna.providence.ri.us

> [summit-bounces at sna.providence.ri.us]

> On Behalf Of Hope for Health [libertyliterary at yahoo.com]

> Sent: Monday, March 15, 2010 11:36 PM

> To: Theresa Mathiesen; Summit Neighborhood; Breslers

> Subject: Re: [Summit] more water chemistry

>

> For drinking water, both my organization,

> Toxics Information Project (TIP) and the

> great independent research non-profit,

> Environmental Working Group recommend

> a water filter on your kitchen faucet.

> That avoids the plastic, which can indeed

> leach into your food or water, especially

> when exposed to heat.  It also takes out

> at least a fair quantity of contaminants

> in the water from your pipes.

>

> See the excerpts below on the subject from

> our Autumn 2007 TIP TALKS newsletter,

> at www.toxicsinfo.org/tiptalks/Autumn07.htm

>

> Blessings,

>

> Liberty G

> ****************************************************************

>         TAP WATER:  TO DRINK OR

> NOT TO DRINK?

>

> The recent DC Tap Water report revealed that tap water

> samples in the Washington, DC area contained toxic

> chlorination by-products at levels above federal health

> limits.  An average reader might read that and run to

> the local Safeway or Piggly Wiggly to stock up on bottled

> water. But you're smarter than that.  You probably even

> already know there's a cheaper, more

> environmentally-friendly way to dramatically lower levels of

> these toxic byproducts: carbon filtration. In fact, it's 10

> to 20 times less expensive than bottled water ($100 vs.

> nearly $2,000 annually) AND it doesn't produce the waste and

> pollution bottled water does. Carbon filtration could be a

> countertop pitcher, a faucet-mount, an under-sink model, or

> a whole-house model.   So make the smart

> choice: pass up bottled water. Get a carbon filter instead.

>

>

> Chlorine Pollutants at High Levels in DC Tap Water

>

> New tests find high levels of hazardous chlorination

> byproducts in D.C. tap water

>

> Published July 19, 2007

>

> In spite of the best efforts of the Washington Aqueduct to

> provide quality drinking water to the District of Columbia,

> tap water tests from May, 2007 revealed toxic by-products of

> the chemicals used to purify Potomac River water, at levels

> above annual federal health limits.  These results

> illustrate the tremendous difficulties that water utilities

> face when trying to provide tap water that is free of

> potentially deadly bacteria and pathogens, yet not

> contaminated with toxic by-products of the chemicals used to

> kill these same microbes.  This problem is particularly

> acute when utilities draw water from poorly protected water

> sources like the Potomac River.  As recently reported

> in the Washington Post, the Potomac may not even be suitable

> for swimming; turning this water into safe drinking water is

> a serious public health challenge.

>

> Based on these test results the Environmental Working Group

> (EWG) is recommending carbon filtration for all 1.1 million

> consumers of tap water from the Washington Aqueduct in

> Washington DC and northern Virginia. Carbon filtration of

> tap water will dramatically lower levels of toxic

> disinfection byproducts; it is also 10 to 20 times less

> expensive than bottled water, and does not produce the waste

> and pollution associated with the packaging and transport of

> bottled water.  EWG collected tap water samples in May,

> 2007, from 18 locations across Washington D.C., including

> the U.S. Capitol, EPA headquarters, parks, schools, and

> residences of pregnant women and other groups susceptible to

> health harms from exposures to disinfection byproducts. We

> commissioned tests from an accredited lab for two classes of

> disinfection byproducts — trihalomethanes, or THMs, and

> haloacetic acids, or HAAs. The laboratory analyses found:

>

>     * More than 40 percent of the tap water

> samples [1] contained chemical byproducts of water treatment

> above annual federal health limits. The group of

> contaminants known as haloacetic acids (HAAs) were found at

> their highest levels since 2001, the last year before the

> Washington Aqueduct modified its treatment techniques in an

> attempt to reduce levels of trihalomethanes, related

> byproducts of tap water chlorination.

>     * HAAs were highest at the Martin Luther King

> Jr. Memorial Library, an elementary school in the district's

> Northwest quadrant, and the home of a woman who was 9 months

> pregnant.

>     * Almost 90 percent of the samples had THMs

> at levels associated in epidemiological studies with low

> birth weight and serious birth defects in infants. TTHM

> levels were highest at the National Mall, the same

> elementary school, and the home of a 2-year-old infant.

>

> Benefits of water disinfection come at a price.

> Chlorination of tap water is one of the greatest public

> health improvements of the last 100 years, vastly reducing

> deaths from water-borne diseases. But chlorination produces

> disinfection byproducts (DBPs) like THMs and HAAs that are

> themselves potentially harmful. Because of the recognized

> health risks of the byproducts, in particular THMs, many

> utilities, including the Washington Aqueduct, have switched

> from treatment using so-called free chlorine to compounds

> called chloramines, which tend to produce lower levels of

> the handful of disinfection byproducts for which EPA has set

> legal limits, including THMs and HAAs. But because

> chloramines are not as effective at disinfection as free

> chlorine, the Aqueduct, like other utilities that use

> chloramine, periodically switches back to chlorine.

>

> This so-called "chlorine burn" removes sludge and sediment

> from the pipes, but also temporarily raises the level of

> disinfection byproducts. This year the utility's chlorine

> burn was conducted between April 7 and May 7. While

> chloramines appear to help lower THM levels, they also

> produce an entirely different set of byproducts, including

> the HAAs and other byproducts, for which we have less

> information about long-term human health effects. A recent

> EPA study found that water treated with chloramines had the

> highest levels of iodacetic acid, a byproduct that in animal

> studies has been found toxic to cells and DNA. In general

> however, the long-term public health consequences of

> exposure to chloramines and chloramines byproducts is poorly

> understood.  What is known about HAAs, however, raises

> concerns. EPA classifies HAAs as possible human carcinogens,

> and peer-reviewed studies have identified adverse

> reproductive and developmental effects, and the ability

>  to damage DNA. The state of Oregon has warned that long

> term exposure to HAAs at levels equal to those found in DC

> tap water could cause injury to the brain, nervous system,

> the eyes, and the reproductive system.

>

> Disinfection byproducts are a bigger problem than these

> tests show.  EPA scientists have identified a total of

> 600 disinfection byproducts in tap water but EPA has set

> legal limits in tap water for only 11.  And these legal

> limits, such as those for HAAs and THMs, are established as

> a balance between health, treatment cost and

> feasibility.  This is a critical point for most

> consumers:  The legal limit, or MCL, is not intended to

> be a true safe exposure level.  For almost all

> contaminants in tap water, including those identified in

> this analysis, the MCL allows far more contamination than

> the truly safe level, or what EPA refers to as the public

> health goal.  In 1999, EPA strengthened the legal limit

> for THMs in tap water and set a first-time standard for HAAs

> due to these chemicals' potential links to cancer, birth

> defects, and other adverse health outcomes.  To comply

> with these tighter standards, DC Water and Sewer Authority

> began using chloramine as a

>  disinfectant because of its known capacity to lower levels

> of the regulated byproducts.  This switch, which the

> utilities' water quality test reports show did indeed lower

> THM and HAA levels, also spurred some significant negative

> consequences: it likely created a complex, new suite of

> disinfection byproducts that are neither defined nor

> studied; and it contributed to elevated lead levels in tap

> water across the District, a problem that prompted

> additional manipulations in water chemistry by the utility

> that are still under study.

>

> Protecting tap water at the source.   If the

> Potomac River were less polluted as it flowed into the

> utility's intake pipe, less chlorine and chloramines would

> be needed, and levels of disinfection byproducts would be

> lower as a result.  But government policies, in

> general, do little to advance this goal.  Instead,

> taxpayers pour billions of dollars into federal programs

> like farm subsidy payments that actually exacerbate

> pollution problems, and then pile on additional billions for

> water treatment facilities that try to clean it up. Very

> little is spent on more effective and efficient measures to

> protect rivers and streams from pollution in the first

> place.  Agriculture is the top source of pollution in

> the Potomac River watershed, but efforts to control

> agricultural pollution remain largely unfunded.  From

> 1999 through 2005, taxpayers spent five times more money

> subsidizing farmers in the Potomac River basin as they did

> on programs to control

>  agricultural pollution - $287 million on subsidies

> compared to $57 million on conservation and pollution

> control.  Many farmers received no money at all.

> In an era of tight federal budgets, political pressure to

> fully fund farmer subsidies almost always trumps whatever

> concerns might exist about controlling agricultural

> pollution.  In 2004 and 2005, 4,155 farmers in the

> Potomac watershed were denied funding for conservation and

> water quality projects due to lack of available funds.

>

> Recommendations.  The findings presented here make a

> strong case for keeping sources of tap water clean before

> they require expensive and potentially harmful treatment

> with chlorine or chloramines.  But until such measures

> are in place and contaminant levels are dramatically reduced

> from current levels, EWG recommends that anyone drinking DC

> tap water use some form of carbon filtration designed to

> reduce levels of THM and HAAs.  In addition:

>

>     * Farm polices must be reformed to fully fund

> programs specifically designed to keep agricultural

> pollutants of all kinds – manure, fertilizer, pesticides

> and soil – out of tap water supplies.

>     * Safety standards for chlorination and

> chloramine byproducts must be reevaluated in light of

> research indicating that current regulations are not

> stringent enough.

>     * Greater efforts are put in place to educate

> the public about the health risks of chlorine and chloramine

> byproducts and to warn all Aqueduct water consumers of the

> annual chlorine burn.

>

> Source URL:  http://www.ewg.org/reports/dctapwater   Links:

> [1] http://www.drinktap.org

> *****************************************************************

>

> --- On Mon, 3/15/10, Breslers <breslerfamily at gmail.com>

> wrote:

>

> > From: Breslers <breslerfamily at gmail.com>

> > Subject: Re: [Summit] more water chemistry

> > To: "Theresa Mathiesen" <elvamath at gmail.com>,

> "Summit Neighborhood" <Summit at sna.providence.ri.us>

> > Date: Monday, March 15, 2010, 9:56 PM

> > The law for safe drinking water is 8.5,

> > max  Providence must have an exemption- probably

> because we

> > have some solid lead pipes.

> > In the summer the water has actually tested out at

> 10.3.

> > I seem to remember hearing they are trying to lower

> it

> > some.

> >

> >

> > You are right pH is logarithmic, but I sure wouldn't

> > want to drink something that was even "only" the

> > equivalent of a cup of water with a table spoon of

> ammonia

> > in it.

> > We buy bottled water. (Of course then there is the

> > plastic...sigh)

> >

> >

> > And by-the-way, regular chlorination rapidly looses

> > it's potency as the pH goes up past 7.5.  By pH 8

> it is

> > pretty useless;  that is why a heavily

> chlorinated pool can

> > still be unsanitary- if the pH is too far off the

> chlorine

> > won't help.

> >

> >

> > So what wonder-chemical are they putting in our

> drinking

> > water to make it safe at pH 10?  It still smells

> of

> > chlorine...  Or do they treat the water with

> chlorine

> > first, & adjust the pH last, as it goes in the

> water

> > pipes-- and hope nothing tries to grow in it between

> the

> > time it leaves the water treatment plant till it gets

> into

> > our homes?

> >

> >

> > Water safety is serious business. (I worked as a

> licensed

> > pool chemist for a while) And we have so little

> control over

> > our limited choices.

> >

> > Elianna

> >

> >

> >

> >

> > On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 8:12 PM,

> > Theresa Mathiesen <elvamath at gmail.com>

> > wrote:

> >

> > I believe that the pH scale is

> > logarithmic, not linear, so a pH of 10.1 isn't as

> close

> > to 11 as it sounds.  (It still might be too high

> -- I just

> > don't know.)

> >

> >

> > -- Elva

> >

> > On

> > Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 7:57 PM, Breslers <breslerfamily at gmail.com>

> > wrote:

> >

> >

> > oh dear...among other things-

> >

> > Distilled whatever is NOT acidic!  It is neutral

> (pH 7).

> > And slightly acidic water is actually natural &

> > healthier than alkaline as far as I know.  Pure

> rain water,

> > in a non-polluted environment, is usually about

> pH  6

> > (slightly acid).

> >

> >

> >

> >

> > The 10.1 pH of Providence water is ghastly (ammonia is

> 11)

> > but it is set that way to avoid dissolving the lead in

> our

> > pipes.

> >

> > There seem to be plenty good points in this bulletin,

> but

> > beware-- the internet is full of people who think they

> have

> > ALL the answers, and seek to take advantage of all of

> our

> > vulnerabilities

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> > May you have a complete healing,  Marco, and

> soon!, but

> > watch out for selfish people who will try to take

> advantage

> > of you by telling you they know what is best for you.

> > Unfortunately this stuff takes endless cross

> checking...

> >

> >

> >

> >

> > Elianna

> >

> >

> >

> > On Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 2:44 PM,

> > marco pereira <markenid2004 at yahoo.com>

> > wrote:

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> > John

> > Hopkins

> > Good article

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> > AFTER YEARS OF TELLING

> > PEOPLE CHEMOTHERAPY IS THE ONLY WAY TO TRY ('TRY',

> > BEING THE KEY WORD) TO ELIMINATE CANCER, JOHNS HOPKINS

> IS

> > FINALLY STARTING TO TELL YOU THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE

> WAY

> > .

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> > _______________________________________________

> >

> > Summit mailing list

> >

> > Summit at sna.providence.ri.us

> >

> > http://mail.sna.providence.ri.us/mailman/listinfo/summit_sna.providence.ri.us

> >

> > SNA Website: http://sna.providence.ri.us/

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> > --

> > FISHEL BRESLER'S KLEZMER & HASSIDIC MUSIC -

> > funded in part by a Folk Arts Fellowship grant from

> the RI

> > State Council on the Arts.

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> > events

> >

> > & would like to, just let us know & we'll add

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> >

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>

>

>

>

>

>

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