Why Filter Your Water?

Why Is Filtering Your Water Important?

You need water to sustain life. But, the quality of that water is just as important as the quantity. Whether your family relies on a municipal water system, a private well, or even bottled water, you cannot be sure it is safe and free of toxins. Filtering your drinking and cooking water is critical to safeguarding your family’s health.

With so many aesthetic, organic, inorganic, and microbiological contaminants threatening your water supply, filtering it before use makes perfect sense. If you don’t, you cannot be sure that the water you and your family consume on a daily basis is safe, clean, and life-sustaining.

Is Your Municipal Water Supply Safe?

If you are on a city water system, you might trust your tap to deliver all the safe, potable water your household needs. Public water suppliers must abide by specific safety standards set by the EPA, which limit the levels of impurities in public water. Even if your city supplier is in compliance with the EPA, the water is likely to contain sanitizing additives such as chlorine and low levels of impurities you don’t know about. Many of these sanitizers make your water taste and smell unpleasant. 

Even so, the EPA continues to acknowledge that there are still ongoing issues with Community Water Systems (CWSs) violating drinking water standards. 

According to their website: 

"In fiscal year 2022, 43.2 percent of the nation’s CWSs violated at least one drinking water standard, which set the limits for contaminants in drinking water. In addition, 29.6 percent of CWSs had monitoring and reporting violations and 7 percent had health-based standard violations." 

If the city pipes are old or in disrepair, the water traveling to your home can pick up contaminants along the way. Your city water may absorb heavy metals from natural deposits underground or it may pick up lead particulates from old piping. Even so-called lead-free pipes contain as much as 8 percent lead.

Additionally, one 2023 study from the US Geological Survey found that nearly half of the tap water in the U.S. is contaminated with "forever chemicals," (2) and as much as 98% of the U.S. population may have already ingested these chemicals. (3) 

The risk of water contamination becomes even higher during an emergency when sanitation standards and safeguards break down. Boiling your water may kill the bacteria and parasites in it, but it cannot remove chemicals (4). Therefore, one of the best ways to protect your loved ones is by filtering your water before drinking it or cooking with it.

Is Your Well a Naturally Safe Water Source?

If you are one of the more than 43 million Americans who rely on well water (5), you may believe your supply is naturally pure. The fact is, however, that unless you test your well water regularly, you could be drinking more than you bargained for.

Unlike community water supplies, the government does not regulate well water quality. Because you source your water from underground, it may contain heavy metals like lead and mercury, or other toxic minerals from natural deposits. It could also be contaminated with pesticide residue, nitrates from fertilizer runoff, or even bacteria from organic waste. (5)

It is simply good sense to filter your well water before drinking it to remove impurities.

Isn’t Bottled Water Just as Safe?

Bottled water is not subject to the EPA's Safe Drinking Water Act. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) treats bottled water the same as any other food product. It monitors handling and packaging safety but allows minimum chemical, microbial, and radiological contents. (6)

Contaminants & How They Affect Your Health

 

 REFERENCES:

  1. https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/national-enforcement-and-compliance-initiative-increasing-compliance-drinking-water 
  2. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412023003069?via%3Dihub
  3. https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/05/health/pfas-nearly-half-us-tap-water-wellness/index.html
  4. https://hanstrom.com/blog/purify-boiling-water/ 
  5. https://fortune.com/2023/10/26/water-use-private-wells-contaminants-cancer-minerals-rural-america/
  6. https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/drinking/public/regulations.html