Mapping A Contamination Crisis

While the ease and convenience of modern chemical and industrial compounds improve our daily lives, there is a cost to not only to the environment, but also to consumers. Add to that the current US Government’s disengagement with policies and procedures for protecting its’ citizens, and you have a recipe for disaster.

Fortunately, there is still third-party, independent research and reporting that is available to concerned citizens. Recently, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) posted an online interactive map to help locate those communities that are contaminated with toxic chemicals.  “Mapping A Contamination Crisis” is a collaboration between the EWG and the Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute at Northwestern (IL) to provide “federal drinking water data and information on all publicly documented cases of PFAS pollution from manufacturing plants, military air bases, civilian airports and fire training sites.”

“PFCs – highly fluorinated toxic chemicals, also known as PFASs, that have been linked to cancer, thyroid disease, weakened immunity and other health problems  – continues to expand with no end in sight,” states the EWG. In fact, the EPA has established health advisories for these contaminants so that local and state officials can take actions to protect citizens.

According to an article in PRWEB dated September 2, 2016, “the myriad uses of PFCs are major contributors to their widespread danger. Used in both food packaging as well as a large assortment of products designed to be resistant to heat, oil, grease, and water, these chemicals have been found in higher-than-recommended concentrations in 33 of the 50 states in the country. And because it can take years for the human body to dispose of PFCs once ingested, people are prone to PFC accumulation and increased chances of negative health effects. Furthermore, the EHP study finds that young children exposed to these contaminants are more likely to suffer from decreased levels of immunity against diphtheria, tetanus, measles, and influenza, even with prior vaccination.”

The actions taken by your local water authority are necessary and beneficial. Despite this, wouldn’t you want to take any actions yourself that would prevent the ingestion of PFCs? In fact, the Minnesota Department of Health determined in 2008 that “the use of carbon block filters were effective in treating the presence of PFCs (which include the aforementioned perfluoroalkyl substances as well as perfluorooctanoic acids, perfluorooctane sulfanate, perfluorobutanoic acids, and other perfluoro- chemicals) in drinking water. And because carbon block filters treat the presence of PFCs through the action of physiochemical adsorption, increasing the surface area and density of the filter medium dramatically increases its effectiveness while also compensating for some of the drawbacks of granular activated carbon (GAC) and RO filtration methods.”

In simpler terms: Water2Drink believes using a solid carbon block water filtration system such as a Multipure Drinking Water System “offers a vastly greater carbon surface area to filter PFCs, without the propensity for channeling that affects GAC. This makes them an ideal point-of-use filtration method to treat PFCs.”

Water2Drink.com encourages you to visit the link above to the interactive EWG map, and to study the effects of PFCs in your local water supply. Remember, if you don’t filter your water, YOU become the filter!