The Case Against Drinking Tap Water

By Esther Dougherty

You Consume More Water Than Any Other Substance . . .
And You Need It More Often

For the most part we are actually a blob of water formed into shape by a protective skin. Breathing, digestion, elimination, glandular activities, heat dissipation and secretion can be performed only in the presence of water solutions.

Thirst is an important factor in regulating the water intake of the body. It is not known whether thirst is a result of reduced water in the blood or in certain body cells, such as those in the hypothalamus of the brain.

Either way, nature has built in this protective device, and we find that we get thirsty for water much more often than we get hungry for food. As a result, most of us swallow two to three quarts of water every day, half in food and half as free water. We must do so to replace the 2½ quarts that we eliminate each day.

The quantity of water excreted by the kidneys is almost in direct proportion to the amount of water taken into the body. Although the quantity eliminated by the kidneys varies daily, in certain physical irregularities, notably diabetes, as much as three gallons of water are eliminated in 24 hours.

Adequate water in the system is a great help to elimination. When there is too little water in the system, it is used first for other more vital processes. What remains may not be adequate to materially aid elimination. The stool is hard and dry and “defective drainage,” which many authorities call “the disease of diseases,” is the unfavorable result.

It is much better to have too much water in the body than not enough. The kidneys will eliminate any surplus with surprising speed. However, nothing but harm to the efficiency of the body will accrue when there is not enough water. Water is of such vast importance that the loss of 10 to 20 percent of the body water usually results in death.

Most people need to drink more water — not more sugar-laden soft drinks or more coffee. Most soft drinks are strictly a chemical product. When sugar is not used in their manufacture, but a synthetic sweetener, the manufacturers of such products advertise them as containing less than one calorie. This indicates that it indeed has no food value and, in the case of the artificial sweetener Aspartame, contains a chemical that damages brain cells. Good, pure water is the best answer.

Water affects our health, prosperity and joy of living. In fact, it affects every facet of our lives. Our life depends on it.

Note: While the average adult body is approximately 70% water by weight, a newborn baby is approximately 90% water!

We’re Not Running Out Of Water
— We’re Running Out Of Common Sense

          According to all authorities, we are still using the same water that was used in Jesus’ time. The increased population, with more activities demanding water and the mismanagement of our existing supply, has caused the problems, not the depletion of the volume of water.

          Water is the only natural resource that retains its natural form no matter how much it is abused. A tree chopped down and turned into lumber or burned can never be a tree again.

The same is true of oil and coal. Once they are converted to human use they are gone forever, and the supply will eventually be exhausted. The reason for this is that water is used, whereas the other resources are consumed. If all the water used were consumed, we would have run out of water centuries ago. Fortunately, water is not destroyed when we pollute it, contaminate it and subject it to all sorts of indignities and abuses. In fact, it is even impossible to destroy water by burning. When heat is applied to water it merely evaporates and rises into the atmosphere, is cooled and eventually falls as rain. This is nature’s way of purifying water — the distillation process.

We need not look to the sea for more water, but we do need to use some common sense in handling that which we have. We must renovate our present supply by cleaning it up and keeping it clean.

Does the public really know there is a relationship between drinking water and the people’s health? Not according to Carol Keough, author of the book, Water Fit To Drink published by Rodale Press. “To my way of thinking, the biggest problem with water today is that the public doesn’t really believe there’s anything wrong with it. Should tap water develop a bad taste or smell, or develop an odd color, there’s a great outcry. But the really harmful, insidious pollutants usually don’t make water look, taste or smell bad.

          Since thirst creates such a compelling urge to fulfill the need for water in the body, people seldom question water quality. Our taste buds become accustomed to our own water and because it looks and tastes good to us, we assume it is safe to drink. When we hear of bad water, we feel quite certain it is someplace else. We really don’t know what is in the water, and drink it with blind faith. After all, we reason, it’s city water and if it weren’t safe, we would be notified. And we would be if the bacteria count rose to an unsafe level, but what about the chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, excess inorganic minerals and other pollutants? Though we take more water into our bodies than any other one substance, most of us take it for granted.

Mysterious New Problems Added To Old

In the past we had only conventional pollution such as human waste, organic materials from food processing, suspended solids, and toxic residues from industrial processing. For the most part, these wastes can be traced and controlled.

The sources of these compounds are dairies, textile mills, canneries, breweries, paper mills, laundries and slaughterhouses. These essentially contain proteins, carbohydrates, fats, oils, rosins, tars and soaps. If these pollutants are not excessive the self-purification process will stabilize them. If they are excessive, offensive odors can result.

While microbiologists and sanitary engineers consider water pollution as the depletion of oxygen, others believe water pollution means the coliform index, a bacteriological test of water quality used to ascertain the number of bacteria of intestinal origin present. To still others, water is considered to be polluted when anything extraneous is placed in it.

Now, we not only have the conventional wastes, but we must cope with new substances, which are persistent and hard to identify and trace to their source.

Whole new families of pollutants are degrading our drinking water. There are over 12,000 chemicals on the market today, with 500 or more being added yearly, and many of them are getting into our drinking water supplies, contaminating both our surface and ground waters.

These include fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides, irrigation residues from agricultural pursuits, detergents, radioactive wastes from atomic energy and research plants, salts and other materials which wash off highways, parking lots and buildings. Many of these are not biodegradable and defy conventional treatment. They build up in water supplies, making them dangerous for reuse.

In addition, the presence of such plant nutrients as phosphates and nitrates in the water aid weed growth and promote algae blooms which further depletes the oxygen supply. This chokes our streams with an unnatural green soup, causing death to many of the fish and a strong odor of decay.

When phosphates are found in rural well waters in large amounts, they usually indicate pollution. Phosphates, themselves, are harmless. However, they are a source of nutrition for bacteria, and their presence should alert one to the probability of bacterial contamination.

In the last 25 years there has been a 12-fold increase in the use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers. Naturally, this has led to higher (and in some cases dangerous) levels of nitrogen in food grown on such soil. In addition, much higher levels of nitrate are appearing in the run-off water and in our wells. In the presence of certain oxygen-demanding intestinal bacteria, nitrate (NO₃) is converted to nitrite (NO₂). Nitrates thus act as a reservoir for production of nitrites. This is why the presence of nitrates and nitrites together is often associated with the presence of bacteria. Nitrites (thus formed) are particularly toxic to infants under six months of age, pregnant women, and anyone else with a low resistance to disease. Nitrites combine with hemoglobin to form methemoglobin, which cannot adequately transport oxygen to the tissues of the infant. They may show up as part of the blue baby syndrome.

Joe D. Nichols, M.D., in his book, Please Doctor, Do Something! says, “I think that nitrate poisoning could be a factor in the baffling new disease described as ‘crib deaths.’” Babies who apparently are perfectly well and happy are put to bed and then are found dead in bed the next morning. Autopsies have failed to determine the cause of death. This is the number one cause of deaths in babies under the age of 2 years.

Nitrates are a problem of growing concern. Even though the threat to babies becomes more grave each year, it must not be assumed that nitrates are only harmful to babies. Obviously, body weight would be involved, but age should not be a determining factor in establishing the permissible level of nitrates in drinking water.

The EPA has set 10 milligrams per liter (parts per million) as the maximum allowable level for nitrate/nitrogen. This is equivalent to 45 parts per million nitrate. It is rapidly becoming a very common contaminant in much of the water today, but particularly in rural areas.

Experts say long term effects of drinking high nitrate water are unknown, but since exposure to high nitrate levels in drinking water developed in the past 10 years, it could take up to 40 more years to determine the long term effects. So you and I are living experiments.

Water Treatment Itself Leads to Endless New Combinations —
An Unknown Factor

In addition to the multitude of contaminants already in the water, a host of new chemicals are added as part of the treatment process. Municipal water companies use 47 different chemicals to clean up the drinking water. It is quite unlikely all forty-seven of them would be found in a single supply, but you can be reasonably sure that a number of them will be found in most any treated water you might drink.

          When chlorine was introduced in 1913, virtually the only water problem we had was bacteria. A small amount of chlorine was added to the water and practically wiped out typhoid epidemics and other waterborne diseases.

          With this, apparent panacea complacency set in and, as the water grew dirtier, larger doses of chlorine were required. It was increased to the point where it is now questioned if the “treatment” might be worse than the disease.

          The general public — and many water treatment personnel still believe chlorination is the solution to any contaminants in the water. Not true. We know now that chlorine interacts with natural humus and humic acid (in other words, the products of decaying plant matter) to form THM’s (trihalomethanes), which are carcinogens. The general public is not yet fully aware of this, which is unfortunate, since THM’s are found in virtually every water supply in this country. Many water utilities seem unruffled by the fact that their standard operating procedure puts a potential cancer-causing substance into every glass of water we drink!

          Also, a “harmless” chemical could be injected into the water but when it mingles with another chemical can become toxic. Just how many of these combinations there are in our drinking water, or what effect they might have on the human body, is unknown.

          In her well document book, Silent Spring, Rachel Carson says: “It is simply impossible to predict the effects of lifetime exposure to chemical and physical agents that are not part of the biological experience of man.”

          The addition of sodium fluoride to our drinking water as a supposed aid in reducing tooth decay is another increasingly common practice with questionable side effects.

          At Stanford University, Edward Groth, III, while a biology major there, released a report that showed fluoride compounds are extremely dangerous. Groth says that fluoride is dangerous because of its total effect. He explains while one person may be virtually immune to large traces of fluoride, another may suffer ill effects from small does. “There is just no definite cutoff point,” says Groth.

          Although human beings are adaptable to changes in the environment, there are limits on the ability to adjust to rapid and radical changes. Many studies are yet to be completed before it can be determined at what point our exposure to the many new and concentrated pollutants in our water becomes dangerous.

          Methods do not now exist to establish a threshold for long-term effects of toxic agents. “Further studies are needed” and “much more research must be done” are not very consoling statements when our health might be at stake.

A Lot Can Happen To Water On Its Way To Your Tap!

Even if it were possible to have the water free of all contaminants when it left the reservoir, there would still be a question as to whether it was fit to drink by the time it reached your tap. Water is a scavenger, tending to carry everything along with it, and the quality of our tap water is dependent upon the material used for the pipes and joints. We are presently living with a network of underground pipes made of various old and new materials.

The U.S. Public Health Service says that the plumbing situation is in itself almost beyond solution. There are cross connections of sewage drains with water pipes in most American cities. Many of the plumbing connections in the United States were made many years ago before the average plumber was aware of the dangers of water contamination.

Today the engineer who plans the sewers for a town has many complex problems. He uses maps that show him where every hill and valley in town is because he must count on gravity to make the water flow. Since pumps are very expensive and they break down, they are used only if absolutely necessary. He must check the area for ditches, 4-lane highways, streams and large rocky areas. He must also be careful to build the sewer below the level of people’s basements and not bump into curbs, manholes, electrical lines, water mains, gas mains, underground telephone lines, or storm sewers. He must determine what kind of street paving there is. How wide the streets are, where the house property lines run, and the type of soil he must dig into are only a few of the things he considers. He dreams of working in a city where the sewers will be built first, then the houses.

The engineer’s problems are not over when the sewers are built. A large rain storm may flood the sewers with the water from the streets. This runoff gets worse as more streets, driveways, parking lots and school playgrounds are paved and the ground can no longer soak up the water. The runoff may contain poisons, chemicals and other pollutants and it must also go to the treatment plant. A real storm can make the treatment plant tanks overflow allowing much of the sewage to escape before it is treated at all.

Water picks up impurities from the pipes themselves. What the water picks up depends on what the pipes are made of — copper, iron, zinc, cement, asbestos, or lead. Copper can stain porcelain blue. Carl C. Pfeiffer, M.D., Director of the Brain Biocenter in Princeton, NJ, warns against the use of copper for water pipes. He believes the cause of excess copper in the water in many cases is copper pipes. Iron will color porcelain a rusty red, but neither iron nor zinc are as big a worry as cement, asbestos or lead.

Asbestos-contaminated water has been linked to a higher incidence of certain types of cancer. A more hazardous problem, however, is lead, which is extremely toxic. Lead piping was commonly installed before the early 1900’s and is still in widespread use throughout the United States.

In 1972 Boston officials became concerned about the increased amount of lead found in the drinking water. An investigation revealed that this was due to lead eroding from the surface of lead water pipes. About one third of the homes in a recent study of Bennington, Vermont were found to have drinking water with amounts of lead above the danger level set by the EPA.

It’s not just a Massachusetts or Vermont problem. In New England, 20 to 60 percent of the service lines (pipes that connect the water main to the house) are lead — and cities in other regions also still have lead pipes.

In another survey, cadmium was detected in 42 percent of some 720 samples of drinking water from rivers and reservoirs in this country. Phosphate detergents help carry cadmium (along with arsenic) as a pollutant of the waterways. In addition, the mineral accumulates in water stored in galvanized or plastic water pipes. This in time, of course, leads to problems in the entire plumbing system. What possible damage could this lead to in our own internal plumbing system?

Only about five percent of the water withdrawn from the reservoir is for household use. Out of the 175 gallons of water used by each person per day less than 1 gallon per capita per day (½ of 1 percent) is used for drinking and cooking. The other 174 gallons per capita are used for such purposes as sprinkling lawns, flushing toilets, laundry, bathing, cleaning streets, fighting fires and industrial uses. This means that to produce drinking water that meets minimum safety standards, 99½ percent of the water supplied by the community must be purified to higher quality levels than necessary.

It doesn’t make sense to treat all of our water to drinking water standards when most of it is used for watering lawns, washing cars and flushing toilets. What’s more, even thoroughly and effectively treated water can be lost on its way to the community. In Chicago, for example, 40 percent of the treated water is lost to leakage along the city’s old and outdated water distribution network. Well then, why not have a separate water system for carrying specially purified drinking water? The answer is cost.

Constructing pipelines is very expensive. In fact, better than 65 percent of the capital investment of the Water Company is in underground pipes. To have a duplicate system for drinking water would be economically unfeasible. The great cost involved in replacing pipe is the reason we have so many old and undesirable water pipe systems in this country. It is quite obvious that point-of-use home purification systems would be more economically feasible and safer than the central system in these cases.

Can We Get Pure Water Today?

All this might indicate that there would be no way to get a glass of pure water. Not true. There is an alternative to drinking and cooking with water that is less than pure, and that is to purify your own drinking and cooking water by distillation at the point of use. Distillation is nature’s way.

          Rain is distilled water but as it falls through our polluted atmosphere it immediately begins to pick up dust particles, bacteria, toxic fumes and other contaminants.

          In the last 20 years, this chemical-laden rain (or snowfall) has become one of mankind’s most menacing, though this time accidental, chemical creations. Environmentalists and politicians alike believe acid rain — composed of dilute sulfuric or nitric acid — will become, or already has started to be, the most serious pollution and, therefore, health problem of our era.

The Mechanical Distillation Process

          Through the evaporation process, we have learned from nature how to purify water for today’s needs.

          In the distillation process of a home distiller, water in the boiling tank comes to a boil creating steam, which rises, leaving impurities behind. The steam then enters the condensing coils where it is cooled by air and converted to pure distilled water.

          Bacteria and virus are instantly killed during the boiling process (however, boiling alone is not sufficient to purify our drinking water since boiling concentrates other impurities). Dissolved gases and low boiling point liquids vaporize and escape harmlessly into the atmosphere. Salts, heavy metals (inorganic minerals), and other high boiling point substances do not travel into the condensing (cooling) coil of the distiller. These impurities are left behind in the boiler while only pure distilled water is delivered from the distillers’ condensing coil outlet.

Since this mechanical distillation process is essentially a closed system there is virtually no recontamination as the droplets of pure distilled water form.

Distilled Water — The Natural Way To Health

          Distilled water is water that is free of minerals and pollutants. Distilled water has been called a “hungry water.” Since it is not overwhelmed with minerals and pollutants, it is virtually “empty,” making it a more effective solvent both inside and outside the body. Distilled water has an affinity for the deposits of lime salts in the walls of the arteries and promotes their elimination. Many doctors advise patients with such disorders to drink large quantities of distilled water. Our Navy men drink distilled water. It is used for intravenous feeding, inhalation therapy, prescriptions and baby formulas. Doctors prescribe distilled water for heart and kidney patients and those on low sodium diets.

Many people, especially younger people, have greatly improved their complexions by using distilled water to wash their faces. One of the most important functions of water is to clean. It cleanses the bloodstream through the kidneys and, naturally, since distilled water is not loaded with minerals and impurities it does a more efficient cleaning job.

          Distilled water can be used not only internally but also externally for babies, for diaper rash and other skin problems that can result from hard water deposits.

          While distilled water is not to be considered a cure-all, it is without a doubt the best water available to man and the only truly pure water available in our waste-laden society. If the water consumed in American homes is to be guaranteed safe, that guarantee must be provided individually by measures taken in the home by the responsible person there.

          The only water that is pure distilled water when it reaches the person drinking it is distilled water made in that individual’s own home. It is free from pipe residues. Distilled water could not be mass-produced and piped into the home because it is a hungry water and would require added chemicals to prevent contamination. There are few controls placed on companies that bottle distilled water, so it could become contaminated during production, handling, or packaging.

Home distilling units will not make the rivers suitable for swimming again, or keep fish from dying. Larger, longer-range solutions are required for these problems. But home water distillers will enable every American to assure himself or herself of pure drinking water for his and her family’s personal consumption, and that is certainly our most immediate and urgent goal.

Editor’s Note: At this point you may be thinking: “But, I thought distilled water leaches organic minerals out of the body.” As reported in newsletter #36, page 15, Distilled Water — The Choice Is Clear, that question was answered by Dr. Banik: “Of course not! It is only inorganic minerals rejected by the cells and tissues of the body, which, if not evacuated, can cause arterial obstructions — and other problems. These are minerals that must be removed, and distilled water is able to do it.” 

Home distillation units have the potential for providing water to meet all requirements of both the interim primary and proposed secondary drinking water regulations.

Home distillation units can do this more economically and efficiently because only that water which needs to be of drinking water quality is treated to that quality.

 

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© 1965 Chicago Sun Times. Reproduced by the courtesy of Bill Mauldin
and WIL-JO ASSOCIATES, INC.