The Drugs in Our Drinking Water

When I lived in New Mexico some time ago, one of the local TV stations reported that there were statistically significant (but low) concentrations of Prozac in the Santa Fe water supply. According to NM Department of Health report, however, "It is hypothesized that the intense sunlight in New Mexico, and generally wide and shallow river morphologies, cause rapid photolytic degradation of many drug residues discharged into surface water."

<......the public "doesn't know how to interpret the information" and might be unduly alarmed.....>

The same could be said for a number of CR4 readers.

"California suppliers said the public "doesn't know how to interpret the information" and might be unduly alarmed."

Sex hormones in San Francisco's water doesn't alarm me. In fact, it just may explain a few things!

Every chemical ever made will have trace amounts in the water. They are "alarmed" about traces of medicines, medical drugs in water at extremely low levels. You would have to drink so much water that you would die from the water and still have no significant levels of these drugs in your body.

If people take medicine to cure their illnesses, then some of the medicine will get into the water supply. So perhaps they want to ban all medicines? If not then we must use only distilled, processed, remineralized and expensive bottled water. Most bottled waters are from municipal supplies which are "contaminated" and even the purest mountain spring waters still contain traces.

Another hysteria for some company to make money, or some politician to make into a "Cause", or both. Of course the general public doesn't know how to interpret the information and this article is to purposely do just that. It is similar to the banner headline "CENTRAL EUROPEAN COUNTRY TRIPLES ARMED FORCES". People panic thinking there is going to be a war, sell stocks, cancel trips, etc. They don't even know where Liechtenstein is, only that its army tripled in size. What was left out, in order to create more impact, is that the army is the police force and it went from five to fifteen men. It is like saying murders in a city of one million doubled last week, when, instead of the average of one person murdered in a week, last week two were murdered.

Is there any practical way to remove ALL traces of everything or should we concentrate on the stuff that is really dangerous?

"Is there any practical way to remove ALL traces of everything "

Distill it. Oh, but you will still have water!

One doesn't need to go that far. The more that comes out of water, the less palatable it is. As an experiment, try drinking the permeate from a Reverse Osmosis technical water generator! It tastes flippin' horrible!!

Re-hardening is used to increase the levels of dissolved species in the outlet from seawater-to-drinking water processes. A little extra calcium carbonate goes a long way. A dollop of magnesium for good measure, maybe a hint of sulphate perhaps. Follow it into the mix with something infused from a tea plantation product blended with Oil of Bergamot, maybe........warm it up.......stir to taste.........a little milk, not much, just enough......sip it........aaaaah - that's better!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Grey_tea