With or Without Water We Can Die

I’m always talking about how to improve lifestyle, make better food choices and crazy actions, by companies to enhance the bottom line, that affect the health of the general public unnecessarily. Well, today is no different.
When you choose to purchase your food you can look at a label to see what is in it. But you certainly do not get a list of items that are part of your water supply when you get the water bill. I read an article in the New York Times, Clean Water Laws Are Neglected, at a Cost in Suffering. Make sure you look at the pictures and read the captions when you access the link, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/us/13water.html, your heart will bleed and your stomach will feel queasy.
It’s outrageous. I cannot imagine what might be lurking in the water I cook with, brush my teeth and bathe with…I guess I should be happy that no one I know or love has come up with any horrendous health consequences like birth defects, cancer, stomach upset, skin or nerve problems or any other unexplained illness associated with tainted water. But I am concerned for those that are being affected or who may be being exposed to these pollutants now.
The article does claim that in the general New York area there are high amounts of dry cleaning solvent, tetrachloroethylene. Yep, we may be drinking the stuff used to clean our cloths when we drop ‘em off at the cleaners. Tetrachloroethylene has been linked to cancer and kidney damage. The investigator does an amazingly thorough job and offers a site where you can locate by state potential water contaminants, http://projects.nytimes.com/toxic-waters.
I must admit I myself may have almost been a victim of a similar water problem. I lived in East Brunswick, NJ. I was looking to buy a home. It was in a great location, near new homes that were being constructed that were priced over $1.5 million. The broker ignored my question about a locked fence that was diagonally across the road and just off to the side of these homes. Accidentally, I found out that the locked fence was an old dumpsite. As I began to investigate, I found out that it was not just an over grown grassy area that was locked off. It was a “superfund site”.
FOR THE HEALTH OF IT, check out this link, http://www.epa.gov/superfund/sites/index.htm. Scorecard is another helpful site that provides pollution information for the air, water, land and other chemical hazards, http://www.scorecard.org/env-releases/us-main-map. Talk about sticker shock, this country is so toxic I’m amazed any of us can walk around without some type of health consequence!
If you are experiencing health issues that cannot be explained, I hope you are not going to leave well enough alone. You should investigate your environment before you push it off as some odd phenomena. Pollutants can accumulate in your system for years before any type of health problem occurs and the first signs may go unrecognized before you put the pieces together.
Here’s something to think about: You may want to re-consider the source of your drinking water as you try to reach that goal of drinking eight, 8oz. glasses/day or how you will wash your food…