Thirsty For Some Water?

Have you ever wondered where your water comes from?  For most people this question falls into the category of questions that we never expect to get an answer to, such as "Why is the sky blue?"  For me however, I am really interested in finding out more about where the water I use on a daily basis comes from.  I also want to know what is in my water and how it can effect me as well as my family.  So I decided to do a little research this past week and I am going to share my results with you.

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The first thing I had to find out was where my water comes from.  I live in the city of Perris, CA, which does not have their own private water source so they purchase the water from Eastern Municipal Water District.  I have to say that I was a bit surprised to find out that we purchase our water from an outside source, but I found that this is a pretty common thing.  According to the city web site http://www.cityofperris.org/residents/water.html, the city purchases approximately 640 million gallons of water a year from EMWD.

So now that I know where our water comes from, the outside source, I did some research on EMWD.  I went to their website http://emwd.org/index.aspx?page=157, and guess what I found out!  About 75% of EMWD's potable (drinkable) water is imported from the Metropolitan Water District from the Colorado River Aqueduct.  I'm starting to feel like I do when I am on the phone trying to talk to someone and I keep getting transferred from person to person.

In all seriousness though, I am surprised at all the different agencies that are involved just to supply us with a water source for our homes.  The remaining 25% of EMWD's potable water comes from groundwater wells in Hemet, San Jacinto, Moreno Valley, Perris Valley, and Murrieta.

Okay, now that I REALLY know where our water comes from, I need to find out about the quality of the drinking water in my home.  On the same EMWD website, they have the 2010 Consumer Confidence Report on Water Quality for my area. http://emwd.org/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=1034

There was quite a bit of information on the water Quality Report for my area, some of which I could understand or relate to , such as total coliforms and water pH levels, since I deal with these at work, however there was a lot of information that would take me a bit longer to interpret.  Overall the water supplied by EMWD to its customers in 2010 either met or surpassed all health-based drinking water standards.  This is good news!

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Speaking of water quality standards, where do they come from?  The tap water standards are set by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and they are enforced by the California Department of Public Health (CDPH).  According to the EPA website http://water.epa.gov/lawsregs/rulesregs/, the EPA sets legal limits on the levels of certain contaminants in drinking water.  There are a large amount of regulations and for me to list all of them would mean you would be reading this blog for hours.  I will however list a few of them:

• Regulations of chemical contaminants (ex. Arsenic, lead, copper, radionuclides)
• Regulations of microbial contaminants (ex. coliforms, water treatment rules, disinfectant/disinfection byproducts)
• Analytical methods regulations
• Pre-treatment regulations
• Sewage sludge regulations

Since we know that our tap water is regulated, what about the bottled water we purchase.
Bottled water standards are regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).  According to their website http://www.fda.gov , the regulations for bottled water are very similar to tap water regulations:

• Processing and bottling regulations
• Coliform bacteria
• Arsenic
• Uranium
• Disinfectants/disinfection byproducts
• Cyanide, nickel, thallium

So who's standards are more strict?  According to the water quality department at Cornell University http://waterquality.cce.cornell.edu/bottled.htm#stds , tap water from municipal plants are subject to more frequent testing and inspection than bottled water.  Also the municipal plants must report their test results to the public, bottled water companies are not required to do this.  As a matter of fact, the FDA cannot even require that bottled water companies perform regular testing on their water, they can only require the companies to provide a nutrition label and expiration date on the bottle. This doesn't look to good for bottled water!

The last thing I am going to talk about tonight (I know this blog is pretty long this week, but it's important) is how bottled water affects the environment.  We all know that bottled water is convenient to have on hand but it truly is not good for the environment.
1/2 a billion bottles of water a week are consumed in the US.  According to a report from the California Department of Conservation http://www.consrv.ca.gov/index/news/2003%20News%20Releases/Pages/NR2003-13_Water_Bottle_Crisis.aspx, more than 1 billion water bottles are winding up in the trash in California each year.  That equals almost 3 million empty water bottles going into the trash EVERYDAY!
By not recycling, Californians are not claiming an estimated $26 million in CRV (California Refund Value) deposits annually.  Also, if we did recycle those bottles, they could be used to make 74 million square feet of carpet.

WOW!

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