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U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#51

Post by MichaelApproved »

jp555 wrote: post #41
MichaelApproved wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another example of privatization of profits and socializing losses. I live on Long Island (New York) and we have water problems from old factories that polluted the ground water. My water bill will now include $80/year charge for new filtering plants that are supposed to clean up the contaminated water. At best, the companies should’ve never been allowed to pollute the water. At worst, the cleanup cost should’ve been…

"privatization of profits and socializing losses." This is ideologically biased. You mean "externalize RISK", which governments and NGOs do all the time too.

I prefer my phrase because it’s not sterile. My intention is to spread the ideology.

My comment isn’t addressing an economics class, it’s addressing an electorate.

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#52

Post by LeoTinnitus »

Yeah PCB's are a big thing in North-East Wisconsin. Papermills just added a new chemical to papermaking and dumped in the river for like 50 years before the government even bothered saying you can't do that anymore.

Now the Fox River has a base layer of PCB's and all the papermills declared bankruptcy or dissolved so as not to foot the bill for cleanup.

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#53

Post by ryanmercer »

fredley wrote: post #42
ryanmercer wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Products like the LifeStraw/Sawyer/Katadyn won't filter most chemicals. To remove some chemicals you need to use distillation and distillation is only good if the boiling point of a given chemical is higher than that of water. LifeStraw even states >Chemicals, salt water, heavy metals and viruses will not be removed. http://help.lifestraw.com/en/articles/2507813-does-the-lifes... Sawyer states >Taste >The Sawyer filt…

> distillation is only good if the boiling point of a given chemical is higher than that of water What about fractional distillation?

First, I am not a chemist but this is something I've thought aobut a lot as a camper, a "prepper", and someone interested in Mars colonization (perchlorates!).

That would work but I imagine it's going to have some amount of inefficiency depending on the contaminant, you'd have to do several passes to get to really low trace levels I imagine as you're going to keep some contamination simply by what collects on the walls of the vessel and runs back down.

With some contaminants I imagine you could introduce more chemicals to get a reaction that would make the filtration easier. I imagine some could also be changed sufficiently by heating the sample to a point where you get a chemical change in the contaminant, although, I'm guessing this would be the most 'expensive' method unless energy wasn't an issue (fusion).

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#54

Post by hkai »

bronlund wrote: post #6

"The United States has among the cleanest air and drinking water on Earth."

How is that not correct? I don't recommend you drink tap water anywhere in Africa, China and India. People over there would envy water quality in the US.

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#55

Post by nchovies »

mrfusion wrote: post #19
kldavis4 wrote: post #2

Apparently there are now technologies available to remove PFAS from water: https://cen.acs.org/environment/persistent-pollutants/Foreve... but it is going to be expensive to deploy everywhere that it is needed.

I think britAs and the like work somewhat at removing pfas. They’re large organic molecules and they excel at removing those.

do you have a source for this? i can't seem to find much on pfoa removal/reduction and brita filters

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#56

Post by dmm »

hurxnid wrote: post #50
Liquix wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would a reverse osmosis filter hooked up in the basement / under the sink compare to distillation? The good ones spit out water that is close to 0 PPM (in most municipal water systems tap water is closer to 60-200). Is PPM a good way of measuring the types of chemicals you mentioned?

That would almost certainly work but make sure to remineralize the water after.

I have been drinking non-remineralized reverse osmosis water since conception and I'm fine.

Plus remineralization isn't as effective as you would think. Most of the minerals removed by RO can't be easily reintroduced as they aren't readily dissolved.

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#57

Post by Frost1x »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #48

It is constantly amazing to me that "cover up the existence of poisonous chemicals in your drinking water" is a viable position for a democratically-elected officeholder to have. What a world we live in.

Democracy is mostly a facade anymore, unfortunately. Don't get me wrong, we haven't gone completely south to a dictatorship--there are many protections in place to keep things from falling apart but nonetheless I feel as though we're in the decline in the respect of being democratic.

The underlying failed assumption in our representative democracy was that representatives would represent their constituents' interests and people would elect people who would represent their interests, all of course with hopeful protections for minorities. Obviously, this doesn't work.

We need to really set expiration dates on how long people can run campaigns and how long they can stay in a given office. Politics should be about solving problems and seeking continuous improvement of well-being for citizens in a given society, not convincing people they're happy, constantly lying, and playing manipulative popularity contests but that's where we are.

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#58

Post by lotsofpulp »

mdemare wrote: post #46
yomly wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know why you get downvoted for this. The current assumption that GDP must always grow (and consumption must keep increasing) seem to be in direct contradiction to the idea that we must stop consuming so much if we want to save the environment. Perhaps "capitalism" is a lazy proxy for this but I think it's more lazy to downvote you than engage with the discussion

Increasing GDP does not imply increasing consumption, and increasing consumption does not imply increasing pollution.

Can you provide any examples to support your statement?

I don’t see how the production of materials and transportation of the materials and people could not increase pollution, given the current infrastructure which requires use of fossil fuels, and which will not change in the short term.

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#59

Post by ryanmercer »

Liquix wrote: post #47
ryanmercer wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Products like the LifeStraw/Sawyer/Katadyn won't filter most chemicals. To remove some chemicals you need to use distillation and distillation is only good if the boiling point of a given chemical is higher than that of water. LifeStraw even states >Chemicals, salt water, heavy metals and viruses will not be removed. http://help.lifestraw.com/en/articles/2507813-does-the-lifes... Sawyer states >Taste >The Sawyer filt…

How would a reverse osmosis filter hooked up in the basement / under the sink compare to distillation? The good ones spit out water that is close to 0 PPM (in most municipal water systems tap water is closer to 60-200). Is PPM a good way of measuring the types of chemicals you mentioned?

RO will still have some chemicals it can't remove. Per the CDC:

>Reverse Osmosis Systems will remove common chemical contaminants (metal ions, aqueous salts), including sodium, chloride, copper, chromium, and lead; may reduce arsenic, fluoride, radium, sulfate, calcium, magnesium, potassium, nitrate, and phosphorous.

https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/drinking/home-water-treatme...

Re: U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report

#60

Post by ryanmercer »

dmm wrote: post #56
hurxnid wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would almost certainly work but make sure to remineralize the water after.

I have been drinking non-remineralized reverse osmosis water since conception and I'm fine. Plus remineralization isn't as effective as you would think. Most of the minerals removed by RO can't be easily reintroduced as they aren't readily dissolved.

As long as you're eating a varied diet (such as eating a good variety of plants) drinking demineralized water really isn't an issue.

I've been eating plant based whole food lately and at 1903 kcals yesterday I managed (per Cronometer):

- 646.4mg of calcium

- 636.1mg of magnesium

- 785.1mg of sodium

Which are the 3 big ones in common tap water. Even if you factor in a 25% error margin, through my diet I'm getting way more than I would drinking random tap water.

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