Water
Posted on Tue, Aug 25, 2009 @ 02:29 PM
By Damien Crawford, Technical Service Representative, Triumvirate Environmental Somerville
Water. One of the earths most precious resources, yet we squander it like no other. We use it with reckless abandon, pollute it, yet we cannot live with out it. Normal adults are recommended to drink 2 liters of water daily. In recent years more attention has been directed to the quality of the water that we have available to us and the way in which we manage pharmaceuticals. Studies have been completed to compile data on the type and quantity of pharmaceuticals that are found in us water supplies. The associated press conducted testing on 50 water supplies and found that in every one there were pharmaceutical compounds present in some concentration. They ranged from caffeine, ibuprophen, anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, to sex hormones, and each one of the sampled water supplies were a treated supply, meaning that water treatment facilities and the current technology cannot effectively remove these chemicals from the water….scary. Well I guess that I am just going to drink bottled water for the rest of my life…..one small catch though is that the same pharmaceuticals present in tap water are present in most bottled water because they are from a tapped source. So what long term effects are we feeling due to the presence of these chemicals in our water? We are seeing the highest rate in history of children born with birth defects, could this be linked to the water that a mother drinks during the pregnancy? We may in fact be poisoning our selves with the drugs that we turned to make us better in the first place.