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Citizens in Tallahassee, FL ask some serious questions
There's a continuing saga in Tallahassee, FL that has gone on for many years, which is representative of similar sagas that are taking place across America. It all revolves around the water specifically the water that is filtered and treated by municipal water quality divisions in every city and county throughout the nation.
A Tale of Two Separate and Independent Inquiries:
Unknown to each other for many years, two healthcare professionals in Tallahassee, FL began their independent research around the quality of Tallahassee drinking water. The author of this articleis an Integrative Health Consultant who chose to focus on the unintended consequences, toxic side effects and collateral damage caused by two standard operating procedures long in place at the municipal water quality division in Tallahassee, FL. Dr. Ron Saff focused on the myriad chemicals, contaminants and toxins that find their way into the water by various means and from a multitude of sources. Quite fortuitously for the citizens of Tallahassee, their paths crossed when they were both opposing the siting of a biomass incinerator last year in Gretna, FL.
Both of these longstanding environmental health advocates knew that there was something very wrong with the water in Tallahassee, yet realized that there were so many vectors of groundwater contamination it could take years to accurately diagnose both the sources and the numerous chemical contaminants. Hence, a collaboration was formed which has taken this citizens' initiative all the way to the Mayor's office and beyond. Just this month Mayor John Marks announced his intention to form of a Citizens' Task Force, which will be appointed to further study and act upon the many negative aspects of Tallahassee drinking water. Some of these issues have been found to be so problematic that they have, and will continue to translate to, a whole host of serious health issues and medical conditions within the local drinking and bathing population.
Where Dr. Saff has set his gaze upon the list of chemicals which the US Environmental Protection Agency and FL Department of Environmental Protection have identified as carcinogenic, toxic to the human body and especially deleterious to infants, young children, pregnant mothers and their fetuses, we focused on the water treatment processes that are further contributing to the problems and, in some cases, making a simple problem exponentially worse due to profound interactions causing unintended consequences.
Just what water treatment processes are we talking about?
One of the major components and preferred method of water treatment throughout the USA has been the standard chlorination procedure, which has been in use for many decades. It was first utilized over 100 years ago, and since WWII has been the primary disinfection treatment by virtually every municipal water district in the land. What's inherently defective about this method of disinfecting water? And, that is its only purpose disinfection.
"Disinfection by chlorination can be problematic, in some circumstances. Chlorine can react with naturally occurring organic compounds found in the water supply to produce dangerous compounds, known as disinfection byproducts (DBPs). The most common DBPs are trihalomethanes (THMs) and haloacetic acids (HAAs). Due to the carcinogenic potential of these compounds, federal regulations in the United States of America require regular monitoring of the concentration of these compounds in the distribution systems of municipal water systems." (Per Wikipedia)
Just in case you didn't understand this, here's another phrasing from the water experts at Doulton/H2O International Inc. in Ontario, CA.
What concerns health officials are the chlorination by-products, "chlorinated hydrocarbons," known as trihalomethanes (THM's). Most THM's are formed in drinking water when chlorine reacts with naturally occurring substances such as decomposing plant and animal materials. Risks for certain types of cancer are now being correlated to the use of chlorinated drinking water. Suspected carcinogens make the human body more vulnerable through repeated ingestion and research indicates the incidents of cancer are 44% higher among those using chlorinated water."
That's twice now that you have read that the very process that is designed to treat our municipal water also has the unintended consequence of polluting it with a carcinogen. We encourage all readers of this article to further research this matter so that, by becoming well acquainted with a fairly unknown issue, they can provide their local water authorities with this critical information.
What other toxic side effects does chlorination produce? Did you know that there is a direct correlation between chlorine and depression? Repeated exposure to chlorine, in both its liquid and gaseous form, can greatly contribute to physically induced chronic depression. How do we know this? Many allopathic and alternative healthcare practitioners have recommended to their clients to stop drinking the tap water and begin drinking distilled or activated carbon filtered water, which are both free of chlorine.
Much anecdotal evidence and clinical observation has revealed that, in many cases, the months or years of depression go away very quickly, never to return again, when such depression is in fact due to chronic exposure to chlorinated water. This phenomenon is even more dramatic when the often-female client installs a whole house de-chlorination system in her garage and eliminates her exposure to the previously chlorinated bath water.
What other water treatment processes are we talking about?
