Perhaps you read the AP article this weekend about pharmaceuticals in drinking water.

Some 41 million Americans drink water containing trace amounts of a wide variety of drugs. These are drugs that have been used by people upstream, passing through their bodies only partially absorbed by their body and the remainder entering the sewers.

This includes both prescription and illegal drugs, though the latter are not mentioned.

Waste water is treated for fecal material and bacteria but not for contaminants such as these. The water then flows downstream to the point where the next city withdraws water to provide to their citizens as drinking water.

I’ve been telling you about this problem for several years now. Read more here:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080310/ap_on_re_us/pharmawater_i;_ylt=ArfsrHNhpmbZ3qmZJH2nCsCs0NUE

Cut and paste if the link is broken or visit my library:

http://www.cleanairpurewater.com/resource_library.html

People are asking me what treatments systems remove these chemicals from water. Unfortunately the answer is that no one knows. I spoke to the technical support staff at the Water Quality Association just the other day and asked this same question. The response is that no doubt some pharmaceuticals are removed by the sort of treatment systems I sell, but some may not be.

At this point not only does no one know for sure, no one is testing systems to determine what does work.

I’m not trying to scare you by sharing this information. I think our expectations for water from municipalities is unrealistic. If you want healthy water, you have to treat it appropriately when it arrives at your home.