With the proliferation of water being sold in plastic bottles along with findings that indicate plastic water bottles are bad for the environment and pose health risks, many wax nostalgic about the days when the tap was a simple and universally trusted source for drinking water. But going back to the tap today can be hazardous to one’s health, according to “Toxic Waters,” a series in the New York Times about worsening pollution in America’s water and how regulators are responding. 

Legal but not safe

The obvious question is, doesn’t tap water have to meet certain health and safety standards to be legal? The answer in a New York Times article entitled “Tap Water Can Be Unhealthy but Still Legal” (December 16, 2009) is troubling:

The 35-year-old federal law regulating tap water is so out of date that the water Americans drink can pose what scientsts say are serious health risks—and still be legal. Full article.

One of the biggest problems, according to the article, is that the Safe Drinking Water Act regulates only 91 contaminants, while the number of chemicals found in water supplies across the United States exceeds 60,000. What’s more, independent and government scientists have found that hundreds of these chemicals in small concentrations in the water supply are associated with health risks including cancer and other diseases.

Dirty water and tied hands

Millions in the U.S. drink contaminated water while the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can’t enforce provisions of the Clean Water Act due to court rulings that effectively tie the agency’s hands when it comes to pursuing the country’s largest known polluters. Again, in the New York Times series:

Millions in U.S. Drink Dirty Water, Records Show (December 7, 2009) - More than 20 percent of the nation’s water treatment systems have violated key provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act over the last five years, according to a New York Times analysis of federal data. Full article.

Rulings Restrict Clean Water Act, Foiling E.P.A. (February 28, 2010) - Thousands of the nation’s largest water polluters are outside the Clean Water Act’s reach because the Supreme Court has left uncertain which waterways are protected by that law, according to interviews with regulators. Full article.

Crumbling infrastructure

Some of the problems occur due to aging water and sewage systems that break and allow pollutants to seep into water supplies. The solution would be to update the infrastructure, some of it dating back to the Civil War, but this is proving too costly and unpallatable for citizens who don’t want their water bills to go up, even in affluent neighborhoods. Consider the issues uncovered in “Saving U.S. Water and Sewer Systems Would Be Costly” (March 14, 2010), another article in the Times series:

Today, a significant water line bursts on average every two minutes somewhere in the country, according to a New York Times analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data.

In Washington alone there is a pipe break every day, on average, and this weekend’s intense rains overwhelmed the city’s system, causing untreated sewage to flow into the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers.

But in many cities, residents have protested loudly when asked to pay more for water and sewer services. In Los Angeles, Indianapolis, Sacramento [and Washington], proposed rate increases have been scaled back or canceled after virulent ratepayer dissent.

Full article

Driven by these many issues around and affecting the quality of tap water in the U.S., Blue Wave provides an immediate and simple solution: Placing our self-serve, self-contained water purification plants at convenience stores, on university campuses and in other key locations. These kiosks produce higher quality, better-tasting drinking water than bottled. They refill one-gallon and five-gallon bottles with ambient water, fill reusable bottles with chilled purified water, and are the only machines with a patented ozone system that cleans water bottles before filling. Finally, Blue Wave kiosks are convenient and affordable for consumers while providing an excellent revenue stream for organizations that make them available to the customers and communities they serve.