Many U.S. Drinking Water Wells Contaminated with Arsenic, Other Elements

[n2doc]

By Marla Cone and Environmental Health News | October 3, 2011

In Nebraska, along the Platte River, it's uranium. In Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, it's arsenic. In California, boron. And in the Texas Panhandle, lithium.

Throughout the nation, metals and other elements are tainting private drinking water wells at concentrations that pose a health concern.

For one element – manganese – contamination is so widespread that water wells with excessive levels are found in all but just a few states. Arsenic, too, is a national problem, scattered in every region.

In the first national effort to monitor wells for two dozen trace elements, geologists have discovered that 13 percent of untreated drinking water contains at least one element at a concentration that exceeds federal health regulations or guidelines. That rate far outpaces other contaminants in well water, including industrial chemicals and pesticides.

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http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=us-drinking-water-wells-contaminated-with-arsenic-other-elements

[flamingdem]

1. I wonder if bottle spring water is an alternative

or if that's also contaminated! I think arsenic was found in Arrowhead

[Kennah]

2. If they run the water through an RO unit, bottled or not it should be fine.

[txlibdem]

3. We installed an RO unit after one of the rivers here turned beet red...

... and the news reports all said it was perfectly safe to drink.

That was just a year after reports that Pharmaceutical drugs (mostly anti-depressants) were found in our reservoirs. Since we don't "recycle" our drinking water from sewage treatment plants one has to wonder: how are these chemicals getting into our water???

/on edit: I should mention that we (Dallas) get all of our drinking water from a series of man-made lakes that act as reservoirs. I get a water quality report each year and it always passes with flying colors. That's why I installed the RO unit.

[Kennah]

4. There has to be a good fracking reason why

[txlibdem]

6. And there has to be a reason why 50% of Americans are on psychoactive meds

And dumping toxic chemicals into the water couldn't possibly cause chronic illnesses, increased doctor's visits, etc.
:sarcasm:

[eppur_se_muova]

5. Lithium seems to be right where it's needed. nt