Every person in the United States uses an average of 70 gallons of water a day. This amounts to 12 trillion gallons or enough to fill Hoover Dam over 13 times.
Water has often been worshiped and revered as a source of life. The Egyptians worshiped the Nile. The Hindus worship the Ganges. The natural springs of Greece were chosen as sites for temples, and baptisms are performed in water.
The human body is made up of 70% water.
Next to oxygen, water is the most vital element to continued life. A person can live without water for approximately one week, depending upon conditions.
The people of the United States now consume more soft drinks than they do water!
Water is such a fundamental component of life that astronomers and planetary researchers base probability of life on other planets almost solely on whether or not water is, or has ever been, present.
Water leaves the stomach five minutes after consumption.
Fresh water is less than 1% of the total water on the earth.
An early form of ink was made by mixing iron salts (as found in water) with tannins.
A dripping faucet can lose 50 gallons of water a week, enough to fill a bathtub over 100 times in a year.
82% of the United States has hard water.
Peas boiled in hard water become shriveled and tough.
Rusty water causes boiled vegetables to look dark; coffee and tea to turn inky black; and stains to occur on laundry, tableware and plumbing fixtures.
The scale (from hard water) build-up in a water heater causes the cost of heating water to be up to 20% more. It is not uncommon for 40 pounds of scale to be inside a 10 year old gas water.
Forget about all the fancy drinks and liquids touted for replenishing your body fluids during sports or exercise. Good tasting, high quality water does the job better than any of the higher priced substitutes. Yes, plain water replenishes body fluids faster than any other liquid you can drink. The beverages sold for sports purposes, including juices, have a sugar content and sugar slows the absorption of fluids by the body.
You should also drink water during any lengthy sporting or exercising period. You should consume at least 8 ounces every twenty minutes during exercise … and contrary to some beliefs, it is good to drink water prior to and right after exercise.
Another tip, drink cool water, it is absorbed quicker than warm water.
Water in the home may be “hard” or “soft,” depending on its mineral content. Water that contains more than one grain of calcium and magnesium per gallon is said to be “hard.”
In the United States, 85% of the country has hard water. Water is soft when it falls from the sky as rain. As it travels through rock and soil, it picks up particles of calcium, magnesium, iron, lead and other minerals.
Unless you have a private well, your tap water is processed by a municipal water treatment plant to remove some of its mineral content and other impurities. Depending on the type and amount of processing, water softness will vary from place to place. Still, in most of the United States, water is relatively hard when it leaves the treatment plant.
Calcium and magnesium are the two primary hard water culprits. Because of them, water becomes hard, reducing the ability of soaps to suds and clean, leaving a dingy gray residue on clothes, and spots on dishes.
Hard water is more abrasive than soft water. The tiny mineral particles combine with soap curd or detergents to become like little pieces of rock pounding away at clothing fibers and fragile glassware. Over a period of time, the structural integrity of the product is weakened. This means glasses can become etched and the life of clothing can be reduced.
Skin and hair are affected by hard water. A greater amount of shampoo and soap is needed to clean and hard water doesn’t rinse as well as soft water. That means soap residues remain, leaving skin susceptible to blemishes and hair less shiny.
Hard water is also tough on plumbing. It can cause scale to build on water heaters and pipes, limiting the water flow, reducing the life of the product and increasing operating costs and maintenance of water-using appliances.
Water hardness is corrected by the use of a water softener (often referred to as a conditioner). The hard water is passed through a tank containing resin beads coated with sodium ions or, in some cases, potassium chloride ions. The calcium and magnesium ions are exchanged for the sodium ions, thus softening the water. When the beads have trapped all the hardness they can hold, the unit is regenerated with salt brine to replace the hardness ions with sodium ions. The unit is then ready to soften water again.
Studies have found that soft water saves time and money in the home.
Drinking plenty of water and staying hydrated is a key component of healthy living. Water has amazing healing properties and is essential for maintaining optimal health and well-being.
Water is the largest constituent of your body and the medium in which most biochemical reactions occur. It’s required for digestion and absorption of food, delivery of oxygen and nutrients to your cells, and removal of waste products. Water also cushions your joints, plumps up your skin and regulates your body temperature.
Your body contains 40 to 50 quarts of water, and you lose an average of two quarts of water per day through respiration, perspiration and urination. If you don’t replace these losses, your health will suffer.
Any degree of dehydration throws your body into rationing mode, which is why staying hydrated is so important. To ensure survival, water is doled out sparingly, leaving organs and tissues to deal with the consequences.
For starters, tap water just isn’t safe.
Water in reservoirs which supply tap water goes through a “purification” process. It is heavily chlorinated to kill germs and, in many areas, heavily fluoridated to prevent tooth decay. Sometimes calcium hydroxide or other alkaline substances are also added to change the pH (acidity) of water so it doesn’t corrode pipes.
Environmental pollutants such as fertilizers, insecticides, industrial chemicals and wastes, oil spills and even pharmaceuticals—cholesterol-lowering medications, chemotherapy agents, hormones and antibiotics—have also been discovered in drinking water supplies.
And what about bottled water? Environmental burden and excessive costs aside, the purity of bottled water may not be what you’d expect. Research reveals that several brands are no better—and sometimes worse—than regular tap water.
Your best bet is to filter your water with a home purification system. Elite Water Systems recommends reverse osmosis to give you the purest water possible. We also suggest using a refillable stainless steel water bottle, for clean water on the go,
Drinking at least 8 to 10 eight-ounce glasses of filtered water daily to stay hydrated is recommend by most physicians. This may seem like a lot, but if you drink a glass when you get up in the morning and a glass before each meal, you’ll already have four glasses out of the way.
Here are some of the side effects of dehydration:
In normal years, California residents get about 30 percent of their drinking water from underground aquifers. And in droughts like the current one—with sources like snowmelt from the Sierra Nevada mountains virtually non-existent—groundwater supplies two-thirds of our most populous state’s water needs. So it’s sobering news that about 20 percent of the groundwater that Californians rely on to keep their taps flowing carries high concentrations of contaminants like arsenic, uranium, and nitrate.
When farms sprouted up, they mobilized the once-stable uranium naturally present in the soil, and the toxic element leached into groundwater.
That’s the conclusion of a ten-year US Geological Survey study of 11,000 public-water wells across the state. The researchers tested the wells for a variety of contaminants, looking for levels above thresholds set by the Environmental Protection Agency and/or the California State Water Resources Board.
Interestingly, naturally occurring trace elements like arsenic, manganese, and uranium turned up at high levels much more commonly than did agriculture-related chemicals like nitrate.
In the ag-heavy San Joaquin Valley (the Central Valley’s Southern half), for example, you might expect plenty of nitrate in the water, because of heavy reliance on nitrogen fertilizers. Over the limit of 10 parts per million in water, nitrate can impede the blood’s ability to carry oxygen and has been linked to elevated rates of birth defects and cancers of the ovaries and thyroid. But while 4.9 percent of wells in the San Joaquin turned up over legal nitrate thresholds, arsenic (over legal limits in 11.2 percent of wells) and uranium (7.4 percent)—neither of which are used in farming—were more common.
But in the case of uranium—which heightens the risk of kidney trouble and cancer when consumed in water over long periods—agriculture isn’t off the hook. Kenneth Belitz, the study’s lead author and chief of the USGS’s National Water Quality Assessment Program, explains that before irrigation, the arid San Joaquin landscape supported very little vegetation, and the naturally occurring uranium in the landscape was relatively stable. But as farms sprouted up, irrigation water reacted with carbon dioxide from now-abundant plant roots to “mobilize” the uranium, pushing it downward at the rate of 5 to ten feet per year and eventually into the water table.
Conversely, some of the regions with highest nitrate levels are former ag areas that are now suburban, Belitz says: northern California’s Livermore Valley and southern California’s Santa Ana basin. That’s because nitrates, too, move through the soil strata at a rate of five to ten feet per year, and take years to accumulate in underground aquifers.
And that means that today’s ag-centric areas, including the San Joaquin Valley, could be slowly building up nitrate levels year by year that could lead to much higher nitrate levels in well water in coming decades, Belitz says.
For California residents and policymakers, the reports adds another distressing data point to the current water crisis. The fossil record and climate models suggest that precipitation levels will likely drop significantly compared to 20th century norms going forward, according to UC Berkeley paleoclimatologist B. Lynn Ingram—meaning an ever-growing reliance on groundwater for both farms and residents. Meanwhile, NASA research shows that this increasingly important resource is being drawn down at a much faster pace than it’s being replenished. And this latest USGS study suggests that the state’s precious, vanishing groundwater supply is widely contaminated. It’s enough to make you want to open a bottle of the state’s famous wine.
Sometimes chemicals that had not previously been detected (or were previously found in far lesser concentrations) are discovered in the water supply. These chemicals are known as “contaminants of emerging concern” or simply “emerging contaminants.” Emerging contaminants are important because the risk they pose to human health and the environment is not yet fully understood.
Pharmaceuticals, personal care products (PCPs) and endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) are among the prime examples of emerging contaminants. Up to 90% of oral drugs pass through the human body and end up in the water supply. Personal care products (soaps, cosmetics, fragrances, etc.) also find their way into our water. Endocrine disruptors are substances that may interfere with the function of hormones in the body. Trace amounts of these contaminants are being discovered in water throughout the country. The U.S. EPA is working to improve its understanding of several emerging contaminants, including perchlorate, pharmaceuticals, PCPs and EDCs.
With advances in testing and health research, experts are learning of new potential dangers in our drinking water. In many cases, the possible harms are not yet fully known.
Home testing for many newly discovered threats does not yet exist. In some cases, state laboratories can test for these contaminants or local professionals can provide water treatment to address them. Public health advocacy agencies and government bodies also conduct surveys to find some of these contaminants.
To feel confident you are protecting yourself against contaminants, you should seek devices that have been rigorously tested and certified to independent standards. Experts in testing are constantly working to develop new standards to meet emerging threats.
Source: Water Quality Association
Bad water is bad for you, but safe water is key to life — and good for you! Water has so many health benefits that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) recommends drinking eight 8-ounce glasses of water every day.
Water and health are linked. According to the CDC, the top causes of disease outbreaks related to drinking water are Giardia intestinalis, hepatitis A, norovirus, and Shigella. Bad as that sounds, it’s far from a complete list. There are also health risks related to water contaminated with organic and inorganic matter, other bacteria and viruses and other pollutants.
Some studies link high levels of lead in drinking water to delays in physical and mental development, short attention spans, and learning difficulties in children. There’s also evidence that arsenic in drinking water can lead to nerve, heart, skin, and blood vessel damage. And Cryptosporidium is responsible for potentially life-threatening diarrhea.
Still, water is essential. The human body is, after all, 70% water, and although a human being can survive a month or more without food, a week without water can be fatal.
High quality water is good for your home and appliances. Softened water can save you money by keeping appliances at top efficiency, and making them last longer. The amount of dish and laundry detergent you use can be cut by half, or even more, if you use softened water. You can also lower wash temperatures from hot to cold without a drop in performance, according to two other independent studies.
A 2009 study commissioned by the Water Quality Research Foundation (WQRF) and conducted by the Battelle Memorial Institute found that adding a water softener helps water heaters and major appliances operate as efficiently as possible, while preventing clogs in showerheads, faucets, and drains. For example, researchers ran dishwashers and washing machines for 30 days and 240 wash cycles. They ran softened water through half of the units, while using a hard water source for the others. At the end of the month, the washers using softened water were nearly free of scale buildup, but the washers using hard water required scale removal to work well.
As for water heaters, the researchers found that when they used softened water, the units maintained their original factory efficiency rating for as long as 15 years. Running hard water through the units cut efficiency by up to 48 percent. Scale buildup shortened the lifespan of the heating elements inside electric water heaters, and some tankless water heaters using hard water failed after just 1.6 years.
The researchers found that showerheads performed well on soft water, but those running with hard water lost 75 percent of their flow rate in less than 18 months. When running hard water through faucets, the strainers on the faucets clogged within 19 days.
Studies conducted by the independent test firm Scientific Services S/D, Inc., of New York, revealed the following benefits of softened water:
Source: Water Quality Association