Chemicals in the Water - Hexavalent Chromium found in Two US Cities' Supplies

If you've seen the movie Erin Brockovich, you've at least heard of hexavalent chromium.  According to Wikipedia, it is used in stainless steel and various other manufacturing processes.  It is a known carcinogen, was found in some water wells and was the basis for the lawsuit that made this movie famous.

What is interesting right now is that it has shown up in two CITY water supplies in the US.  Officials tested the water and found it to be exceeding their "recommended allowable levels" (as in "the levels of poison the government feels is safe for continued consumption - wrap your head around that one!)  

Instead of issuing a warning and recommending people switch to purified water sources, the government simply issued a statement that the water was safe to drink.  (Why do they bother setting maximum levels for poisons if nothing happens when those levels are approached, reached or exceeded?  -a mental image of an ostrich with their head in the sand is coming to mind here.)

Each year, governments assess what are called "emerging contaminants" - these are the drugs, chemicals and other substances that new testing has determined to be in the water we drink and use in our homes.  The term emerging contaminant doesn't mean the contaminant is only now in the water, it just means that someone finally got around for testing for it and the tests showed it was there.  Once detected, governments may then decide what maximum allowable levels are and also decide whether to make regulating it legal.  This step is not always taken, sometimes the contaminant is simply added to a list for "future consideration" (ie. read that as, "when enough people get sick or die from this contaminant in the water, and we can actually trace it back to this, THEN we'll do something about it.)

In a recent report published in the Globe Gazette, "federal and state regulations do not require regulators to monitor such chemicals, which now are showing up in trace quantities in drinking water supplies." 

As stated in the November 2008 edition of Water Technology Magazine, water treatment industry professionals “can offer the most advanced technologies available for dealing with endocrine-disrupting, pharmaceutical and personal care product residues in drinking water,” says Joe Harrison, technical director of the Water Quality Association (WQA). “We welcome the EPA benchmarks to guide our product development and performances in this new emerging area.”

Harrison says there’s no single technology that can address all emerging contaminants. He says, “It appears that reverse osmosis (RO), activated carbon blocks, and advanced oxidation, such as is achieved by combining in various degrees hydrogen peroxide, ultraviolet light and/or ozone … may show effectiveness in treating many of these.”

Recent additions to the emerging contaminant list include 10 pharmaceuticals, one antibiotic and nine hormones added to the list, as well as two disinfection byproducts, five microbes and a firefighting foam.

All we know for sure is that these contaminants are in the water.  Current regulations do NOT require testing for their levels, and no "safe" maximum contaminant levels have been set.  As a consumer, its time to ask yourself, "How much firefighting foam is a 'safe level' for my family to drink?"

I know what the answer is for my family...  If you are concerned about these contaminants in the water you drink, wash in and use in your daily life, see your local water treatment professionals.  Douglas Environmental Solutions is the authorized dealer for Hague Quality Water and helps concerned families deal with these problems quickly and easily.

Sometimes you need to call in the big guns...

Today was an interesting day.  I had a meeting with some clients we have helped with air quality a few years ago.  They decided to do some home renos and before they replace their sinks, toilets, shower and bathtub, and wanted to resolve their iron staining problems resulting from using raw well water in their home.  We scheduled a water testing appointment for this afternoon and proceeded to start the analysis.

As useful as a field test kit/portable lab is, sometimes you need to call in the "big guns."  When there are higher levels of things like iron, hydrogen sulfide (H2S gas) or especially tannins in the water, they are easy to detect and easy to treat.  Its when there are just "trace" amounts present that field equipment meets its match.  Today was one of those days.  There were extremely low levels present of H2S, possible low-level iron and appeared to be trace amounts of tannins in the water.  The only conservative way to treat this is to set up a system to treat all these problems.  There is a specific type of filtration equipment that can handle both H2S and iron, so those two can be grouped together, but tannins are a completely separate beast.

In order to guarantee results (in our case, for 25 years - the warranty period for our water treatment equipment) we need to be certain of the water chemistry.  In this case, we need to defer to a lab.  Depending upon whether or not these elements are present in the water, there are VASTLY different recommendations we can make for treatment.  Proper lab analysis will tell us exactly what is there, as well as bringing the piece of mind for testing for the "Health Canada Metals" in the water and for the presence of coliform.

The lab work costs less than $200 and in about 5 days, we'll have the answer.  Once we know exactly what we're dealing with, we can move ahead confidently.  The easy answer would be to recommend and install an elaborate treatment system that would handle all these contaminants, but that is not really in the best interest of the client.  Ultimately, this is a small world and overselling is something that will always catch up to a company.  In this case, we spend a little more up-front and can recommend exactly the right system to treat their specific water problems.

Installation is Great, What About the Service?

Earlier this week, a lady was in a pickle and was hoping to sort out some water treatment problems.  Just over ten years ago, she bought a water treatment/iron removal system from one of the major brands operating in the area.  (No names will be mentioned here here, but let's just say they have a LOT of advertising using a celebrity pitch man.)

10 months shy of their warranty expiring, they started having problems and called for service.  Their technician was dispatched, noted a problem with their iron filter and removed one-half of their distiller.  She received a note indicating the repair should be covered under warranty and the tech took their copy back to the office to arrange repairs.

That was the last she heard from them.  After calling daily, twice-daily and then hourly for months, eventually a threat of going to the Better Business Bureau got their technician out again.  They were quoted $180 for the service call and told their warranty had since-expired so would now need to pay for parts and labour to perform the repairs they'd been waiting for.

To add insult to injury, they never returned the missing components from the distiller, so the family still has no drinking water - they've gone from using a distiller to a "pitcher-style" filter in their fridge - NOT acceptable for well water!!!  To further aggrevate the situation, the family now will have to replace or re-finish their sinks and tubs as no amount of scrubbing is able to remove the iron staining etched into their fixtures.  (Pretty sad considering this function is built into the name of the equipment the family had purchased for water treatment.)

She then called her realtor who referred her to Douglas Environmental Solutions.  Not only will she be getting a 25 year warranty on the replacement equipment, she was also offered several references and testimonials attesting not only to the quality of the Hague WaterMax equipment and the water it produces, but also to show that service doesn't stop the moment her payment for installation was completed.  Suffice it to say, this other company has to do a lot of advertising because there's no way they get referrals and from what I've seen, not a chance for any "repeat business" from people moving around within the area.

It's too bad the big guys have such deep pockets for advertising.  This seems to happen all the time - a copious amount of coverage in the papers and on the radio leads people to believe they are dealing with a reputable company.  In reality, it often just means their system prices are inflated to pay for all those ads...

Please - be an informed consumer.  Get references of existing, satisfied customers before making a purchase decision.  Specifically, ask for examples of times when service was required and talk to those people.  It's not too hard to be satisfied when everything is working tickety-boo, but where the rubber hits the road is on after-sales service.