Cities testing for parasites... human or bacteria type...?

PERSPECTIVE FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION …

The Arizona Republic - Valley & State - section of the 22 July 08 issue …. CITIES TESTING FOR PARASITE … and while I applaud this, I write to suggest “we” are entitled to far greater disclosure than has been thus far forthcoming.

Delivery and consumption of safe water is absolutely necessary for any society to function. I do not claim infallible expertise in the processing and/or delivery of water on a scale as vast as that necessary for “metro” Phoenix. I am aware as the result of more than 30 years in the business, that much of the pipelines delivering water to our citizens, not only in “metro” Phoenix, but in most communities thorough the USA, are appreciably aged and deteriorating. Moreover, unknown to most folks is over time a gelatinous slime builds up inside most potable water pipe, the result of microbe action. I say this, not to scare anyone, rather as an attempt to provide a bit of awareness when you are told your water is – safe. Safe is a relative word, contemporarily defined on the basis of committee, comprised principally of government regulators, engineers, contractors, water testing firms, product manufacturers – but normally excluding any input from John Q. Public – that’s you and me. We’re not invited to sit at that table…!

So when I read that the cities are testing for parasite, exactly what does that mean…? Frankly, I do not know, do you…? The parasite referenced in the article – cryptosporidium – is resistant to chlorine the most ubiquitously utilized product in many municipal potable water treatment processes to kill bacteria and pathogens. The normal treatment to reduce cryptosporidium is via filtration which is still a bit problematical. There are some who claim the installation of a point of use – water filter – at your facet might render cryptosporidium relatively harmless, though the jury is still out on this.

This gelatinous slime inside much of the water pipes delivering your water is “home” for an unknown number and type of microbes and bacteria some of them not conducive to your health. Honestly we can not identify all of them. Moreover, we do not have any valid testing protocols for most of the chemicals we permit to be released into our environment. Some of these bacteria, etc, one can surmise are quite harmless, while others conceivably can be quite carcinogenic.

What is in our water is quite frankly largely unknown and untested as we have not chosen to spend the time or fund$ necessary to make such determinations. When one reflects on where “we” in Arizona get the bulk of the water we consume and use for agriculture, one might legitimately conclude we invite and contribute and even promote our ill health. As you may be aware, the water the vast majority of Arizonans consume comes from the Colorado River via the CAP and from the Verde and Salt River basins.

Take the Colorado River for example. Water originating in Wyoming and beginning its migration towards its point of termination in the Gulf of Mexico along its route passes near Moab, Utah where along its banks once highly contaminated uranium tailings are currently stored. While in Lake Mead, it picks up the perchlorate and other toxic from Las Vegas. Upon entering the CAP system it is picks up untold amounts of drifting airborne contaminants as it journeys toward Phoenix and Tucson, where it becomes the nexus for economic growth.

In all of these cases, the water passes through a diversity of machines from pumps, to concrete lined canals, in some cases unlined canals, through water treatment processes devised by man controlled by our unrelenting faith in the infallibility of computers and machines. In the water treatment process, water is subjected to chemicals, toxic and carcinogenic, its normal ambient temperature elevated, squeezed, pushed, pulled then put into a pipeline which at some point terminates at your kitchen facet.

On its journey to your home, this water may well be pumped several more times, spend an unknown and unspecified period of time in one of the utilities many storage containers. Water purveyors truly do not know the condition of the water when it reaches your home or business. And to make sure you don’t infect them, it is now becoming SOP for them to require you install and maintain at your expense a “backflow” device on the service line to your dwelling. This “backflow” device is NOT to protect your water, rather it is to protect them (water purveyor) should your actions contaminate water on your side of the fence and not allow it to flow back into theirs. Cute, because we just gave them another “get-out-of-jail-free-card” to use at our expense. Oh, but you say, the Arizona Corporation Commission and ADEQ and ADWR are agencies which serve and protect us. OK, but, I don’t for a moment believe that the most recent, slap on the wrist, $69,000 fine levied against Arizona American Water company for contaminating the potable water supply for parts of Scottsdale and Paradise Valley is punitive and really “serves & protects us” or is really going to hurt their corporate bottom line. And, NO, we don’t know how much TCE is too much before a human is weakened or the time frame for it to incubate before it manifests. But, hey, $69,000 should cover it, you think…?

Read these articles, including this one, cautiously and judiciously. If we truly want water purveyors to deliver “safe” water to us, there is a price to be paid. And that price shall be a significantly higher cost. Make no mistake, water delivered to your home by any purveyor, public or private, will be far more costly.

Why…? Because we have chosen not to invest in the infrastructure needed to support the ‘safe’ delivery of water to you and me. And, moreover, because we have not chosen to even identify all the chemicals we choose to allow be released daily into those venues which become part of the water we consume. And because we do not want to assume personal accountability or responsibility for our own actions or inactions, it’s always someone else’s fault, isn’t it…?

We fear what we do not know. We do not know only because of choice. We can know and we can be aware, it a matter of conscious choice, we each must make.