Water – the Main Ingredient
Yesterday, I received our town’s annual water testing report. In essence, it said that our water meets the standards set by the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974, which sets standards for our water quality and gives jurisdiction to the EPA to oversee the states, localities and water supplies that provide drinking water (EPA, 2011). According to the report, twenty percent of our water comes from the town’s well and the rest comes from a local reservoir. In either case, before the water arrives at the well or the reservoir it travels across the surface of the land or through the ground. As it does this, it picks up naturally occurring minerals and radioactive material and will pick up various substances left over from human and animal activity (EPA, 2011).
Here is what everyone needs to understand – Humans have a direct impact on the water in their community.
In our report, they found contaminants like nitrates, which are caused due to run off from fertilizer use, or Trichloroethylene caused from metal degreasing or other factory work or Tetrachloroethylene caused from dry-cleaning chemicals or lead caused from household plumbing. In our case, all were below the Maximum containment Level allowed by the Safe Drinking Water Act.
It was enough to make me go buy bottle water.
However, here is the rest of the story. Bottle Water is no better. In fact, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) who now uses the same requirements as the FDA in terms of chemical pollution standards regulate bottle water. However, FDA’s approach to microbiological standards are less than the EPA’s regulation of tap water. The other difference is that the FDA takes a hands-off approach to testing bottle water, allowing firms to go without independent testing (Environmental Work Council, 2011). And the little known fact is that most bottle water is produced similarly to that of tap water, but put in a bottle for the convenience of the user.
In addition, this bottle is where the beverage companies really affect the environment. There is a large carbon footprint to the making of the bottles and the transporting the water to the consumer. And unfortunately, a good percent of water bottles are not recycled and heading straight to the landfill.
I was in a quandary on how to meet my water needs and know that my water was safe. I decided it was time to take matters into my own hands and filter the water myself. Unfortunately, this was not as easy as I thought it would be…there are various models on the market varying in cost from a little more than $10 for a filtered water picture to over $1,000 for whole house water filtered.
In doing my research, I found that the type of filter determines the different containments it will filter. Consumer Reports recommends buying a whole house filter to remove chlorine and sentiment from the water and a under the counter water filter to remove smaller particles (Consumer Reports, 2011).
My next step is to make a decision on which water filter to install.
Since water is our first ingredient – we will continue to discuss it throughout the month of April. Up next is the source of water important to baking.
References:
EPA (2011) Safe Drinking Water Act. United States Environmental Protection Agency. Retrieved March 27, 2011 from http://water.epa.gov/lawsregs/rulesregs/sdwa/index.cfm
Environmental Work Council (2011) Is FDA able to Ensure Bottle Water Quality. Environmental Work Council. Retrieved March 27, 2011 from http://www.ewg.org/BottledWater/Bottled-Water-Quality-Investigation/Is-FDA-Able-to-Ensure-Bottled-Water-Quality
Consumer Reports (2011). Q&A: Does Consumer Report test whole house filters? Consumer Reports. Retrieved March 27, 2011from http://news.consumerreports.org/appliances/2011/02/qa-does-consumer-reports-test-whole-house-water-filters-.html