Drinking Water Aging Delivery Systems

Drinking water delivery systems have been quietly aging and go totally unnoticed until one bursts. Then we take note of the water gushing geysers into the air as we pass by, and even then we don’t give it much thought.

Some of these drinking water, or tap water, delivery systems are as old as the light bulb! Hard to imagine. But that’s nothing. There are some drinking or tap water delivery systems as old as the Civil War! Now, that’s somethin’.

Today, the water and sewer pipes are so old and have ignored by all of us for so long, they are rupturing, causing damage to property and compromising our drinking water.

We’re used to paying pretty small price to get water to our homes. We certainly expect water to come out of the tap when we turn it on.

We also want our water to be clean and be able to provide safe drinking water.

Here’s something I often think about as I watch people tending to their lawns. Does drinking water come to mind as a weed, who dares to poke its head between the blades, gets annihilated with one quick spritz from the hose in one hand and the container in the other?

But I digress.

Because drinking water sustains us and it seems the time has come that we are going to have to pay attention to the way it is delivered to us.

At Eco Living Greenstyle, we have been following a series of Toxic Waters by New York Times. You can read more about the age of our delivery systems for drinking and tap water and what it is going to cost to upgrade from 1861 to 2010.

Stopping weeds from invading our lawns isn't the only way we pollute our drinking water.  Textiles that we use in our home and fabric we drape our bodies in carry a hefty price tag on our drinking water.  Click here to find out more about which fabrics are better for our health. 

Water Pollution Of A River And The Clean Up 33 Years Later

by Donnalynn Polito

In checking out the news today, I saw that  the Ottawa River in Ohio is finally being cleaned up of its pollution.  What, I wondered, was in the Ottawa River that made its waters polluted and why now to clean it up.  A further read into the article produced some toxic chemical names that we all have heard of before.

Polychlorinated biphenyls or PCPs, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, called PAHs; and heavy metals.

What struck me was that PCPs were outlawed in 1976.  Isn’t the year 2009?  You mean to tell me it has taken 33 years before this chemical is getting cleaned up from a river in Ohio?

In Toledo, Ohio, the Ottawa River will have 260,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediment removed in an effort to reduce the impacts on human health and the environment.

And where does all the 260,000 cubic yards of contamination go?  To the landfill where, I suspect, it can seep for another 30-some years.  Well, funny you should mention it. 

The article goes on to state that about 5% of the contaminated sediment is too dangerous to put into landfill, so it will go to specialized licensed landfills.

While the city and its representatives are really happy about this step forward, it took the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s lawsuit against the City of Toledo and 13 businesses before any action was taken.

So what are these chemicals and how do they get into the water?

Let’s start with polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs.  PCBs were widely used in many industrial applications.  They were used as coolants, as the oil in transformers, as plasticizers in paint and cement, in flame retardants, lubricating oils, sealants such as caulking in schools and commercial buildings, adhesives in floor finishes, on and on.   It seems like PCBs were used everywhere.

PCBs are fairly inert chemically and are very stable compounds.  They do not degrade very easily.  Their toxicity, however, was recognized as early as 1937.  It took until the 1970s for PCBs to be outlawed.

Because they were used in so many applications and because they do not degrade very easily, PCBs still remain in the environment and are a concern to everyone.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons or PAHs are one of the most widespread organic pollutants.  PAHs are found in fossil fuels and tar deposits.  They are also produced as byproducts to burning fuel as hydrocarbon emissions.

Because of their molecular structure, different types of combustion produce different types of pollutants or mixtures of PAHs.   PAHs are produced by the incomplete combustion of carbon contained in fuels like wood, coal, diesel, fat, tobacco or incense.  So, coal burning would produce a different type of PAH from a motor fuel combustion. 

Heavy metals are anybody’s guess and the term is often called meaningless or misleading since a large variation of heavy metals exist in the environment and some are actually required for human health.   As trace elements, humans need heavy metals for our metabolic systems. 

Our concern is with the heavy metals that don’t have any benefit to the environment.  In fact, over time, the accumulation of these heavy metals become toxic and can cause considerable damage to living organisms.

The pollution from heavy metals can come from many sources.  A common source is the smelting of copper, the preparation of nuclear fuels, electroplating, and the mining and refining of metals. 

Heavy metals accumulate over time, lay dormant and do not decay.  This makes clean up particularly difficult and worrisome.

Lakes Don’t Do Much Better and Are In Poor Health

In our natural and man-made lakes, we have similar issues.  Mercury in game fish is still an issue as well as PCBs  which are also found in lakes. 

Nitrogen and phosphorous are found at high levels in many lakes.  Excess amounts of these elements produce algae blooms, weed growth, reduce water clarity and make other lake problems. 

As survey work continues to be done, we can evaluate the progress we are making in cleaning up our waters and restoring the quality of our lakes and waters.

Cleaning products are a source of significant amounts of phosphorous in our water.  Alternative cleaners are safe and effective.  Why use less phosphorus-containing compound cleaning systems when you don’t need it at all? 

Find out why wowgreen cleaning products are like no other cleaning product.  They are safe for you, your family, your pets and the water!

Elbow Grease And Toxins

What's In Your Household Cleaning Product

by Donnalynn Polito

In looking at what pollutes our water, what comes to mind are the cleaning products that we use in our home. We are so used to disinfecting every surface and trying to make everything mirror bright and squeaky clean that we miss what happens next.

What happens to our water and the life it sustains after we wash all these cleaning agents down the drain?
It’s not only our water that’s getting “treated”. We also miss what these cleaning agents may be doing to us in our closed-in home environments.

So, let’s take a look at what goes into a cleaning product and do we need to use the chemicals we’ve been slathering all over our homes and then pouring down the drain.

One of the most common ingredients used is ethylene-based glycol. Ethylene-based glycol is a water soluble solvent. The EPA has classified ethylene-based glycol as a hazardous air pollutant.

Another concern comes from the terpenes. Terpenes have great solvent properties and they smell nice. They are also used widely throughout the home as cleaning products and air fresheners.

Terpenes aren’t good for the environment because they rapidly react with the ozone. What they produce are particles with properties that are like smog called hydroxyl radicals and nitrate radicals. They also release formaldehyde, which is can irritate our respiratory system and is also classified as a carcinogen.

Our exposure to these various chemicals, vapors and particles by themselves are below levels established to be of any danger to us. The problem comes in when these pollutants are added to already existing outgassing from materials in the home.

In other words, things like our furniture, kitchen cabinets, floor coverings, plywood and wood products also release formaldehyde. In combination, these levels could very well be toxic.

As a green designer, I have often heard about indoor air quality being 2.5 times more toxic than outdoor air quality.
In one study of household cleaning products and air fresheners, done by the University of California Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, they found that using air fresheners and an ionizer (producing ozone as a by-product) could lead to formaldehyde exposures greater than the California guideline.

The formaldehyde exposure can then be increased even more from the outgassing of other typical household items like furniture, wood products along with other products, as explained earlier.

What happens with chemicals is that they are tested individually for safety, but they are not tested in conjunction with other chemicals. And how could they be, after all, there’s something like 5,000 plus new chemicals being made a year.

I have only mentioned a few of the complications that using standard cleaning products can produce. The Cancer Prevention Coalition has an extensive list of hazardous ingredients and chemicals found in household products.

Here's a solution that avoids those toxins and can make a difference to you, your family and to the little duckies in the water. Check it out. These products are effective and harmless and provide a cleaning solution that is safe and natural.

The garden is a place where we tend to really pile it on. According to the Cancer Prevention Coalition, we spend billions of dollars a year in pesticides!

By the way, ecolivingGreenstyle has been doing a series on Xeriscaping (landscape, garden and water conservation). If you would like to learn about Xeriscaping, get resources and tips about making green living easy, sign up for DYI Greenstyle Tips in the sign-up box right over there on the left.

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