Do you remember the opening for the Andy Griffith Show? We know, that’s going back a few decades. For those of you who don’t remember or are asking, “Who’s Andy Griffith?” here’s how the opening went.
Andy and his son happily stroll along a trail, both carrying their fishing gear, while a happy whistling song plays. It ends with them going fishing. Yep, that’s it. Kind of mundane and common but that’s the point.
You can’t eat the fish living in most US freshwater anymore. You can’t drink it or swim in it, either.
According to the most recent surveys on national water quality from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, nearly half of our rivers and streams and more than one-third of our lakes are polluted and unfit for swimming, fishing, and drinking.
While Andy and his son were safe to eat the fish they caught that day, the rest of us aren’t so lucky. If we eat the fish from our local lakes and rivers now, we could get very sick from a whole host of chemicals and other contaminants, like PCBS, that those fish have been exposed to.
It’s not safe to swim in the water, either. Even if we avoided getting the water in our mouths or on our faces, it can still get into our bodies through our skin, which is porous.
Most of all, we can’t drink freshwater like we used to. Andy Griffith could have just boiled the water to kill the bacteria and viruses and been okay to drink it. But we now have far more contaminants to worry about including some really nasty ones that cause cancer, lower our intelligence, and cause birth defects in children.
Of even greater concern, how do you determine which lakes, rivers, and streams are still safe? Let’s face it, all fresh water in the US now has some level of pollution. The EPA may still consider these bodies of water safe, but is any consumption of these nasty chemicals really safe? Is it even worth the risk to try?
Unfortunately, the situation gets worse. When it comes to an ecosystem, everything is connected. So simply avoiding fishing, swimming, and drinking freshwater isn’t going to protect you. Those chemicals have now made their way into our food and drinking water supplies, which means you are exposed to them daily.
The food is contaminated because the plants and animals we eat are exposed to the water. Our municipally treated drinking water is contaminated because many chemicals are not tested for or treated in an effective way.
That means that even in the safety of our homes the water we drink is not safe.
Most people are not aware of the magnitude of the contamination problem facing the US. That’s why we created Water for Life USA to educate people about protecting themselves from contaminated water by using a water ionizer.
