The quality of tap water continues to deteriorate in America’s cities. For those who have been following our blog, you’ve already read about fluoride, chlorine, chloramine, and other extremely toxic chemicals in tap water. But a new report out of Chicago has found out something absolutely shocking. The levels of lead in Chicago tap water far exceed Federal safety limits. Why is this such a huge problem? Lead is a neurotoxin that causes serious damage to humans.
The study found that they are still an estimated 400,000 lead pipes supplying water to Chicago homes. Most of these pipes can be found in Michigan City and they supply water to mostly poor, Black neighborhoods. Some homes in these Black neighborhoods had lead levels that were 73 times more than the EPA’s level for safety! Even more shocking, the city of Chicago has suppressed any analysis of lead levels in their own tap water. It took an outside agency to discover this problem.
There isn’t any safe exposure level for lead. Experts describe blood as a potent and irreversible neurotoxin with potential multigenerational impact.
In children, lead has been linked to behavioral disorders, lower IQ, and lower math scores. In adults lead has been associated with kidney problems and high blood pressure which leads to a higher rate of heart attacks.
Chicago isn’t the only city in the United States that has old and deteriorating pipes. Most cities on the East Coast have this problem. Philadelphia, New York City, and Washington DC are just a few. But even some West Coast cities have older pipes, like Portland and Seattle. If Chicago is essentially covering up the potential danger of drinking tap water from its residents, you can be assured that other cities are doing the same thing.
For example, recently there was a county fair out in Hillsboro, Oregon where the municipal water company was handing out bottles of tap water. The message was clear: tap water was on the same level as bottled water. There wasn’t any reason for consumers to purchase bottled water or filter their own water when tap water was so amazing. This is a potentially very dangerous message because the EPA only monitors about 100 dangerous chemicals in tap water while there are thousands! Many chemicals, like leftover pharmaceutical drugs, are not filtered out of our tap water before it gets to our homes.
You simply can’t rely on the EPA and municipal water treatment facilities to provide safe drinking water to you and your family. You have to get a multi-stage water filter like a water ionizer to protect your loved ones. Our water ionizers use sixteen stages of filtration to treat all the different chemicals and pollutants in your water. Plus, they treat the acidity of tap water with water electrolysis while also restoring water’s natural antioxidants.
