The Origins of Your Drinking Water

<![CDATA[Here in the United States we are blessed with one of the safest and most plenteous drinking water supplies in the world. The water we consume is delivered from a combination of surface water, including rivers, lakes and reservoirs and groundwater drawn from beneath the Earth’s surface. The ratio between surface water usage and groundwater usage varies depending on location and the quantity of available water. With the pervasive drought the west has been experiencing, their groundwater usage has almost doubled compared to their surface water usage; but does it matter where our drinking water comes from?
Other than location, there are some distinct differences between groundwater and surface water. Groundwater tends to harbor nitrates, pesticides and other chemicals whereas surface water tends to contain more bacteria and other potentially dangerous microbes. That being said however, groundwater and surface water are undeniably connected which means that contaminates can be shared between them.  The Clean Water Act mandates that municipally supplied drinking water, whether from the ground or surface, must be treated for harmful contaminates before being transported for public consumption.
The one caveat to water treatment is when drinking water is supplied by private wells. The EPA regulations in place for public drinking water systems do not apply to privately owned wells. Owners of private water wells are responsible for safeguarding their water and treating it appropriately to reduce harmful bacteria and contaminates. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) there are over 15 million households here in the US being supplied by private groundwater wells. Builders are required to test private wells to make sure they are safe for consumption but even then without ongoing regulation, they can quickly become contaminated.
If you have a well, it is especially important to have your water tested at least once per year to ensure that it is safe to drink. However, even municipally supplied water can leave unwanted chemicals behind from treatment that should be filtered out. Ask for a drinking water report from your water supplier if you have one, it will show you where your water comes from and what contaminates are in it.
The solution to both groundwater and surface water contamination is a water filtration system. A water filtration system such as the LINX Drinking Water System as well as reverse osmosis (RO) systems has the ability to remove the bacteria and other microorganisms commonly found in surface water as well as the nitrates and other contaminates found in groundwater. When your drinking water is filtered, you can have confidence that the water you and your family are drinking is the safest and cleanest possible, regardless of where it originated from.