What a month for water news!

Recent events demonstrate that your water supply may not be as safe and you think it is.

First we get a report about the "discovery" of the widespread presence of residues from pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) in drinking water.

Next, the entire town of Alamosa Colorado was without water for three weeks and hundreds of people became seriously ill and at least one died because of the presence of Salmonella typhi (the cause of typhoid fever) in the community water system.

Then, here in my home town of Woodland Park Colorado, a portion of the community served by a small water supplier was without water for over a week because of dead animals found in a water storage tank.

To top it all off, we have recently discovered another problem that has yet to gain widespread attention from the public.

Years ago the U. S. Forest Service sprayed trees with a chemical called ethylene dibromide (EDB) throughout the national forests to prevent pine beetle infestation. EDB is an extremely toxic chemical that is now banned by the EPA. EDB has permeated many mountain aquifers and is showing up in private wells at levels capable of causing a variety of liver and nervous system disorders as well as some very dangerous cancers for those who consume it over an extended period of time.

There are three things each of these circumstances have in common.

1. Water from supposedly reliable sources turns out to be unsafe.
2. Each problem affects thousands of people who were sure there was no problem with their drinking water.
3. Many of these people either already have, or will become, seriously ill.

What this all demonstrates is that contrary to the public information campaign designed to convince our citizens that our water supply is both dependable and safe - it is not.

No doubt Americans enjoy some of the best drinking water in the world. By and large public water suppliers do the best job they can with the resources they have to provide water to their customers that won't cause acute illness. That said, the truth is that whether your water is provided by a municipal utility or private well - no one in this country can be sure their tap water is always safe to drink in the short run, or even healthy to drink in the long run.

Short term the major problem is equipment failure due to storms or other natural disasters causing power outages and infrastructure damage. Coming in at a close second is the fact that much of our water treatment and delivery infrastructure is either worn out or antiquated. The incidence of equipment breakdowns and cracked or broken water mains is rapidly increasing. Each of these can affect the safety of drinking water supplies at any time. No utility company, no matter how well it is run, can protect you from these kinds of events.

Long-term risks are everywhere. Drug residues, petroleum distillates and additives, pesticides, herbicides, heavy metals and industrial as well as mining wastes are increasingly found in water our water supplies.

Chemicals like chlorine and chloramine (the combination of chlorine and ammonia) that are commonly used to disinfect drinking water are now known to create some by-products in water that can cause cancer, liver and nervous system damage, and birth defects.

New studies demonstrate that fluoride - justified by a misguided attempt to prevent tooth decay - creates many health problems including permeable gut syndrome, an increased adsorption of toxic heavy metals, brittle-bone syndrome in the elderly, and links are suspected to Alzheimer's disease.

Everyone agrees that the danger associated with consuming all these things individually increases dramatically over time. No one knows the cumulative effect of consuming many of these things in combination with each other over long periods of time.

In the face of all of this bad news here is the good news. In each recent outbreak of waterborne disease, from hurricanes Isabel and Katrina to the Alamosa problem, there were many families who owned a LivingWaters™ drinking water treatment system. In every one of those cases, no one who relied on their LivingWaters™ system became ill from drinking their water. No one.

Microbiological protection is not where our story ends. When it comes to chlorine and heavy metals like lead, cadmium and mercury, our standard SafeWater Technology removes them better than Reverse Osmosis.

Chloramine (the mixture of ammonia and chlorine) as well as some drug and hormone residues will go right through most water treatment systems including reverse osmosis and distillers. If you or a friend has been relying on this technology to remove these things you should know you are not safe. Faucet mounted filters and water pitchers are absolutely useless against these toxic substances as well. However, our customers with LivingWaters™ systems designed with our LWCAC™ cartridges have nothing to be concerned about. They are among the only water filters in the world that can provide protection against these nasty chemicals.

Fluoride and arsenic are two other common but dangerous contaminants that are best removed from water. While RO and distillers can remove them, most other filters including water pitchers, faucet mounted filters and refrigerator filters are completely ineffective. LivingWaters™ systems configured with our fluoride removal technology handles them easily.

Best of all, with a LivingWaters™ cartridge-based system, the technology is fail-safe, requires no power, does not waste water, and there is no tank to run dry so you can't run out. They even match or beat water ionizers at making alkaline water with improved redox potential yet ionizers cost three times as much, require power to operate, and can't guarantee water safe from microorganisms or toxic cations like lead, cadmium and mercury.

We appreciate our customers who have helped us become the number one provider of microbiologically safe drinking water systems in America. We want you to know that your confidence is us is justified. No other water treatment appliance in the world can come close to matching, much less beat our combination of benefits for delivering SAFE, HEALTHY water. No one! Thank you for your continued support.