Aria, B. (2019, April 30). California’s contaminated drinking water could lead to nearly 15,500 cancer cases over the course of a lifetime. Here’s how worried you should be. Retrieved July 12, 2019, from https://www.businessinsider.com/california-drinking-water-cancer-chemicals-study-2019-4
California’s contaminated drinking water has potentially caused more than 15 thousands cancer cases. Many people think that a contaminated drink has either one of these qualities: taste like metallic, smells foul, or comes out in a yellow/brownish color. That’s not the case with chemicals like arsenic and nitrates, these chemicals can appear hidden to the naked eye and be very harmful.
In previous years a nonprofit environmental working group’s database identified more than 250 contaminants in water supply which makes it difficult for a person to evaluate their overall health. Jamie DeWitt, an associate toxicological professor at East Carolina University, states that the estimated number is an underestimate if you combine all potential hazard chemicals together.
Although arsenic is found naturally in the earth’s crust, it’s due to excessive amount of groundwater pumping, there is almost nothing we can do to stop it because industries are allowed to discharge contaminants into the environment. It is advised to use household filter devices to reduce the amount of contaminants and to be aware that no matter what you do, you are consuming contaminants everyday.
I agree with this article because many people do get carried away by appearances, even myself. We need to have a mutual understanding that a clear water doesn’t indicate that it’s healthy and free of chemicals or contaminants. The fact that drinking water has potentially caused more than 15 thousands of cancer cases is extremely alarming. I am bewildered at how there hasn’t been more studies or possible solutions to this. Although it’s hard to reduce arsenic contaminants because “industries are allowed to discharge contaminants into the environment” we should be in constant look out for the other contaminants. If we can figure out how to remove or filter out the majority of the contaminants, it would be a good improvement and could potentially help discover other and easier ways to filter. Just like the previous article, we need to use household filters devices to reduce the amount of contaminants and investigate the origin your tap water is found in.
I totally agree with everything you said. I’ve never been concerned about bad quality water because I feel like it would be noticeable. Knowing that around 15,000 cancer cases have stemmed from this issue is super concerning as well. Is there anyway to tell whether these contaminants are in your water?
I agree with you on how everyone should use a household filter and that there should be more information for people on what is in their tap water, but this will never happen. Mostly because although it may seem like a heartless thing to say, but 15000 people is not a lot of people, even just in the state of California. Nothing will become of the issues because it only talks about issues of ground water. We get our water from the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir so if something were to go wrong, then there would be fast action because so many people would be affected. These people who get their water from ground sources are only getting it because the government does not want to pay for pipelines to be built out to affected areas. Also, some people may not have enough money for them to pay for these filters, or their water may be so compromised that there is no hope for it to be saved.