Garrison Hilliard
2018-01-04 16:03:17 UTC
Why People Are Drinking 'Raw Water' (But Probably Shouldn't)
By Brandon Specktor, Senior Writer | January 3, 2018 07:24am ET
Would you like your water sparkling, from the tap or hauled out of an
unsterilized river upstate? For proponents of the expensive new drinking
trend known as "raw water," the choice is as clear as a Poland Spring.
According to a New York Times article published last week, a growing
number of American hydration connoisseurs are turning off their taps and
switching to unfiltered, untreated water from natural sources, shelling
out up to $36.99 for a 2.5-gallon jug of the "raw" stuff.
While any individual with access to groundwater could ostensibly obtain
their own supply, specialty raw water companies are seeing their products
fly off store shelves (primarily in Silicon Valley, the Times noted),
while tens of millions of dollars in venture capital flows back in.
Why? Isn't raw water just water only less regulated? According to the
Times, part of the movement's success may come from that very "off the
grid" appeal: Raw water passes through no federal or municipal pipes,
contains no additives (such as fluoride, a naturally occurring mineral
typically added to tap water to fight tooth decay), and generally receives
no filtration, ensuring every bottle remains as mineral-rich as Mother
Nature intended. [Drinking Water Database: Put in Your ZIP Code and Find
Out What's in Your Water]
Unfortunately, Mother Nature sometimes intends to give you an unpleasant
case of diarrhea instead. Even America's most pristine-looking springs can
harbor natural contaminants that make drinking their waters a sickly
mistake, said Vince Hill, chief of the Waterborne Disease Prevention
Branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.
Without an intimate knowledge of where your water comes from, it's hard to
say what's in it and who handles it on its journey from spring to bottle
this is why water gets filtered in the first place, Hill said, and why the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) enforces strict quality guidelines
on America's public water providers.
Something in the water
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), contaminated drinking
water is one of the most dangerous preventable health risks the world
faces. "Contaminated water can transmit diseases such diarrhea, cholera,
dysentery, typhoid and polio," the WHO says, adding that contaminated
drinking water is estimated to cause 502,000 diarrheal deaths around the
world each year.
The United States' public drinking water is among the safest in the world,
according to the CDC, thanks in part to a multistep purification process
that includes filtration, sedimentation (a process by which heavy
particles of dirt are separated out) and disinfection. Cities and states
have their own specific protocols for cleaning public drinking water
depending on the water source they draw from, Hill said, but all of them
follow one set of strict EPA guidelines aimed at eradicating 90 well-known
water contaminants.
"There are many sources of water contamination, and some of those sources
are naturally occurring," Hill told Live Science. "Spring water and
mountain stream water may look pure, but it can be contaminated with
things like bacteria and viruses, parasites and other contaminants that
you can't see."
Chemicals like arsenic and radon, which occur naturally in soil and rocks
but can be poisonous in large enough doses, can easily seep into
groundwater without much indication, Hill said. Animals, meanwhile, pose
their own risks: Parasites like Giardia and Cryptosporidium, two of the
most common causes of waterborne diseases in the United States, easily
spread from animal feces into natural water sources. Once ingested by
humans, these parasites lead to nasty diarrheal diseases, the CDC says.
For this reason, the agency recommends that all backcountry water (sourced
from a spring or otherwise) be properly filtered, disinfected or boiled
before consumption.
"We recommend filtering and disinfecting [spring water] to make it safe,"
Hill said. "Just because you're in a natural area doesn't mean there
aren't bacterial pathogens in the water that you just can't see."
And while some raw-water purists "contend that the wrong kind of
filtration removes beneficial minerals [and] kills healthful bacteria,"
the Times reported, Hill does not think this argument holds water.
"The basic benefit of drinking water is hydration that's how it benefits
our bodies, improving our mental process and bodily functions," Hill said.
"There's not much data on whether water helps provide microbes for
digestion and things like that. What we do think about when we think about
microbes in water [are] germs that could cause diseases. That's why we
talk about treating water, filtering water, disinfecting water to make it
safer the data we do have is more about the disease-causing effects of
microbes in our water."
Originally published on Live Science.
https://www.livescience.com/61314-what-is-raw-water.html
By Brandon Specktor, Senior Writer | January 3, 2018 07:24am ET
Would you like your water sparkling, from the tap or hauled out of an
unsterilized river upstate? For proponents of the expensive new drinking
trend known as "raw water," the choice is as clear as a Poland Spring.
According to a New York Times article published last week, a growing
number of American hydration connoisseurs are turning off their taps and
switching to unfiltered, untreated water from natural sources, shelling
out up to $36.99 for a 2.5-gallon jug of the "raw" stuff.
While any individual with access to groundwater could ostensibly obtain
their own supply, specialty raw water companies are seeing their products
fly off store shelves (primarily in Silicon Valley, the Times noted),
while tens of millions of dollars in venture capital flows back in.
Why? Isn't raw water just water only less regulated? According to the
Times, part of the movement's success may come from that very "off the
grid" appeal: Raw water passes through no federal or municipal pipes,
contains no additives (such as fluoride, a naturally occurring mineral
typically added to tap water to fight tooth decay), and generally receives
no filtration, ensuring every bottle remains as mineral-rich as Mother
Nature intended. [Drinking Water Database: Put in Your ZIP Code and Find
Out What's in Your Water]
Unfortunately, Mother Nature sometimes intends to give you an unpleasant
case of diarrhea instead. Even America's most pristine-looking springs can
harbor natural contaminants that make drinking their waters a sickly
mistake, said Vince Hill, chief of the Waterborne Disease Prevention
Branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.
Without an intimate knowledge of where your water comes from, it's hard to
say what's in it and who handles it on its journey from spring to bottle
this is why water gets filtered in the first place, Hill said, and why the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) enforces strict quality guidelines
on America's public water providers.
Something in the water
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), contaminated drinking
water is one of the most dangerous preventable health risks the world
faces. "Contaminated water can transmit diseases such diarrhea, cholera,
dysentery, typhoid and polio," the WHO says, adding that contaminated
drinking water is estimated to cause 502,000 diarrheal deaths around the
world each year.
The United States' public drinking water is among the safest in the world,
according to the CDC, thanks in part to a multistep purification process
that includes filtration, sedimentation (a process by which heavy
particles of dirt are separated out) and disinfection. Cities and states
have their own specific protocols for cleaning public drinking water
depending on the water source they draw from, Hill said, but all of them
follow one set of strict EPA guidelines aimed at eradicating 90 well-known
water contaminants.
"There are many sources of water contamination, and some of those sources
are naturally occurring," Hill told Live Science. "Spring water and
mountain stream water may look pure, but it can be contaminated with
things like bacteria and viruses, parasites and other contaminants that
you can't see."
Chemicals like arsenic and radon, which occur naturally in soil and rocks
but can be poisonous in large enough doses, can easily seep into
groundwater without much indication, Hill said. Animals, meanwhile, pose
their own risks: Parasites like Giardia and Cryptosporidium, two of the
most common causes of waterborne diseases in the United States, easily
spread from animal feces into natural water sources. Once ingested by
humans, these parasites lead to nasty diarrheal diseases, the CDC says.
For this reason, the agency recommends that all backcountry water (sourced
from a spring or otherwise) be properly filtered, disinfected or boiled
before consumption.
"We recommend filtering and disinfecting [spring water] to make it safe,"
Hill said. "Just because you're in a natural area doesn't mean there
aren't bacterial pathogens in the water that you just can't see."
And while some raw-water purists "contend that the wrong kind of
filtration removes beneficial minerals [and] kills healthful bacteria,"
the Times reported, Hill does not think this argument holds water.
"The basic benefit of drinking water is hydration that's how it benefits
our bodies, improving our mental process and bodily functions," Hill said.
"There's not much data on whether water helps provide microbes for
digestion and things like that. What we do think about when we think about
microbes in water [are] germs that could cause diseases. That's why we
talk about treating water, filtering water, disinfecting water to make it
safer the data we do have is more about the disease-causing effects of
microbes in our water."
Originally published on Live Science.
https://www.livescience.com/61314-what-is-raw-water.html