Jan 16, 2016 2 min read

In your editorial from Jan. 8, “Water should not be taken for granted,” you blasted Flint, Mich., for allowing too much lead in its drinking water, even though the trihalomethane limits set by the government have been exceeded locally. Yet you say our water is safe.

How can our water be safe when the limits are exceeded, but unsafe when Flint exceeds them? I agree that lead poisoning is very serious, especially when blood tests show elevated lead levels. But some of the health effects associated with long-term exposure to trihalomethanes include increased risk of certain cancers; reproductive issues such as miscarriages; birth defects and low birth rates; and damage to the heart, lungs, kidney, liver and central nervous system.

You don’t have to even drink the water, like you do with lead – just taking a shower or washing dishes exposes one to trihalomethanes. So how can you say our water is safe?

Until we stop accepting the notion that we can put acceptable amounts of contaminants into our drinking water, we will always have this problem. We need to quit dumping toilet water and contaminants into the same river water we use for drinking, as the drinking water problems will only get worse. As the population increases and more contaminants are flushed down the toilets, the rivers will not be able to dilute the contaminants enough. It is just a matter of time.

So instead of spending billions of dollars to update an already-obsolete water treatment system that is doomed to inevitable failure, why not consider something new? How about replacing existing toilets with composting toilets that do not use flush water? How about regulating products so that water that is put down the drains does not have contaminants that have to removed for drinking?

Tom Galownia

Cecil