Dec 12, 2016 2 min read

The public water system that you touted in a recent editorial does the best it can, considering it is a flawed design and eventually will need to be changed.

You can’t be using the same river for drinking water where thousands of chemicals and human waste are also dumped and honestly think the public water system is going to remove everything bad. Not now and definitely not in the future.

As our population increases, we are going to be adding more and more contaminants to the same river. So unless we add more expensive and different types of filters, even though the contaminant level may be acceptable now, eventually it will be exceeded. The bacteria levels might be safe, but what about the pollutants like lead or even intentionally-added fluoride, which has effects on developing brains? What about the teflon byproduct perfluorooctanoic acid, that is in almost every person in the United States, which the Environmental Protection Agency has just reduced the allowable level of from 40 parts per trillion to 7 parts per trillion? Is the water still clean if it exceeds these limits, and will these limits be reduced again in the future?

The solution? Quit dumping all this crap into the rivers. Instead of allowing any chemical to be used until it is proven to be a hazard after people use it, find out first if it is going to be a hazard before using it. And finally, quit using flush toilets, and instead start subsidizing the use of composting toilets, with the added benefit saving billions of dollars by not having to update all the old, too-small sewerage systems that are going to be obsolete in the future anyway.

Tom Galownia

Cecil