Hey, if the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) says millions of people each year in the United states alone get sick because of bacteria and other nasty contaminants on food, then we figure we ought to pay attention to the problem every once in a while.

How does one contract Listerosis?

The condition Listerosis (a serious infection) occurs when a person consumes food products contaminated with the bacterium Listeria monocytogenes.

Facts about Listerosis?

• An estimated 1,600 cases get reported each year; approximately 17% of them result in a fatality.
   
• Older adults, pregnant women, very young children, and those with compromised or suppressed immune systems stand the greatest chance of becoming infected.
   
• Note regarding pregnant women diagnosed with Listerosis: Infections during pregnancy may lead to miscarriage, stillbirth, premature delivery, and/or passing of the infection on to the the newborn child.
   
• Symptoms usually include fever, muscle aches, and gastrointestinal conditions including, but not limited to, diarrhea.
   
• More severe symptoms may include headache, confusion, and convulsions.
   
• The majority of patients diagnosed with Listerosis reported their illness to medical professionals only after the infection had already affected areas of the body beyond the gastrointestinal tract.
   
• Basic proper food handling, cooking, and storage methods serve as the absolute best means of keeping one safe from infection by Listerosis. Keep raw meats away from fresh fruits/vegetables, cook all meats thoroughly, and wash hands/utensils/countertops after encounters with uncooked or undercooked meats
   
• For additional information on Listerosis, such as a timeline of notable outbreaks in the United States, please take a look at the source article on the CNN web site

In a nutshell, basic food safety practices can drastically reduce one’s risk of infection. According to what we have read over the years, most cases of food poisoning did NOT have to happen and would not have happened if people had handled raw goods properly, kept raw goods away from other goods that would not get cooked, cooked meat products thoroughly and to the recommended internal temperatures, and stored raw or cooked goods properly.

Keeping one’s kitchen, cooking, food prep, and food service areas clean and clear of debris that could harbor potentially harmful bacteria, etc. also helps!

Products to test disinfecting and/or sanitizing solutions?

While at home most people would not usually test the strengths of cleaning solutions used to keep surfaces bacteria and germ-free, food production facilities and food service establishments DO have to test for things like chlorine, hydrogen peroxide, chlorine dioxide, ozone, iodine, quaternary ammonia, etc.

Health and safety experts in the EA claim the levels detected pose no danger to the environment or humans… but other folks, like ourselves, believe the introduction of ANY foreign compound into the environment or human body poses, on some level, a risk.

Where did the pesticides come from?

As we mentioned earlier, pesticides (in this case slug poisons) use metaldehyde. Farmers distribute pellets containing metaldehyde around their crops to keep slugs from destroying their plants.

Heavy rains in recent times resulted in greater than usual amounts of runoff carrying slug poisons (and other agricultural matter) away from agricultural areas and into bodies of water.

Then, after the rains stopped, farmers needed to re-apply the slug poisons to protect their crops from slug damage… and the cycle started over again.

Why not just ban the use of metaldehyde?

Three words: Because it works! (and no one has come up with a better solution for slugs… or have they?)

Some environmentalists argue that a MUCH better slug preventative exists and has ALWAYS existed. Creatures like hedgehogs, frogs, toads, wild birds, predatory nematodes, and carabid beetles whose numbers have dwindled (as a result of mankind’s actions!) love to munch on slugs!

*** Pause for dramatic effect while you think about chewing on a slug ***

By re-introducing more natural predators of the slug into the picture environmentalists theorize that farmers could become less reliant on poisons that contain metaldehyde.

And in conclusion?

Whether you live in England or Wales where slugs need killing or near the Mississippi River where nitrate levels have risen this year, the risk of drinking water contamination as a result of runoff will always exist. That fact alone should make each and every one of us want to stay vigilant and monitor the quality of the water we drink.

But, after you look at a few of the driving factors behind the Chinese government’s decision to grant its legal system the power to hand down death sentences to major polluters of China’s water supply, things will become crystal clear — unlike a LOT of China’s water.

• 400 of China’s approximate 655 major cities in the North China Plains rely solely on groundwater for their drinking water and a recent report stated that a huge percentage of China’s groundwater contains pesticides, fertilizers, irrigation waste water, contamination from the petrochemical industry, household waste products, and a myriad of industrial waste products.

  Approximately 130 million people reside in the North Plains region of China.
   

• Test results from past years showed elevated levels of contaminants like iron, manganese, fluoride, nitrites & nitrates, ammonia derivatives, and a host of other metals.

  A dangerous number of the levels detected definitely exceeded health & safety limits for drinking water.
   

• An unusually high (disproportionate when compared to the rest of the world) number of Chinese citizens have experienced tooth enamel damage and bone disease… quite possibly as a result of exposure to fluoride in their drinking water which could have come from a long list of herbicides, pesticides and industrial processes — all of which experts believe found their way into the Chinese water supply as runoff at some point.
   
• Some experts in the water remediation field believe that China will need to spend more than 80 million dollars over the next 7 years to clean up the North Plains region… and some of the contaminants currently detected may still exist in higher than desirable concentrations after China invests all that money in its water clean up efforts.

So… after reading that, do you think the Chinese Government should have given permission to issue death sentences for major water polluters to its judges?

Find more detailed statistics on China’s current water woes here.

And in conclusion?

To close this article we would like to refrain from commentary on the appropriateness of the death penalty aspect of the Chinese water crisis and focus, instead, on a point that makes us wonder exactly WHO the Chinese Government intends to target with its death threats.

As far as we can tell from the reading we have done over the years, most big business and heavy industry has had very close, if not incest-like, ties to the the Chinese Government. Having said that, would the Chinese Government REALLY target its own friends and family?

Personally, we do not think the possibility of death sentences proves much when it comes to Chinese Government’s commitment toward cleaning up its waterways and making sure its citizens have safe, clean drinking water.

Proof of that commitment, in our eyes, will arrive when we see the Chinese Government spend the 80+ million dollars to help its citizens.

State and Stamford health officials are urging residents with private wells to get their water tested for pesticides and other possible contaminants.

A study of 628 private wells by the Stamford Health Department found that 195 had some amount of the pesticides Chlordane or Dieldrin. More than half of those 195 had concentrations that put residents who regularly drink the water at a greater risk for health problems, as defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Joseph Kuntz, a Stamford lab technician, said that when health officials first discovered some well contamination in 2009, they expected it to be localized and due to the nearby Scofield Town Dump. But testing had unexpected results.

…

Chlordane and Dieldrin were used for termite and other insect extermination in homes and on farms for decades in Connecticut. They were banned in the 1980s, and the EPA now says that exposure to such chemicals over a lifetime, even at trace amounts, can increase the risk of health problems.

“You can’t see it, you can’t taste it and you can’t smell it,” said Bill Warzecha, an environmental analyst at Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. “And so except if you test it, you’re not going to know that it’s in there.”

…

Stamford, where Kuntz estimates that 5,000 households have private wells, is unique in offering lower-cost testing. The city health department contracted with a local laboratory to bring down the cost of a $350 test to just $100. More than 1,700 people have signed up to get their wells tested, and last year the city passed an ordinance requiring 750 wells to be tested each year starting in 2012. ( source )

This unfortunate ground water contamination story does an excellent job of showing how a suspected small water quality issue in one area can quickly turn into a major problem for an entire region and how diligent testing of well water helps health officials get a better handle on the severity of the situation.

To all the residents in Stamford whose water may contain the compounds (Chlordane and Dieldrin) mentioned in this article, we highly suggest taking advantage of the special pricing offered by the local laboratory. Otherwise, as the full article very plainly stated, testing for pesticides such as chlordane and dieldrin could become very costly.

Other pesticide testing options

With the exception of water testing by a certified water testing laboratory, no real options exist for testing chlordane and dieldrin levels in well or drinking water… BUT home water test kits for other pesticides/herbicides like atrazine and simazine do exist

Both atrazine and simazine got used heavily in the agricultural world in the United States for quite some time before scientists and health experts determined that too much of either compound could cause health problems.

Therefore, if you live in an area once designated as agricultural it may prove wise to test your water for atrazine and simazine.

Regular well water testing

While we sincerely wish yearly testing, or even less frequent testing, of well water would ensure the quality of well water, we know better. Shifts in weather patterns (i.e. droughts, heavy rains, etc.) and changes in the demand on an aquifer can radically change the quality of water an aquifer produces — with little or no warning to those whose wells tap into the aquifer.

Home well water test kits like the Well Driller Master carried by FilterWater.Com make it possible for well owners to perform critical water quality checks on a regular basis.

Do water test kits like the Well Driller Master (or less expensive versions like the Well Water Test Kit, COMPLETE Water Test Kit & SenSafe Water Quality Test Kit) provide ALL the tests required to guarantee the quality of one’s water? No, but their tests can provide key insight into changes in one’s water quality and help one to know when more sophisticated water testing should take place.

SenSafe Water Water Quality Test Kit

Natural Contamination

Contamination of natural bodies of water (including lakes, streams, aquifers and groundwater) can have numerous characteristics and sources. While many believe only ‘big business’ causes water pollution, all humans and animals release waste products that eventually find their way into lakes, rivers, streams, oceans, etc.

Scientists refer to this occurrence as ‘nutrient loading’ and when it happens too often in one location nutrient loading may result in bacterial contamination that eventually becomes detrimental to the environment and harmful to humans who unknowingly consume the water.

Contaminants often included in the list of ‘natural’ contaminants include things such as coliform bacteria, nitrates, nitrites, etc.

Therefore, if your drinking water comes from the ground (i.e. a well) you may have ‘natural’ things to worry about… and even municipal (i.e city, town, etc.) water sources have problems from time to time. Need proof? Ever hear of things called boil water advisories?

Unnatural Contamination

This type of contamination typically comes from accidental or intentional dumping of foreign matter into or too close to a body of water either on the the surface or under the ground.

Common sources of groundwater and surface water contamination include improper disposal of industrial waste products, faulty septic tanks and waste water storage or processing equipment, landfills, pesticides and fertilizers.

Many experts believe the practice of hydraulic fracturing certainly belongs in the category of unnatural water contamination and pollution… and, of course, many other experts (who often work for or get funding from gas drilling companies) believe hydraulic fracturing poses no (or extremely limited) risks to the environment.

Thus far OUR opinion falls more in line with the folks who suspect that fracking (the nickname for hydraulic fracturing) may pose risks and that more research needs to get done before we turn the Marcellus Shale Formation under the United States into swiss cheese whose holes we filled with ‘questionable’ fluids containing a host of unknown compounds.

Moral of the Story?

You will NEVER know if your water contains unwanted contaminants UNTIL YOU GET IT TESTED and for that task you have several options: 1) Test for the basics yourself using a drinking water test kit; 2) Have a qualified drinking water laboratory test your water; or 3) test for the basics yourself with a water quality test kit and enlist the services of a qualified water testing lab from the list posted on the EPA’s Safe Water Web Site

Hi,

I recently purchased a house in Brooklyn 11xxx and did a quick water test at home ,while taking guidance from Insight Pest Control Wilmington. I found lead which makes sense as there is an old lead water main. I also found pesticides in the water too. I want to have a professional test the water and recommend solutions to ensure the safety of my family and tenants. Can you recommend someone to do this. I already sent off for the NYC lead test.

Thank you!

Mark

As usual, it pleases us greatly when we hear of people taking action on their own to guarantee the safety of their drinking water. We applaud Mark, and all others like him, for their proven interest in drinking water quality not only for themselves, but for others, too.

Who ya’ gonna call?

No, Bill Murray and the Ghostbusters cannot help with problems like lead and/or pesticides in drinking water. Since you reside in NY, Mark, you may want to check out this page on the EPA’s web site about water in NY. On that page you will find a link to the EPA’s List of State Certified Drinking Water Labs, but to save you some time we will list the certified water labs in Kings County below:

LABID: 11972: GREEN PLANET LABS, LLC

63 FLUSHING AVE BLDG. 292 SUITE 404, UNIT 206
BROOKLYN NY 11205
MS. ALYSSA MCDONALD (718) 858 -7020

* Approved for Testing Potable Water

LABID: 11671: WYCKOFF HEIGHTS MEDICAL CENTER

374 STOCKHOLM STREET
BROOKLYN NY 11237
DR. WILLIAM L. THELMO (718) 963 -7519

* Approved for Testing Potable Water

We hope that one of the above labs can help, Mark!

Water treatment companies and water testing

ALWAYS remember that a water treatment company’s primary objective involves you opening your purse/wallet and handing over payment for a water treatment system… and in many cases a water treatment company may employ a ‘scare tactic’ to get you to do so.

The wonders of water chemistry (and the general public’s general lack of understanding of water chemistry) make it possible for clever water treatment system sales personnel to put on a good show when testing a prospective customer’s water; a show that adds a visual punch to the sales person’s explanation of why a prospective customer should buy a water treatment system. NOW.

Get water testing results beforehand

While not all water treatment companies will use deceptive tactics like the one mentioned above, we believe it makes complete and total sense to have a third party, certified water testing lab test your water before talking to a water treatment company.

Doing so may keep you from talking to one at all if the test results come back not indicating any problems with the water!

Doing your own testing

Yes, of COURSE we feel people should test their own water periodically. One ‘clean bill of health’ water test when first starting to use a water sources does not mean something may not happen a month or year down the road to cause that source to become contaminated in some way.

At-home drinking water test kits do not test for as many contaminants or as low a level of many contaminants, but they do work as excellent screening tools that don’t cost an arm and a leg.

Below you will find a brief list of popular water test kit manufacturers:

• SenSafe Water Test Kits
• WaterSafe Test Kits

Below you will find a brief list of commonly inquired about water test kits:

• WaterWorks 2 Free & Total Chlorine Test Kit
• Eco Check 5-Way Test Strips
• Lead in Water Test Kit
• Pool & Spa Bacteria Test Kit
• Pesticides in Water test Kit
• Science Fair/Project Water Test Kit
• Well Water Test Kit
• City Water Test Kit

As an example, the rise and fall of aquifer levels in certain parts of the United States can have a pronounced effect on dissolved arsenic levels in the water contained in those aquifers.

As a second example, water from melting snows or from Spring showers traveling across the land in agricultural regions has a tendency to pick up potentially harmful bacteria and nitrates/nitrites that could work their way into poorly capped wells.

Other unwanted drinking water contaminants such as atrazine and simazine also get picked up runoff water making its way through the countryside. As you may recall, farmers in the United States used both of those compounds, especially atrazine, as an herbicide/pesticide for many years — and therefore it ought not surprise you that pockets of washed away atrazine lurk in many unsuspecting parts of the country.

Something to think about: The faucets and showers in motor homes use water from whatever and whichever filling station the motor home’s owner finds when it comes time to refill the storage tanks. Where did that water come from? Do you know? Probably not.

If traveling out in an area where a lot of agricultural activity takes place you may want to think about the possibility that the water contains harmful herbicides/pesticides like as atrazine. Additionally, potentially harmful levels of nitrates and/or nitrites may also exist in the water… especially if the water comes from a well.

Note: As far as we know, the chlorine tablets people add to motor home water storage tanks do nothing to reduce or eliminate the risks associated with ingesting pesticides (i.e. atrazine), nitrates, nitrites, heavy metals such as lead, lindane, MTBE, and other possible drinking water contaminants.

Does anyone make water filters for RV’s and motor homes?

As a matter of fact, a widely recognized leader in the personal drinking water filtration industry, Culligan manufactures an NSF Certified line of RV & Marine Water Filter Systems:

• Culligan RV-EZ-3 — Reduction Claims Validated for this unit by NSF: Atrazine Reduction, Cyst Reduction, Lead Reduction, Lindane Reduction, Turbidity Reduction, Chlorine Reduction (Aesthetic), Nominal Particulate Reduction (Class I), Taste and Odor Reduction.
• Culligan RC-EZ-4 — Reduction Claims Validated for this unit by NSF: Chloramine Reduction, Chlorine Reduction (Aesthetic), Nominal Particulate Reduction (Class I), Taste and Odor Reduction, Cyst Reduction, Lead Reduction, Mercury Reduction, MTBE Reduction, Turbidity Reduction, VOC Reduction.

  The Culligan RC-EZ-4 functions as a direct upgrade to the filters included in the EZ-1 & EZ-3 RV Water Filter Systems.

Each system, as you can see, removes/reduces a different number of potential drinking water contaminants. At this point we would NORMALLY suggest water quality testing as an efficient and effective means of determining which RV Water Filter System a person should consider… but since motor homes and TV’s draw their water from a different source each time they fill up, that may not make sense financially.

So, rather than spend a small fortune on testing supplies everyplace one stops to fill up the water tank(s), why not simply invest in a water filter so you don’t have to think about it anymore?

Clearly no one solution will work for all those who roam about the country in RV’s but no matter how you slice it, some amount of filtration when facing a wide range of potential contaminants in one’s water supply will always make more sense than having no filtration at all!

Testing the water before you fill up?

Although in most cases people probably do not have a whole lot of options when it comes to where they can fill up their RV or motor home water tanks while traveling through unfamiliar areas, it probably would not hurt to run a spot check on the water before hooking up.

A quick check for basic (and important!) drinking water parameters may keep you from filling your tank(s) up with water that will continue to harm you and your family until all its contaminants get diluted — some 5 or 10 fill ups later, depending upon how far you drain tanks down before refilling.

Remember: You always have the option of using bottled water for a brief stint if the water at a one particular filling station fails to make the grade!

Water test kits for RV’s and motor homes?

Hmmm… Until now we never really gave it a lot of thought. Having said that, both SenSafe and WaterSafe make excellent, and highly portable, water quality test kits that pretty much anyone can afford and use.

Water Quality Test Kit
for 15 Different Water Parameters

No one would dare question the belief that industry has a way of making messes and leaving them for others to clean up… or just leaving them and hoping no one ever realizes a mess got made in the first place. Some folks in a New Jersey community believe they have caught a company red-handed at a closed quarry and have asked the State to step in.

Residents and public officials in Basking Ridge, NJ asked the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to put pressure on the operators of the closed Millington Quarry on Stonehouse Road because they had evidence which suggested contaminated soil may have gotten trucked into the site over a period of years and used as back fill material.

The DEP issued a letter to Millington Quarry, Inc. and Tilcon New York, Inc. recently stating that it requires additional soil and groundwater testing around the property of the now closed quarry… and they want the testing done in accordance with State approved testing methodologies before the cold weather begins.

Needless to say the DEP’s position pleased the residents and officials in Basking Ridge, NJ.

The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has called for additional soil and groundwater testing at the closed Millington Quarry on Stonehouse Road, to the approval of township officials.

Millington Quarry, Inc. and Tilcon New York, Inc., the company that had been quarrying the site before operations ceased last May, were this month informed that the DEP wants further testing at three areas of the quarry where water and soil samples showed a limited presence of contaminants. A letter to the quarry on Oct. 16 called for the quarry to follow the state’s methodology in conducting the additional testing before the onset of cold weather.

…

The township has been embroiled in a legal dispute with the quarry based on suspicions of contaminated soil being trucked into the property over a period of several years. The soil was used to fill in steeply quarried areas. Random testing of some of those truckloads by a township consultant identified the presence of some contaminants, according to township officials.

David Oster, a section chief with the DEP’s office of Brownfields Remediation & Reuse, wrote in his Oct. 4 letter that the quarry’s limited groundwater investigation into wells on the site had shown elevated levels of arsenic, lead and other volatile chemicals in one well, and arsenic exceeding the DEP’s standards in another.

The letter also reported findings of pesticides and other contaminants in some soil samples that exceed the DEP’s standards for residential and non-residential soil cleanup criteria. The quarry owners have long had plans to eventually sell the closed quarry property for redevelopment with home sites. ( source )

Stories like that make us wonder how many companies have knowingly dumped loads of fill material they knew contained higher than expected and/or allowed levels of contaminants in places — and gotten away with it. On second thought, maybe we don’t really want the answer to that question. It might scare us a lot more than we’d like!

Spot testing pays off in the end?

Of course it does and this story proves it! Without the township hiring a consultant to perform sampling and testing on the loads of material entering the quarry the town would never have gotten the data it used to persuade the DEP to intervene.

Remember: The article said “elevated levels of arsenic, lead and other volatile chemicals in one well, and arsenic exceeding the DEP’s standards in another” which means those potentially hazardous items could have seeped into the local groundwater supply undetected and then found their way into the local population’s drinking water if someone had not stepped up done a little bit of testing.

No one will step and test YOUR water for you, though, if you own a private well… and that means whatever contaminants your well pumps up become your responsibility to detect, report and ultimately get rid of.

Well Driller Standard Test Kit tests for Free Chlorine (50 EPA-Approved tests), Ultra Low Total Chlorine (50 tests), Hydrogen Sulfide (50 tests), Total Hardness (50 tests), Iron (50 tests), Nitrates & Nitrites (50 tests), pH (50 tests), Manganese (24 tests), Water Metals (50 tests), Bacteria (1 test)

No matter how you look at it, and regardless of whether you have well water or city water, responsibility for the quality of the water coming out of your faucet rests solely on your shoulders… and if you choose not to test, then you have chosen to blindly accept any contaminants that may or may not have entered your water supply. Kits like the one on the left will do nothing to help you — and neither will anyone else for that matter — if you don’t keep tabs on the quality of your own water supply! Want to test for a few more important water quality parameters? If so, then upgrade to the Well Driller Master Test Kit and add 10 Arsenic Tests, 50 Copper Tests, 2 Lead in Water Tests, and 2 Pesticide Tests!

]]> http://watertestingblog.com/2010/11/02/state-agrees-more-testing-needed-at-quarry-site/feed/ 0 http://watertestingblog.com/2010/11/01/triple-undersink-filter-for-nitrates/ http://watertestingblog.com/2010/11/01/triple-undersink-filter-for-nitrates/#respond Mon, 01 Nov 2010 13:03:19 +0000 http://watertestingblog.com/?p=2860

A while back we wrote about a dual filter nitrate removal system manufactured by Crystal Quest. Since then we have received several emails asking us if Crystal Quest made a dual filter that mounts under the sink because they have limited counter space but want the benefits offered by a dual filter.

As a matter of fact, Crystal Quest DOES manufacture a dual filter nitrate filter system that mounts under the sink… and it comes with a third filter chamber (a carbon block filter designed to remove volatile organic carbon compounds (VOC’s), insecticides, pesticides, and industrial solvents) as an added bonus. OK, so they really call it a triple filter, but using our ‘math’ you can call it a double filter nitrate removal water filter… with a single carbon block filter on the side. Ha ha.

Why did they add the third filter?

We don’t know the actual reason, but we suspect Crystal Quest knows that nitrates will often appear in drinking water found in rural/agricultural areas where compounds such as atrazine may also show. Adding the carbon block filter means the filter will have the ability to reduce/remove nitrates AND volatile organic carbon compounds (VOC’s), insecticides, pesticides, and industrial solvents.

Manufacturer’s Product Number: CQE-US-00324

Replacing the filters?

Changing out filters on this unit takes very little time and the replacement filters don’t cost an arm and a leg, either.

Life expectancy for the filters?

• Roughly 6-9 months for carbon filter
• About 10,000 gallons (or 1 to 3 years) for 6-stage filter
• Around 1 year for the nitrate removal filter