Pure Water Products Urges Safe Shopping Practices at Groundhog Day Sale

In spite of signs throughout the stores urging observance of the store’s “Safe Shopping” policies, the big Pure Water Products Groundhog Day sale at its Denton, TX store can be dangerous.  At last year’s event, the shopper  pictured above in the foreground slipped in the Reverse Osmosis Parts aisle and skidded, getting a nasty bruise on her hip and breaking the index finger on her left hand.

PWP’s  Groundhog Day Sale has been a big event in North Texas for a number of years, pulling shoppers from the the Dallas/Ft.Worth area into the company’s Denton location in record numbers. Its popularity is attributed to not only to low prices but to the fact that Groundhog Day is the first big shopping event of the year.

Store manager Katey Shannon says, “People have recovered from Christmas and ready to get going again. When we open the doors at 2:00 AM on Groundhog morning, they’re lined up and ready.”

Shannon says that low prices are the key. “Our everyday prices are so low that when we apply the 15% store-wide Groundhog markdown, some products actually come out below zero. With quick-connect fittings, for example, we actually pay people to take them. John Guest reducing tube tees this year are going for -$o.21–that’s a negative 21 cents each. No wonder people are lining up.” Shannon added that shoppers with a practical turn of mind take advantage of the sale to stock up on items they may need down the road, like dry pellet chlorinators, seal and spacer kits for iron filters,  and vacuum breakers for retention tanks.

“So please,” says Shannon, “come early and stay late, but most of all observe the rules given on the Safe Shopping signs displayed throughout the store. Most shopping injuries can be avoided by common sense.”

An Easy Do-it-yourself Bypass for Water Filters

The compact whole house filter pictured above is a decade and a half old.  While age may have taken its toll on its appearance, the unit has functioned flawlessly over the years with no more care than an annual cartridge replacement.  The filter is protected from freezing in winter by a removable cover.

A bypass valve is a handy addition to a filter. It allows sending water to the home even if the filter has to be taken out of service for repair or replacement. In this installer-built bypass system,  water enters from the right. The filter is shown in service position. The top valve is closed and the two lower valves are open. To bypass the filter, close the lower right valve and open the top valve. With both lower valves closed, water (unfiltered) can be sent to the home even if the filter is disabled or removed.

Getting the Lead Out

by Pure Water Annie

Pure Water Gazette tech wizard Pure Water Annie tells you how to protect your drinking water from lead.

The most common advice for removing lead from drinking water tells you to remove the source of lead. This is excellent advice, but unfortunately home owners have no control over lead entering the home from external sources.

Lead most often comes from piping. If the water supplier still has lead pipes in service, or if your home has old copper pipes with lead solder joints, that is probably your source of lead.  If you can’t remove the source, then “removing” the lead usually involves corrosion control through pH and alkalinity adjustment, adding calcium (e. g. with a calcite filter) to the water line, or using a phosphate-based corrosion inhibitor.

This sounds complicated, and it is. Most of these strategies must be done by the supplier and are outside the control of the individual home owner.

A common whole house strategy for lead removal that is sometimes recommended to home owners is using a standard ion exchange water softener. This, too, can be tricky, because flow rates have to be kept low, and often the source of lead can be in the home plumbing itself. If so, a softener, by removing the calcium from the water, can actually promote corrosion and leaching of lead and make the problem worse.

For homeowners treating lead, the best strategy is to treat only the drinking water.  Lead is an ingestion issue. It is not taken in through the skin during bathing, so if you can break your habit of drinking water from the bathtub, whole house treatment really isn’t needed.

Here you have several good options for drinking water.

Point of Use Treatment

There are carbon cartridges with excellent lead removal properties from reputable makers that can be used in countertop and undersink filters. These usually consist of a an ion exchange medium that is molded into the carbon. Such filters can be inexpensive and very effective.

Activated alumina, most often used for fluoride reduction, can be used as well for lead removal, but since its effectiveness is pH-dependent, be sure you know what you’re doing.  KDF combined with carbon has also been shown to be very effective at removing lead, but results should be verified if you’re going to trust your life to it.

Another very effective way to remove lead from drinking water is with a steam distiller.  Distillers work well, but they can be inconvenient, expensive to operate,  and  they often require lots of attention.

Without doubt, the best home treatment to assure lead-free drinking water is a reverse osmosis unit.  RO serves as an excellent lead barrier and removes 95% or so of soluble lead. RO units are relatively inexpensive and easy to maintain.

Reverse osmosis by its nature removes 95% of lead from incoming water.  RO is the most effective drinking water protection for the home.

Q

What Water Does for You

Drinking water at bedtime does more than make you pee

Hydration

Drinking a glass of water before bedtime helps the body replenish the fluids it loses during the day. The human body is mostly water, and it is vital to keep it hydrated so it works properly. The body doesn’t need to excrete a lot of fluid during sleep so providing it with water before bedtime helps it to maintain hydration.

  Water helps the body burn calories efficiently

Keeping your body well hydrated increases its metabolic efficiency and helps it maintain an ideal weight. Water is a natural calorie-burner. Many people sip ice water to burn calories and help lose weight. The belief is that cool water makes the body work double time to keep warm and this burns calories. Clearly, if you drink a lot of cold water at bedtime you will burn extra calories making trips to the bathroom.  That’s our theory, anyway.

Water helps you sleep

Drinking water naturally balances the body’s vitamins, nutrients and minerals, replenishing what it burns up during the day. Drinking water before bed balances the body’s hormones, energy levels, muscles and joints, which relaxes the body. During sleep, water has time to reach and replenish every part of the body. Many people feel that they sleep more soundly and consistently by drinking water before bed, leaving muscles, vitamins and minerals in harmony.

Water clears your body of toxins

One of the best benefits of drinking water is that it acts as a natural cleanser. The body attracts many toxins from food and the environment. Cleaning it out consistently helps keep it healthy and functioning well. Drinking water before bed will provide your body with the cleaning agent and the time to clear out your system.  The digestive tract, muscles and skin benefit from the cleansing process. Clearly, the cleanest water you can get is best at clearing your body of toxins.

Along with all of the normal health benefits of drinking water, simply having a glass before bedtime each night can have a big and positive effect on lifestyle. People find that they sleep better and have more energy.  Improved digestion, weight loss, greater alertness and a general feeling of well-being can result from a nightcap of good old H2O.

The above was adapted from an article in Water Technology magazine.

by Chanie Kirschner

I know. The Gazette has already put up half a dozen “how much water should you drink” articles, but they keep writing them so we reprint one now and then. This article is helpful if you want to know how much water someone at the Mayo Clinic who has never seen you and knows nothing about you thinks you should drink if you are pregnant and how much you should drink if you aren’t pregnant. The Gazette’s advice on the topic, and we’ve been consistent on this since they started writing ” how much water” articles, is get a drink whenever you’re thirsty. –Hardly Waite.

Everyone’s heard the old refrain — drink eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day. Turns out that’s not entirely accurate. The Mayo Clinic recommends about 13 cups a day for an average male and about nine cups a day for the average female. But the actual amount of water a person should drink in a day can vary based on where you live, how much you weigh, and what kind of lifestyle you lead.

Water makes up 60 percent of our body’s weight and is absolutely imperative for our organs to function. Since we are constantly losing water through sweat, urine and even our breath, drinking enough water is crucial. If you become dehydrated, you will lose energy and become nauseated, headache-y, and tired. Severe dehydration can even send you to the hospital so drinking an adequate amount of water is crucial to maintaining your health on a daily basis.

If you exercise, you are losing more water than the average person. Therefore, it’s important to drink water before, during and after your workout — an extra 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 cups should be sufficient for a short workout. If you’re doing prolonged exercise, like running in a marathon, you have to drink much more than that.

In the summertime or if you live in a warm climate, you’ll also need to drink more water than the recommended amount. That’s because heat can make you sweat more and lose fluids faster.

You’ll also need to drink more water than is usually recommended if you’re sick with a fever, vomiting or diarrhea. If all you’ve got is a pesky cold, drinking water can also help keep your nasal passages hydrated and prevent you from getting sicker.

Another instance where you need to drink more water? If you’re pregnant or breastfeeding. The Mayo Clinc recommended that a pregnant woman drink at least 10 cups of water a day and a nursing woman to drink 13 cups of water a day. That’s because nursing drains your body and can leave you dehydrated if you’re not drinking enough. Not to mention that adequate hydration while breastfeeding can ensure an ample milk supply. When I had my last child, the hospital lactation specialist told me to drink one cup of water each hour of the day from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. — that’s a lot of water!

How do you know if you’re drinking enough? You can count the cups you drink or you can just peek in the toilet after you pee — you should be peeing a clear or light yellow liquid. If your urine is dark yellow or cloudy, you definitely are not drinking enough.

This is a lot of water to drink for physical health, but drinking water can have an influence on your emotional health as well. A 2014 study found that, if you’re not drinking enough water, drinking more water will better your mood and increase general positive emotions. If you’re already drinking a good bit of water during the way, keep it up! The same study found that folks who drank a high amount of water over the course of the day experienced a decrease in their happiness levels if they decreased their water intake.

If water isn’t your thing, you can also safely substitute juice, milk or coffee for a cup or two a day. Since I was never a major water drinker, I like to combine 1/3 cup juice with 2/3 cup water. My husband says I like to drink juice that way because I grew up on watered-down juice from a can. Maybe. But at least it helps me meet my daily water intake goal!

Source: Mother Nature Network.

Pure Water Gazette Fair Use Statement

Water Powered Sump Pumps Can Be Major Water Wasters

In thousands and thousands of homes across the United States a plumbing product lurks, capable of carelessly wasting hundreds of gallons of water, when it’s completely unnecessary for these products to be installed.

The product is called a “water-powered sump pump.”  It is installed primarily as a backup device to a primary sump pump. In a heavy rain – flood situation – ground water under a house rises and pours into a sump pit where an electric sump pump pumps this dirty rainwater out of the basement, keeping it dry.

If the power goes out and the primary sump pump is inoperative, that’s when these water wasters kick in. They can draw up to 600 gallons of fresh drinking water per hour, pumping rising ground water up and out of the sump pit. Most water-powered sump pumps use 1 gallon of fresh water for every gallon of dirty ground water they pump out.

Based on an estimated population of 50,000 to 100,000 water-powered sump pumps in the U.S., the total fresh water consumption is estimated to be 795 million to 1.5 billion gallons per year!

It’s easy to see the completely un-necessary waste of fresh
drinking-water through the use of water-powered sump pumps.

Water powered backup pumps are unnecessary because battery powered pumps are readily available.

Hurricane Joaquin-enhanced moisture combined with another storm system and delivered more than 20 inches of rain across some parts of South Carolina in early October, 2015. More than a dozen people were killed as a result and thousands were evacuated out of flooded neighborhoods. The vast majority of locations in South Carolina experienced a once-in-50-years to once-in-200-years event over a three-day period.

Soda Ash and Caustic Soda Raise the pH of Acidic Waters:  Which Should You Use?

Two water treatment chemicals are commonly dissolved in water and fed into the residential water stream to increase pH.  They can be fed by the same equipment — a standard chemical feed pump, drawing out of a solution tank.

Here are some issues that commonly come up when deciding which to use, or when switching from one to the other.

Caustic soda is stronger than soda ash.  Ten pounds of caustic soda does the work of 13.5 pounds of soda ash.  Put another way, if you’re mix a solution using 10 gallons of water, you would need to a 5 lbs. of soda ash or 3.7  lbs. of caustic soda.

Caustic soda has the advantage of mixing to a clear solution, but it costs more than soda ash and generates a considerable amount of heat when it’s mixed with water. Soda ash always leaves a residue at the bottom of the container.  In general, soda ash is more readily available from water treatment dealers, but caustic soda can be found at pool supply stores.

Has your water been tested for perfluorooctanoic acid?  Probably Not,

Below are the opening lines of an article from the Hoosick Falls, NY  Times Union:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a statement in November 2015 warning residents in Hoosick Falls not to drink or cook with village water because of elevated levels of a toxic chemical found in the public water system last year.

In response, the village’s mayor has reversed his position, and adopted the EPA’s recommendation.

The man-made chemical, perfluorooctanoic acid, or “PFOA,” was used since the 1940s to manufacture industrial and household products such as non-stick coatings and heat-resistant wiring, including at a factory near the village water treatment plant. The chemical was discovered in the village water system last year by a private citizen, Michael Hickey, whose father, John, died of kidney cancer in 2013. PFOA has been linked to kidney and testicular cancer, as well as thyroid diseases and other serious health problems.

The EPA’s public statement was issued four days after a Times Union story reported that the state Health Department and village leaders, including Mayor David B. Borge, downplayed the health risks of PFOA in the water supply, and declined to warn people not to drink it. The story reported that many village residents, including a longtime family physician in Hoosick Falls, Dr. Marcus E. Martinez, suspected that high cancer rates and other extraordinary health problems in the village’s population may be the result of the contaminated water.

“While the EPA continues to gather information and assess the Hoosick Falls water contamination, it recommends that people not drink the water from the Hoosick Falls public water supply or use it for cooking,” the EPA’s statement said. The agency’s statement said it does not believe that showering or bathing in the water poses a risk for unsafe exposure to PFOA.

Perfluorinated Chemicals (PFCs) are a group of manufactured chemicals used in a wide range of industries and commercial products. The two most common PFCs are perfluorooctanoic acid (also known as PFOA or C8) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS). PFCs have been in use since the 1940s to make products that are water-, oil-, fire-, stain- or grease-resistant—products like Teflon®, non-stick cookware, stain-resistant carpeting and fire-extinguishing foams.

PFCs are among a group of chemicals that the EPA has labelled “emerging contaminants”—chemicals that may pose or are percieved to pose a threat to human health or the environment. PFCs are of concern because:

• They break down slowly in the environment and move about readily in air.
• They have been detected in surface water in cities throughout the U.S.
• They have been detected in the blood of as many as 98% of Americans.
• Once in the body they tend to stay there for a long period of time, about 4 years.
• They have been shown to cause developmental and other health effects in laboratory animals.

In the late 1990s it was discovered that PFOS was present in the blood of a vast majority of the American population. The  EPA met with 3M, the primary manufacturer, who agreed to phase out manufacturing of the chemical and to cease production by the year 2002. PFOA underwent a similar phase-out through an EPA “Stewardship Program” of major manufacturers that should see most emissions and use reduced significantly by the year 2015.

Human exposure may occur through diet, inhalation, or use of products containing the chemicals. The EPA reports that “fish and fishery products” appear to be a primary source.

As the Hoosick Falls article indicates, C8 and PFOA can also enter your body through drinking contaminated water.

The revelation that PFOA has long contaminated the water of Hoosick Falls clearly indicates that chemicals may be in water supplies without the knowledge of those who drink the water. PFOQ is one of literally hundreds of thousands of unregulated chemicals that are in use throughout the country.

It only makes sense to protect yourself with a point of use water filtration system whether or not there is evidence of chemical contamination.

The EPA, by the way, recommends carbon filtration or reverse osmosis as the best home treatments for PFOA.

Read the full Hoosick Falls report in the  Times Union.

More about PFCs on the Pure Water Products contaminants page.

Pure Water Gazette Fair Use Statement

The Essel World Water Kingdom in Mumbai.  India’s Largest Water Amusement Park.

Water Kingdom is Asia’s biggest water theme park and was established in 1998. Located in Gorai, Mumbai, the water park is an extension of Essel World. The water park’s incredible slides are a great attraction to tourists.Apart from the slides, rides and other fun activities, the water park also has a number of  celebrated restaurants.

Water Kingdom covers 22 acres and occupies an island.

According to a promotional brochure, “Water Kingdom has several features that attract tourists from all over the world. ‘Aquadrome’ is a unique feature at the Water Kingdom, where a dance zone of 7000 square feet is set with numerous water sprinklers. Tourists can enjoy dancing to the music while being occasionally sprayed with water from the sprinklers. The ‘Misphisly Hill’ has 12 terrifying high-adrenaline rides that are extremely popular at the water park. The ‘Drifting River’ is a loop of gently flowing water that promises a ton of excitement with slow currents, where people can relax while they float. The ‘Adventure Amazonia’ is a water ride that is truly breathtaking! Some of the other enthralling attractions here include the ‘Juicy Jammer’, ‘Turbo Terminator’, ‘Black Demon’ and ‘Lemon Drops’.”