It's ironic that the movement is flourishing in Oregon given the amount of people who died of dysentary trying to get there.
9
While it's nice that wealthy Americans can afford to purchase raw spring water in glass bottles, that is clearly not the case for a vast majority of people. I hope that people who are "water conscious" realize that we have to invest in updating our water infrastructure in order to provide EVERYONE with safe clean drinking water. This movement just highlights the growing inequality, isolationist, and individualism that curses this country. If you don't invest in systems that protect everyone, clean spring water will also become a thing of the past.
5
Mike Judge's Idiocracy was prophetic in all the wrong ways. "Water? You mean the stuff out of the toilet? But Brawndo has electrolytes!" Where is my monster truck rehabilitation already?
1
Just the fact that the water will turn green after a period of time should tell us something.
If the water turns green it sounds to me like it is very unsafe to drink. What does it do in your stomach? That is disgusting.
1
A fool and his money are soon parted ...
2
We are helping 3rd world countries get clean water and now misinformed Americans are buying it for $60? I've had Giardia - it isn't fun. I went down to 85 pounds before doctors found the Giardia parasite. I hope the bottler comes to his/her senses!
3
An article from USA Today (Aug 2017) highlights how many Americans are exposed to unsafe drinking water, and that this problem is not just limited to rural areas or areas where residents rely on private well water. The article states that findings from the EPA' Safe Drinking Water Information System show that "much of the country’s aging distribution pipes delivering the water to millions of people are susceptible to lead contamination, leaks, breaks and bacterial growth," and "Millions of Americans are also exposed to suspect chemicals the EPA and state agencies don’t regulate." These problems are expected to get worse with aging and neglected infrastructure. Add to that President Trump's pick for the head of the EPA, Scott Pruitt, and this administration's gutting of that agency and of decades old environmental safety regulations and standards meant to protect our air and water, well....connect the dots, people.
3
@Martha, I'm glad you share a common interest in updating our infrastructure. I hope you invest your time in activism with that kind of passion. Most of the people in this country can't afford raw spring water priced at over $2.50 a gallon. So, what are we going to do about it?
As P T Barnum may or may not have said, there's a sucker born every minute.
These idiots who actually pay for "live", "raw" or "unprocessed" water should ask the hurricane victims in Puerto Rico what they think.
7
I have an outdoor cat that drinks raw water from puddles in the yard. He also loves to catch rain drops with his tongue. He seems ok.
2
A cat's digestive system is around 10x more acidic than a human's, and they can eat pathogens that would make a human sick will no advesre effects
4
I wish the reporter had questioned the raw water supporters' logic, rather than passing on unchallenged dangerous information to the NYT readership. For example, this quote: "The health benefits she reported include better skin and the need to drink less water. 'My skin’s plumper,' she said. 'And I feel like I’m getting better nutrition from the food I eat.'" Did she or the reporter ever question the possibility that she feels healthier because she is simply drinking more water? These benefits could also be had by drinking more normal water. It is likely that she is more intentional about drinking water now that she has paid so much for it (especially since it turns green if you don't consume it quickly enough). I have noticed that some people in the US who have adequate access to clean drinking water take it for granted and are not mindful about drinking water and staying hydrated, so if she went out of her way to buy special water, of course she would drink more. If she drank the same amount of normal water as raw water that she's been drinking, would she feel the same health benefits (would need to ensure the placebo effect is not an issue too)?
I think the reporter should have presented more counter arguments to what the supporters have been touting. In its current state, a reader could read the quotes from Dr. Hensrud warning about the risks of untreated water, then be drawn to the prospect of better skin and disregard the doctor's warnings.
10
I am also really interested about what is actually in our drinking water - sometimes I can get a bit freaked out about it! I like to think I'm drinking pure H2O but that's rarely the case.. I found this flouride map super useful actually https://www.waterlogic.com/en-us/resources/fluoride-level-map on the Waterlogic website. Helps get an insight into how much flouride is in our water supplies and theres lots of other interesting information too! :)
NYC DEP publishes an annual water quality report. For 2016, skip to page 15 for the numbers.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/pdf/wsstate16.pdf
1
Most bottled water is tap water, at least 50%. Why pay for all this?
I've only now come across this article, so I'm a bit behind the curve (I read it in the International print edition of the Times, which I'm only now catching up with after the holidays). My main reaction: hundreds of thousands (millions?) of people in the world have no access to clean, safe water at all. Often they have to carry it on foot over long distances (this task tends to fall to the women). Hundreds of thousands (millions?) fall sick to unnecessary diseases because they have no access to sanitation. In America too, many people lack access to clean, unpolluted sources of water; and if Pruitt at the EPA has his way, that number will increase.
I'm also greatly bothered by Mr. Friesen's comment: "No matter how wealthy or poor you are, you can take a breath and own that air that you breathe. And yet water — the government brings it to you.” Actually, there is a distinct correlation between poverty and living in areas of polluted air and water. Without government regulation, that will never change. In fact, that (among other things) is what government is for: to "promote the general welfare".
In the light of all this, the preposterous activities these privileged California yuppies (is that term still in use?) are engaged in seems to be something of a social obscenity.
18
I would have loved this article to include more insightful and thoughtful remarks like this within its content. Some of the ridiculous claims these conspiracy theorist make are cringeworthy to no end. Could filtration systems be improved? Yes. Should we drink dysentery water instead? I think I'll pass.
3
Would love to know the carbon footprint per gallon for these boutique waters.
8
"Juicero's" Doug Evans, trespasses on private property to steal water that he then sells in who-knows-how-clean a container at festivals?
If people are going to buy stolen water from an apparent con man who trespasses, they deserve the stomach aches they are going to get. Just like the Juicero consumer's deserved to be scammed.
12
Sounds great until one person gets giardia
5
You want raw water? Move out to the developing world, where not quite 800 million people "enjoy" it daily...and wish they didn't have to.
13
Great! Darwinism at its best. There are plenty of examples worldwide of people drinking 'RAW' water...and they get it for free.
2
That's some pricey Cholera
11
Years ago in the Boy Scouts we went camping in the mountains of northern New Mexico near a stream. Some of us thought we could drink the water out of the stream but our Scoutmaster who had had survival training in the Air Force told us we had to boil it first. He said there was no telling what bacteria were in the water, including from dead animals. So we boiled it and none of us got sick.
Years later, living in Kabul, Afghanistan as a diplomat I and my family received weekly deliveries of potable water from the USAID compound's deep wells. It was deemed safe because it came from 600 feet down, below the city water table which was considered contaminated with untreated sewage and waste. We did not get sick.
Even later, living in Warsaw, Poland most of the embassy staff ordered bottled water from the military commissary in Frankfurt. It was expensive. My wife and I drew water from deep wells south of the city that had been checked by the World Health Organization and approved. Each time we filled enough containers to last us two weeks. We did not become ill.
People who believe they can drink "raw" water and live healthfully must also believe in the tooth fairy. If they knew how millions of people in Africa and Asia walk many miles with containers to obtain "safe" water, knowing that they might still have to boil or otherwise sterilize it, they might not be so carefree and vain about consuming "raw" water.
16
This should be a self-correcting kind of thing.
Where are we at now on the raw milk thing?
5
I guess the good news is that this movement will have obvious and potentially immediate consequences (i.e., people getting very, very sick). As a public health practitioner, this is obviously ridiculous, but no more ridiculous than the anti-vaccine, anti-fluoride conspiracy theories that have been going around for years. This is symptomatic of a level of entitlement around health in this country that approaches the absurd. We are lucky in this country to have safe drinking water. Many millions of people do not, and suffer because of it.
15
Cholera is real.
6
You want water from the air? Run an air conditioner outside and put a bucket under it to catch the condensation from the compressor coils. This doesn't work in most deserts, though.
You can also force air through troughs set in the ground at night, and collect the dew that way.
1
The latest example of Silicon Valley (and capitalism) solving the wrong problem.
Anyone remember the number of individuals in the world without access to safe drinking water? (No, "raw water" does not count.) I'll jog your memory: it is nine figures.
8
One of the main sources of this kind of thinking is the aversion (even hatred) a lot of people feel about mathematics. If the impurities in water or any other substance we eat and drink is a tiny amount (perhaps a fraction of 1%), these people will still say, "Oh, it has impurities in it!"
They fail to realize that for most of human history and prehistory, people ate and drank stuff that we would all be revolted by today, and yet they survived. (Yes, some didn't, but most survived, or the human species wouldn't have continued.) The human body (and species before us) evolved to tolerate a pretty wide variation in the "healthiness" of what we take in.
Eat and drink a fairly good, standard diet and you'll be OK, except for those people who do have real medical problems (such as diabetes, which I have). Just stay away from diet soda and the other stuff Trump loves. (And for some strange reason, he has survived that diet for quite a while. This shows how tough the human body can be.)
How do you think we massively increased life expectancy?
1
This water is as clean as the last animal who made a stop at that "spring" after all that is the cycle in nature. We have learned the hard way that while the addition of chemicals is taking us away from the truly pure water utopia, it has contributed to a lower incidence of bacterial infection and childhood illnesses - a compromise for sure but one that has documented benefits for the population at large.
And... make sure that no one is fracking upstream, of course.
3
Meh, dunno about this. In my experience we've always boiled raw water before drinking it. The one time I let my guard down was when I drank from an Alpine, glacial stream in Europe from which I had food poisoning for the next 24 hours. Not fun. I'll stick to my filtered NY tap.
6
I actually thought this was satire at first.
As I read further, I thought maybe I had accidentally clicked on the USA Today, and was reading some sort of infomercial puff piece.
Not until more than half way through did I begin to see some counter claims by people who actually have expertise in water safety. Is this the fair, unbiased search for the truth that AG Sulzberger just promised us?
15
I spent 18 years proudly drinking my "raw water," direct from my well beneath the Northwest Woods of East Hampton, NY, a non-agricultural area that we felt would be free from the pesticides that plagues other local areas. With a house situated over the largest aquifer in the western hemisphere, we were mindful not to use any pesticides and happily lived with brown grass. Recently, we've discovered that we've been drinking from wells contaminated by PFOA and PFOS, both of which are volatile organics closely linked to auto-immune diseases, of which I have 3, one of which required a lung resection. So, this "raw water" movement is so misguided and ill-informed and risky-stupid. We've installed a 5' tall carbon filtration system, and I still hesitate to drink from my own tap. Some of this "artisanal" movement is just so much marketing. And to fall for it is as ignorant as parents who do not vaccinate their children.
18
Wow. The desire to be pretentious overrides the desire to live. Raw is a nice way to say possibly deadly.
18
Even though I've lived in Los Angeles since I was a toddler and I consider myself a Californian, the small part of me that was born in the South is rolling my eyes and shaking my head at the "hippies" in this story.
3
If the insufferable techies want to thin out their ranks, so be it.
5
The idea of using the solar panels to get clean water has applications and implications for public health and drinking water worldwide. It seems like a viable if possibly cost prohibitive option for developing countries to have a unit available (much like ancient cisterns used by older civilizations to collect rainwater for use) and for communities strapped for clean drinking/potable water. I'd love to see more research and engineering ideas in getting clean water to masses and helping out folks in drought conditions rather than go only to those privileged enough for $40-60 gallons of water that expires. The rest of the raw water craze just seems like a money grab that capitalizes on general public fears for what we put in our bodies without the evidence or rationale. Better to put that cash towards a clean water/health sanitation charity. I agree fresh drinking water from a clean source is good if you know the source and how to filter it or boil it first even if it tastes great straight - who knows what contaminants are unseen...plus disease causing bacteria if not too careful.
5
Dangers few have noted here:
Bottled water means water removed, ecosystems dewatered, land subsidence, dust storms, energy cost in moving the water. Also is a threat to public water since purchasing bottled water supports privatization of water - not merely a commodity but essential to life.
Yes the plastic bottles are a problem but that isn't even the start.
Here in Arizona, Nestle bottling in Phoenix concerns many of us. But commercial water bottling is not new even here in the desert.
Recent news from water thirsty California's San Bernadino Forest here:
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2015/nestle-10-13...
5
There's a reason why the civilized world created water purification plants. Because people can die from drinking "raw water". There's deadly micro-organisms in certain bodies of water that eat living tissue.. a.k.a. your intestines. The fact of the matter is- you don't know what's in the water. If you want to be a guinea pig- by all means.. but any actual survivalist knows, if you are going to drink from a natural body of water- YOU HAVE TO BOIL IT FIRST AND YOU CAN ONLY DRINK THE CONDENSATION.
7
If the New York Times was actually interested in engaging with and reporting on clean water issues, and not just hyping the senseless paranoia of a few extremely privileged members of society, Ms. Bowles might have considered mentioning in her article that there are many people (in America, lest we forget) who have legitimate reasons to be concerned with the quality of their water. The water crisis in Flint, Michigan is still ongoing, and that is in every way more deserving of the Times' resources, attention, and ink, digital or otherwise. By all means, report on water issues. They're important, and access to safe drinking water will only become more important as the climate changes. But please, report on water issues in a way that is more socially aware and demonstrates an understanding of the truly minuscule importance of this dimension of clean water access. Not putting this issue into a global, or even a national, perspective is insulting to the people whose lives are actually put at risk due to a lack of clean drinking water. Why not engage with and promote dialogue around those stories instead?
14
"Smart "people acting stupid.
5
Let them drink their raw water. By the time they realize how stupid they are, there will be fewer of them polluting our gene pool.
6
Propaganda. Tap water stinks, contains many drugs, legal and illegal. Nothing beats raw water from the clouds - rain or snow. I have been drinking raw water for years, including from mountain streams, and never got sick. This article is just another piece of fake facts.
So the guy behind Juicero, one of the biggest swindles in tech history, is a "prominent proponent" of this equally idiotic thing? Shut up and take my money!
10
Pinch me. I thought I was dreaming. "Raw water?" So that's what they're now calling fresh water. I live in the rural area of Central Alberta, Canada. We draw our water from a well, and it's crystal clear, gentle on the pallet, with a hint of a water taste. The bouquet is smooth and is best appreciated after sloshing it around in a cup, or whatever container is closest at hand. Not to mention it does not turn green when sitting on the counter, well past one lunar cycle. If your bottled water turns green that indicates algae growth fed by nutrients such as cow poop or sewage. Algae growth is most evident to the naked eye during the dog days of summer when a lake, or pond, bordering municipalities or intensive livestock operations, sprouts algae blooms. Let's take a closer look at spring water. What's its source? In most instances its glacial melt. We have these awesome ice packs exposed to who-knows-what being spewed into our atmosphere. Lots of garbage wafting around up there contributing to global warming. And those carcinogens, and just about any "gens" you can think of, are settling on the glaciers cleverly hidden in snow or rain. Not to mention visible spring water is exposed to the same elements. Pure water with an expiry-date? Seriously? It does make sense if one is consuming raw, bottled water laced with cow poop or human sewage, and requires consumption before it turns green, or before the next lunar cycle - whichever comes first. Cheers. Next round is on me.
15
Clearly these foolish, spoiled, clueless people have never been to a place where you have to keep your lips tightly pursed closed during a shower
(if you're lucky enough to even take a shower,) so as not to contract cholera (post earthquake Haiti,) or to a place where drinking the water will give you neurological damage (Flint, MI.) Please stop reporting on such nonsense!!!!!
8
Fyi water is a chemical, H2O, as is everything else.
How to make a big business out of nothing, where there is no need.
NYT business section last year.
3
Anyone who wants to pay me $5 for a bottle of water from my well, step right up. This story reminds me of the ones a while back about people lining up to buy broth. I can make that with my "raw" water, too.
1
This is really the height of cognitive dissonance. But kudos to the marketing gurus that have succeeded in making people with high disposable income paranoid enough about the public water supply to spend $37 for a 5 gallon jug of spring water. I am sure they are doing somersaults and cartwheels all the way to their bank.
6
Wait, wait, wait. Let me get this straight. The man who tried to fleece venture capitalists and consumers out of millions with his Juicero almost-scam is now shilling for this "raw water" nonsense? (Please, please check out the Bloomberg video that showed that his "special juice packages" could be squeezed with bare hands, completely negating any benefit from the "Juicero machines" he was selling to the credulous for $500 a pop. He claimed that his "special juice packages" could only be squeezed by his obscenely expensive machine. LOL.)
Why am I not surprised?
The odd thing is that there are 1 billion or so people in the world who would love nothing more than to have their local government/municipality pipe clean, filtered, fluoridated water right into their homes. Now there are people with too much money to play with who have lost all common sense and are ready to take their rabidly anti-government message to the masses, starting with this "raw water" nonsense.
The centralized system of water run by experts whose careers are devoted completely to providing clean, disease-free water to millions of homes has built up and sustained civilization for almost 150 years. These centralized publicly-owned systems have reliably saved hundreds of millions of lives over that century and a half. There's nothing wrong with these systems.
If it's not broken, don't fix it. Why do these people intend to destroy systems that have proven to be so great for humanity?
14
Worried about fluoride?
What the John Birch Society now has millennia members?
1
Live near Memphis which has an Artesian water supply most cities would kill for. The water is bottled and sold elsewhere and has been rated the sweetest in the world:
http://www.waterworld.com/articles/print/volume-19/issue-11/washington-u...
"Memphis sands water is so pure when it comes from the approximately 250 wells in the Memphis area, Anderson said, that it has only to be aerated to eliminate iron and dissolved gases. The water is then filtered and subsequently submitted to chlorination and fluoridation, which is required by law for public drinking water but not for industrial use."
Despite this, people buy bottled water from all over when what comes from the tap is better than what is available in most of the world.
Lots of voodoo out there in the health, food and diet market.
4
If the price of snake oil is high enough people will buy it. I didn’t see a single “list of ingredients” or water analysis.
The purest water (H2O) is what is used in your car battery, not dangerous but utterly tasteless. Rain water has no minerals and is soft water. Reverse osmosis filtered water is dead water as everything, minerals included is filtered out.
Water that is made out of thin air and has a shelf life of one moon cycle is voodoo water.
Meanwhile ... the Trump admin has just reversed protections that would have protected one of our country's purest fresh water sources - the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness watershed - from copper sulfide mining pollution. A tragedy happening before our eyes:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/midwest/ct-minnesota-boun...
3
Raw water? Probiotics in water? Give me a break. I know alot about water, having had a pharmaceutical grade water filtration system in my apartment. Ion exchange tank, that is all I have to say. I measured the TDS regularly (000 ppm TDS) and I could taste when the tank needed to be changed. Also I have tried Kangen alkaline water. It is legit, as long as it is from the Kangen machine and not a knock-off machine. I know someone who started growing hair back on his head from drinking Kangen water regularly. I personally lost a clothing size overnight after drinking a copious amount of Kangen water and now years later, it hasn't come back. If these people really wanted to know what was in the "raw" water, they would send a sample to be analyzed by a lab. They may be surprised. Also I have some experience with structured water, in which the oxygen and hydrogen molecules are bonded at certain angles, which supposedly makes it easier for your cells to uptake. That is done by a little machine I have. Point of use water filtration delivers the most filtered water for the cheapest amount of money. Anything can be filtered out of water, even radiation, you just need the correct filter medium for the specific pollutant. I think these people are a bit foolish. However, the quality of water one drinks is important.
Quotes from these raw water loonies read like they're straight out of a Bluff the Listener segment on NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me.
Hip hip for tap water!
1
First, if you believe that Fluoride is added to water as a mind-control agent, then Yes you are a conspiracy theorist and you should not be trusted to anything related to public health. Second, when the deaths start, the people running these companies who make health claims are going to face manslaughter charges. It will end well for nobody.
2
We have broken Natural Selection because of our safety nets, Emergency Rooms and care for the reckless and stupid among us. More and more people disregard carefully discovered Scientific truths for reasons of their own choosing. Fine. Let them be. Let them have the "Freedom" to make their own choices and live or die by those choices. A better society will Evolve from their absence. And yes, Evolution is another thing they " don't believe in ". Whatever.
Natural selection is a pretty persistent force.
Do you want cholera?
Because this is how you get cholera.
2
I spent two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Panama drinking "raw water" from my community's aqueduct that brought it from a natural spring. In my second year, I got lazy about filtering and boiling the water and got amebic dysentery. It took three days in a hospital and multiple medications to kill the amoebas. Anyone who willingly drinks untested and untreated spring water, when they have access to safe tap water, is not making a logical decision.
17
I live in an area where there is no piped county water and everyone (tens of thousands of people) either have a well (not many) or rain catchment (most). The people do not consider themselves special; they mostly consider obtaining healthy and adequate water a big chore. Most 'raw' water needs to be filtered and UV'd to be safe for the majority of people. This is not a story about the future of water, it's a fluff, vanity piece for the young and rich and those who take advantage of them.
6
Except they aren't being "taken advantage of." There have been numerous studies out for decades showing that tap water, in most cases, is perfectly safe to drink and this is nothing but marketing gimmickry. People are deliberately ignorant and waste their money on it anyway, in growing numbers.
In the US, we have a well and the water is definitely better and tastes more robust. And it will grow green after a while. But we do run it through a filter and have it tested periodically. The rest of the benefits, and the hazards of municipal tap water, seem greatly exaggerated.
4
All the well water near me tastes like roots. Very earthy and metallic. I do not like it at all.
1
Jeeez, people. Just do what backpackers and S&R teams have done for the last dozen years, use a Sawyer Squeeze. All it does is filter out bacteria and protozoa, leaves everything else there including the smell. Of course, adding a carbon filter to it would take care of that as well. No added chemicals and all the nasties removed. Of course, if $30 is too expensive for you to tear your $60 carboy of water, just boil it. Why take the chance? People who live and work in the outdoors don't.
6
I'm constantly astonished by those who buy filtered water- I live near a Water Store and watch Marinites trundling their carboys out to their cars. That Detroit distributed bottles water to its residents when a simple under- or over- counter filter could have delivered safe water at a fraction of the cost without the waste of plastic.
Does filtering remove beneficial minerals? Does it matter? I for one do not drink water for its minerals (not do I drink the requisite pool-full as required by fitness and other "experts" with no physiologic training.
Worse, one of these "living water" vendors sells boxes of water in polypropylene bladders https://risingspringssource.com
3
In the interest of human health and safety this article should have had a LOT more space devoted to the dangers of untreated water.
Yes, there are problems with existing water treatment. It's a science that is constantly developing and improving. But the problems are minuscule compared to the dangers of untreated "pure", "living" water.
The understanding of how tainted water serves as a disease vector and how treatment can vastly reduce that problem is probably the single greatest medical discovery in increasing the human lifespan, followed by vaccinations.
Do we really want to go back to the days of tuberculosis killing our teens and 20-somethings while our children die of cholera?
This article reads like an advertisement for bottled water businesses with only a token bit of "journalism" tucked in way below the fold hinting at the dangers. It is downright irresponsible and when these water companies start to be sued for spreading diseases I hope the plaintiffs will cast an eye back on this article and the NY Times for printing it.
Here's a little something on cholera -
"Cholera, largely eliminated from industrialized countries by water and sewage treatment over a century ago, still remains a significant cause of illness and death in many African countries."
https://www.cdc.gov/cholera/africa/index.html
A few other diseases-
Amoebiasis
Botulism
Dysyntery
Salmonellosis
Typhoid
SARS
Poliomyelitis
22
You’re correct that untreated water can be a disease vector, or rather that water treatment has been fundamental to preventing the spread of waterborne disease.
I’m not a proponent of raw water or live water or whatever they want to call it. But it’s unlikely these vendors will spread disease because the sources (springs or reservoirs) are not likely to be contaminated with cholera, TB, typhoid, or the really nasty bugs.
I think I’m ok with their ignorance b cause unlike anti-vaxxers who can affect herd immunity, this lot is just laying way too much for water and will only make themselves ill on occasion. I can’t see how it’s scalable enough to impact anyone except dumb affluent folks.
1
Somehow, people have taken an awful idea to start with - bottled water- and made it worse. I thought the raw milk movement was one of the dumbest, most dangerous, movements but this might take the cake.
Though the article describes two different ideas. Technology like Zero Water to produce clean water through condensation isn’t the worst idea though absurdly expensive and wholly unnecessary outside remote areas. (Pro tip, distilled water is .99 cents a gallon at the store. Protip 2 - don't actually buy bottle water to drink.)
This “raw” water movement is insane, and insanely expensive, and could have any number of contaminants. And shipping *any* bottled water is an environmental disaster. Just see the video video The Story of Bottled Water - https://storyofstuff.org/movies/story-of-bottled-water/ Calling it “raw” doesn’t make it any better.
Fun fact - fluoride *naturally occurs* in many public water supplies, is safe, and has improved dental health. So which is it, do they want raw untreated water -fluoride and all - or to purify their own water?
What we really need is additional investment in our public water supply infrastructure, and environmental regulation to ensure all public water sources are clean and safe. Let's prevent another Flint, not ship "raw" water all over the country.
But bottom line - with a few notable exceptions, just drink tap water.
10
Raw milk isn't bad if you own your own cows or know the person who owns them. You have to take precautions but if you do, it can be great.
What a contrast in water stories. Star Tribune reports that a rural county refuses state-paid well testing because they fear that tests will show that farming practices are poisoning wells. http://www.startribune.com/test-our-water-brown-county-says-no-thanks/46.... NYT missed the boat, promoted a business and did not address the foolishness of "live" water - are there dead hydrogen and dead oxygen molecules binding together in Silicon Valley?
4
I admire the quality of the New York Times, so this article was a *huge* disappointment. By quoting non-scientists you are basically giving voice to unfounded conspiracy theories. Just because someone goes by the title "silicon valley entrepreneur" doesn't give them any reasons to be trusted. Indeed, if your reporter had taken the time to look a little deeper into Doug Evans of the Juicero company, she would have learned that there are many questions about his scientific claims about his ill-fated product. As for Mr. Battle, he's no longer on the LinkedIn Board since LinkedIn was acquired by Microsoft over a year ago (https://techcrunch.com/2016/12/08/microsoft-officially-closes-its-26-2b-.... I read the NYT to get away from all the fake news out there - please don't add to it (and risk getting people sick) by writing about fake water.
10
I am a chemist specializing in water treatment, including potable water. I have worked all over the country, and seen water analysis information from regulated municipal and unregulated sources (private wells and surface water). Every source is different, and if you are supplied federally regulated treated water you can read your own abbreviated Safe Drinking Water Act annual report about the water quality you consume.
Yes--treated water often contains halogenated byproducts resulting from side reactions of naturally occurring organic compounds and chlorine. These compounds have been shown, under certain conditions, to be carcinogenic.
This why they are regulated. Municipalities have to measure these compounds, and work to minimize them through filtration, pre-flocculation, and pre-oxidation of the incoming organics prior to disinfection. (See your annual report!)
I present this information only so you can understand that disinfection is the single greatest disease reduction agent in human history. There are other methods employed, and you should understand how your local water is treated.
You should also have an understanding of the pH, alkalinity, hardness and all the other minerals, including iron, manganese, lead, arsenic and even uranium (mostly western sources) of the water you consume.
Consuming water, without source information as above, whether you have a private well or municipally provided water, is not recommended.
23
Vit C, that is the key. For either killing parasites in Artesian water or ridding Chlorine from Tap water. Municipal systems have much to gain from substituting Ascorbic Acid for Chlorine. Not only will it kill bacteria the same as Cl but also will not combine with organics to produce carcinogenic halogenated byproducts ... which we all drink from our tap.
Thank you, this was so helpful.
This is one of the very few intelligent and informed comments that I have seen in response to this article. It's obvious that very few people commenting here have any real knowledge about ground vs surface water, about water testing parameters, or about what they're talking about. While water disinfection and treatment are necessary in some areas, many (though not all) people in the U.S. consume private well water, both treated and untreated, that is perfectly good water, while many (though not all) people that consume treated municipal water are consuming a myriad of chemicals and contaminants and they don't even know what's in the water they're drinking. As for myself, like many people living in a rural area with no municipal water supply, I have a private well and have the water tested regularly, and I'm fortunate to have very good water and have never had my well run dry.
1
I've been consuming a raw food diet for seven years. Most of my plants are purchased at local farmer's markets. I buy from farms that harvest the plants and put them in a box, and sell them unprocessed. This food has dirt and mud and bugs all over it. I just clean it up with a good washing and consume it raw. My diet is extreme. No processed food, no dairy, no rice, no gluten, no eggs, no animal based products of any kind. I only consume the highest quality alkaline spring water that I can purchase. And I read water quality reports.
I have realized nothing short of miraculous results on my diet. My diet has changed the trajectory of my life. I look and feel 25 years younger. And my cognitive function is better than when I was in my twenties.
I have never been sick one day in the past seven years. But I do take some precautions. I consume fresh raw organic garlic cloves numerous times per day, and always as an after dinner mint. I make fresh raw organic garlic juice, which I gargle with after each meal.
I could not imagine consuming a conventional meal or drinking tap water at this point in my life.
Too the point, the sum total of the fluids you consume is as important as the air you breathe. Pay attention. Be wise about how you choose your fluids. Your long term health will depend on it. I probably wouldn't drink raw water. I don't need it, because I consume raw, organic plants that are very much alive.
3
Move to a third world country. you can have all the raw water you want for free!
This is great satire. You sound just like some orthorexia sufferer. Beware the dihydrogen monoxide poisoning!
2
Hey pro-science crowd, unless you don't believe what the great NYTimes themselves are reporting - our tap water everywhere is pretty sick.
Just read these articles, the evidence is crystal clear.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/toxic-waters/index.html
But if you don't trust fake news, submit your tap water for chemical analysis by an independent lab and see if you want to still drink it after reading the report.
2
I wonder what the women in parts of Africa who risk their lives getting water for their families would think of this movement.
16
Just buy a Berkey filter and get over yourselves...
1
Some baby is going to die because their parents think giardia is a probiotic. What are you doing, NYT, devoting 90% of the article to how amazing this is and sort of mumbling at the end, "Oh, yeah, this may or may not be safe."
24
The tag on the bottle of water in the illustration says "use by 1204 19 (sic), but Mr Singh said his Live Water should be discarded after a few months. Eleven months is much more than a few. Green water, anyone?
4
Oh look! A bunch of people that need to play The Oregon Trail.
*You Have Died From Dysentery*
Paranoia is treatable.
26
There's a sucker born every minute.
20
Reverse osmosis works for me.
4
"water consciousness movement"
It's sad to see how crooked people rip people off their hard earned money selling them snake oil.
9
LOL in the time of Cholera.
17
Some people's children....I'll take water forced through .01-02 micron wide holes thank you very much. Only once in my life have I ever actually drank straight from the earth. It was in a very steep cascade of a stream at just below 11,000 feet. And even then, I was a little nervous about it. I have known far too many people who got giardia from drinking unfiltered water. Gravity filters and Life Straws are defiantly the way to go if you want drink water you come across out in nature.
8
Of course Silicon Valley's Doug "I Hustled Juicero" Evans is involved. Spit my tea out when I hit the part about his "under dark of night" searches for springs.
And the Bay Area landscape designer who claims, thanks to the untreated water, "I feel like I’m getting better nutrition from the food I eat.” People really say things like this in the Bay Area.
14
Every year the homeless population in rich San Francisco increases. Misery and luxury side by side. Now we have raw water thriving along the impoverished many. What about launching raw poverty, raw selfishness to match ?
10
And the market for air direct from the source?
2
The author couldn't help adding in parens that there is plenty (evidence) to show it (fluoride) aids in dental health. Way to go! Just repeat the propaganda without any research. A recent study financed by the NIH has proven that infants exposed to fluoride experience a decrease in IQ levels. Is the neurotoxicity, endocrine disrupting (thyroid, diabetes), effect of adding a bioaccumulative toxin to our water a crime? Yes. Some of us are working to stop this criminal action.
https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/ehp655/
“However, researchers could not rule out the impact of unmeasured variables...” This one study is not conclusive enough to make such blanket conclusions.
I grew up drinking a lot of spring water straight from the spring but even I am smart enough to know untreated water carries risks not found in properly treated water. I've had gardia from accidentally ingesting "Raw Water' on a white water run last summer. Its no fun.
Our aging infrastructure is in need of major upgrading and repairs. A lot of municipal water tastes awful and too often is discolored from rusty or broken pipes. I'm not sure how that gets fixed with the GOP giving billionaires and corporations huge tax breaks but it needs to be done.
The fools who approach water like they do vaccines will eventually find why we need to treat water but I doubt they'll smarten up soon when the appeal of snakeoil salesmen like Alex Jones or Rush Limbaugh is strong. Google is not a an actual research tool that needs no second guessing. Sadly they are likely to sicken, possibly kill, their children, as they are already doing by refusing to vaccinate, with their refusal to do actual homework on the subject falling under the sway of the con men pushing "Raw Water" .
5
This sounds like a bunch of liberal fanatics trying to make money off of a lot of people's fears. The only possible drawback to tap water is that it is so cheap, and possibly the taste. Which can easily and cheaply be corrected with a filter. Buy designer water and waste a lot of money, and possibly ruin your health. It's your choice.
Many years ago, I came across an article in the French communist journal l'Humanite. The story came out of Italy where the author had done a study about those responsible for water fluoridation, its harmful effects on people, and the true reason for it.
This took place about the time John Birchers in the States were decrying fluoridation as part of a communist plot. In Italy though, as one might have guessed, poisoning the water with harmful chemicals was clearly a capitalist conspiracy to manipulate people.
1
Well water can be just as good or better, than spring water, just depending on where it is...like, are there livestock up the nearest creek...or old bullet factories... stuff like that. Also mineral content...too much iron not nice, etc. Being Well-to-Do could take on new meanings from this new trend.
1
As with the anti vaccine movement, this is a dangerous fad. All these "adepts" of "raw" water should absolutely visit communities and cities where untreated water is the norm. Their romantic picture of untreated water will come closer to the raw sewage one... This is not to say that people should push for laws, research and initiatives for making water safe and accessible. But in this case, in particular, "natural" can be extremely dangerous. There are many international organizations who fight every day to curb the deaths caused by untreated water around the globe. Why think smth like that is desirable?!
8
But remember there is no bubble out there, just people able to pay $10 for a glass of water.
1
This discussion is emblematic of a post truth society. Welcome to brave new world 2.0.
4
If these so-called "digerati" had any moral compass they'd be considering ways to implement beneficial technology in the communities that need them. Why not conduct a pilot of the Source systems in Flint MI?
5
NEVER under estimate the power of marketing and contrarian ideas. There is a dark anti-science, pro -conspiracy movement in this country. This is what happens when people get everything handed to them and run out of things to ask for! There's something wrong with the American psyche! I live in N.E. PA in the middle of nowhere, no industry, no farming, closest neighbor half a mile, no big cities, our well is 250 feet deep through solid rock, without question best water I ever tasted! Clear, ice cold and tests as free as water can of organics. For years we pulled our without filtering, 2 years ago after putting on an addition the plumber talked us into adding a basic whole house filter - after 6 months I changed the filter and found a once white filter turned brown, my wonderful water was full of minerals that I didn't need or want. I would never consider going back to drinking our "live" water direct from the well on a regular basis! There's is a reason that humans have evolved (some of us) and flourished, it's called technology and it really does help us to maintain a better life. For those willing to experiment with "live water" buy plenty of toilet paper, you are going to need it!
4
I'll be interested in these consumers opinion of Raw Water after the first outbreak of cholera of the 21st century in the US. How will they feel after watching loved ones die of diarrhea & dehydration from drinking raw water that was contaminated by fecal material?
3
San Francisco is known for having 'Hetch Hetchy Water' but the reservoir only accounts for 25% of the total surface storage in the system. About 85% of SF water comes from the Tuolumne River Watershed, but this includes the Cherry, Eleanor and Don Pedro reservoirs in addition to Hetch Hetchy. San Francisco does not need Hetch Hetchy, and can work to provide safe and reliable drinking water without flooding Yosemite Valley's lesser-known twin http://www.hetchhetchy.org/not_one_drop_of_water
This is off-the-grid taken to crazy. Another version of Peter Thiel and his billionaire ilk buying citizenship in New Zealand.
Those of us who get our water from wells know this is ridiculous. We test our water every few years. "Natural" does not mean benign.
That said, I will say that since we put in a sediment filter to reduce the lime--calcium, scale, etc, which wreaks havoc on appliances--our water doesn't taste as good. Minerals contribute to taste.
I can almost get the concept of wanting water that is "natural" but these people don't realize that, although there are good minerals and bacteria, its impossible to separate the exact things that are good for us and remove the ones that are not.
If you pull water from a well, that might be "natural" or "raw" but you'll likely get the same harmful materials and bacteria in that groundwater. You could use a filter to remove most sentiment but not all materials. You could also use UV light to kill bacteria but this means all bacteria so your water is not "probiotic" anymore (just eat some yogurt for that). You could also use UV-C LEDs to disinfect the water if you're worked about mercury used in common UV lamps.
1
Y'all realise we invented water treatment systems for a reason, right?
71
We need to get away from bottled water. Tap water is fine, and if an area has poor tap water, they should turn to the government. While our 21st century government would rather quiery sports players about steroids or seek investigations into who is hacking who, it is their job to produce clean tap water. Bottled water from Springs is wrong; we are drinking the waters that farmers around the world rely on for agriculture, that animals rely on for survival. Tired of the unfettered marketing for bottled water and the ridiculous lemmings that comply.
31
The lead comments indicate a laudable style with skepticism and humor.
Don’t, however, overlook the trace amounts ( homeopathic) of drugs, chemicals and herbicides accumulating in our water supply.
The springs , unfortunately, eventually get some of these too, depending on the geology, location and age of the spring water.
Another oft overlooked correlation is between Red States and water quality. Most red states drink treated sewerage water whilst the blues have more primary water sources.
Check it out.
1
'Raw water' is yet another exhibit in how spoiled we are as a nation. Outside of places like Flint, MI (whose issues are the result of political choices), generations of Americans have been able to get safe, drinkable water on demand. There are many places in the world where that isn't the case today.
Instead of appreciating easy, safe, and cheap water, the anti-science 'all natural' crowd is finding ways to bring back diseases like Cholera. Between this and the anti-vaxxers, we're getting front row seats to get re-acquainted with the diseases of the 18th and 19th centuries.
22
If anyone wants to buy my unfiltered and un-softened well water, please let me know. I'll include any incidental sediment for FREE!
10
I prefer my Raw Water with a dash of Cholera
27
The obvious problem is that water can become contaminated in an instant - an animal dies, chemicals leak, bacteria invade. The only way to prevent the effects is treatment for the possibilities that would go undetected. The results of lack of treatment have demonstrated consequences:(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkerton_E._coli_outbreak).
11
Lots of people are off the water "grid". About 15% of Americans have a private well. And those of use with private wells know they are a double-edged sword. Immune to "grid" issues but susceptible to contamination both man-made and natural. For example, our water has a very high iron content, which - while not harmful - must be filtered out or suffered (pink underwear, anyone?)
There are a lot of people who slept through Science class in elementary school, apparently. They tell me that the minerals in "mineral water" are absorbed into the body (almost none) and "essential" and "much better" than - say - distilled water, which is "bad". Just looking at the explanations for the "badness" of drinking distilled/Reverse Osmosis water makes my head hurt. Poppycock. I think I will file this story in with the Gwyneth Paltrow "Goop" pseudo-science - along with the magic Jade Ladies Eggs
67
Yes, water from our well in Maine has Radon, Arsenic, and high levels of Iron and Manganese. We have to have it softened and treated before it's safe to drink. Drinking it raw would be exposing ourselves to an increased risk of cancer, plus it smells terrible raw.
30
Its also not a bad idea to by a filter for you own tap water. I lived in a building with old pipes that on occasion gave you some rust.
I also have well water in Maine, but I don't have it continually tested. If you did some research on Tourmaline Spring from Maine (and not the other company from from Oregon)- you would have known that they show all lab analysis and have been approved by two regulatory agencies to bottle their water untreated due to the purity of the water. They also show you the source. I say that is pretty transparent. I guess you must be thinking of water from a stream? I certainly wouldn't drink water from a stream and I hope your drinking water is tested to your satisfaction. I will continue to drink the best water in Maine-Tourmaline Spring
The San Fran-based company, Brondell, makes a reverse osmosis filter system and a few other water filtration products too. I've had my own RO system for a while and can't recommend it enough. The water tastes better and I feel more energized after drinking it, if that is possible. You'll never get 'pure water' but this is as pure as it gets!
1
Do you check for pathogens or dangerous chemicals? I would imagine your type of water is considerably less problematic (or not problematic at all) versus the untreated ground sources.
I've had a Berkey in the kitchen and Watersticks filter in my shower for years. Good options if you don't own your home.
Not all "ground water" is good. Particularly, when under a City. San Francisco decided that the least expensive real estate district in the City could test out blending ground water drawn from beneath Golden Gate Park with the Hetch Hetchy water we have enjoyed since early times. Nice to know that none of the wealthier districts will be experimented with. Just us. We are a city of hidden super-fund sites adjacent to known superfund sites like Hunter's Point from the hay days of WWII. Right next to the ocean, the aquifer below us is suspect at best. The marketing slogan is "diversify our water sources". Really? We sell the hetch hetchy water we pay for in our incredibly high taxes to other municipalities. Sounds like 'deliver suspect water to the poorer of us and make profit on the sales of the good stuff'. We now are the new San Francisco "Flint" experiment to save money. Gordon Getty and Larry Ellison won't be drinking this stuff, just the young families in the Sunset district.
4
SFPUC is a self-sustaining enterprise funded entirely by customer billings, which are surely a tiny slice of your budget unless you're watering a lawn all day and night. And what "incredibly high taxes" are you referring to? Property taxes are limited to ~1.2% based on last sale price. Lastly, the ground water in question is actually not local, but is the same high-Sierra snowmelt that comes from your tap: it's now being pumped underground for additional storage during wet times.
8
You cannot complain about science being disregarded when it comes to Global Warming and then print something like this.
Here are some other nice things to consider as you sip your "Live Water":
Travellers’ Diarrhea
Giardia and Cryptosporidium
Dysentery
Salmonella
Escherichia coli 0157:H7 (E. coli)
Typhoid Fever
Cholera
Hepatitus A
Hepatitus E
Campylobacter
58
Westerners don't believe parasites exist in the United States — ask any western doctor. They think you have to travel abroad for that. Wait until these people learn the hard way...
4
Not to mention liver flukes, roundworm (like trichonella, ascaradida, etc), tapeworm (the pork tapeworm is particularly onerous, since it causes your brain to become swiss cheese), toxoplasma gondii, and on and on.
These are real risks of what they're doing and some are not easily treatable. This has got to be one of the dumbest health trends ever.
I just love the New Dark Ages. People who pick and choose what science they like and what they do not all in the quest to prop up their version of the truth.
Of course these same people who think tap water is going to harm them or that vaccinating their kids will hurt them, also will run directly to The Temple of the Scientific Method --- an emergency room when their loved one is hurt.
Intellectual Hypocrites.
63
Great, another fad to make us look even more stupid to future historians.
27
Well done! You've managed to make a required life sustaining substance into the next big problem. Loosen up, TAP WATER RULES!
14
Basically anyone with well water qualifies for this "standard". Not all spring water (which flows from aquifers that wells tap) is of potable quality, either by smell, taste, or contamination. But re-branding what many folks already have and selling for huge markups is the American Way....
12
As long as we continue to overpopulate the country, not just fresh water but all resources (food, air, jobs) will become limited in supply. Some areas were originally deserts and should never have been developed (L.A., Las Vegas, etc.) to their current size. Now we're stuck with a problem.
Well off people will install filters, buy bottled water and spend money to stay hydrated, but what about the people who are forced to drink local water with runoff containing pesticides, hormones, etc.?
If you live in an arid region, think about conserving the clean water we still have, and please stop watering lawns to grow a useless crop of grass.
5
How about these people spend this money helping the people of Flint get their water distribution system fixed. SF Bay Area has great tasting, clean municipal water. I hope none of these people want to claim they are progressives, but I'm sure they do - and they are into helping people out, just other privileged white folks...
32
Or maybe "these people" might consider helping the people of Martin County KY who've been forced to buy and drink bottled water for over 40 yrs due to coal mine runoff destroying both ground and aquifer water. Martin County is the site of one of the worst environmental disasters in the U.S. when a coal sludge pond collapsed in 2000 then flowed into nearby creeks and rivers until some of it entered the Ohio River 60 miles away. And the water problems of Martin County is but one example of the same problem throughout the entire Appalachian region. The white folks in Appalachia aren't privileged.
Our nation's water infrastructure problems are in fact nationwide and thus demand a national solution not piecemeal solutions that affect single localities only after a disaster occurs.
20
I'm of the opinion that if you think it's good for you, it is. It's not about facts. It's about belief. If I truly believe that something is good for me, it will be.
Heck, if I do all of the right things and begin thinking that it is killing me, I will become sick - there is no doubt in my mind. I work in healthcare and I tell my worried patients that whatever ailment they have might kill them, but stress will definitely do them in.
So, if you think that $36 water is going to make you healthy and happy, go for it.
2
"I'm of the opinion that if you think it's good for you, it is. It's not about facts."
I sure hope you're joking.
19
“I work in healthcare”
I sure hope you’re joking about that, too.
Stress can kill, but it’s not more deadly than, say, a cholera infection. Maybe you should focus on promoting self-efficacy among your patients: arm them with knowledge so that fear-based stress is converted to health-promoting empowerment.
3
The scarier part is WillyD works 'in healthcare.' Whatever that means given his position.
People! You've been watching too much "Game of Thrones" or something. Despite deplorable living and sanitation conditions, large populations, and certainly the main characters, seem to positively glow & thrive. This is not reality.
Nor is your 'raw water.'
2
That water you're drinking could have been in someone or something else not very long ago. All water is recycled water.
14
Too bad the author didn't delve into the philosophical conflict between the raw (spring) water advocates and those who tout atmospheric harvesting, because the latter is distilled water, more pure and devoid of any content then even the reverse osmosis result, which Mr. Singh denigrates.
4
Look pal, we are a mature civilization that has lost all sense of project. We HAVE to natter about idiotic things or we would go mad with existential ennui.
10
The startling lack of basic chemistry and sanitation knowledge among these devotees is pretty amusing. This is just another "fool separated from his money;" PT Barnum would be proud. The touch of pseudo wine babble completes it all.
27
I can’t wait for someone to bottle organic water.
“Now is that because I saw it come off the roof, and anything from the roof feels special? Maybe.”
Anything from the roof feels special? That's where I stopped reading.
15
I... I don't EVEN know what to do with that.
Great story! A wonderful example of the kind of New York Times reporting that helped make America what it is today. I especially loved the strict view-point neutrality with which you treated anti-science, anti-reality crackpot gibberish that slips right across the not-at-all fine line between grifting and outright lunacy. So, basically the say way you covered the Trump campaign and continue to discuss his hardcore loyalists.
Way to go, guys! Look forward to your next story reporting on the increasingly controversial germ theory of disease.
41
I think you failed to appreciate the fundamental sarcasm ... of publishing this.
12
This whole business just makes me sick. I have got a mouthful of dental work, in part, because I grew up on well water. And three and a half MILLION people die annually world-wide from drinking unclean water and from water-borne disease. American craziness. Dysentery with your cocktail sir?
16
I've drunk and cooked with tap water all over the US and many foreign countries. Chicago tap water is great, straight from the lake! San Francisco - Hetch Hetchy water is superb. Originally put off by the swampy, frogpond flavor of Philadelphia's "Schuylkill Punch" I became rather fond of it. The flavor is from humic acid. Portland OR gets its water from the dedicated source, Bull Run Reservoir and used to simply filter it. It now has a slight chlorine nose that brings it down a notch in my estimation. I've drunk water from public fountains in Italy and Portugal, tap water in Thailand and Mexico.
The worst tap water I've ever drunk was in Pocatello ID. It's the only place in the US I have refused to drink from a public water source. During 11 years living there I got all my drinking and cooking water from Cherry Spring, Mink Creek or the hydrants at Scout Mountain Campground.
I do think that there is an element of anti-government paranoia in the whole bottled-water mindset. "They" are polluting our precious bodily fluids as that character put it in "How I learned to .. Love the Bomb"
12
The conspiracy theorist in me wonders if articles like this are intended to encourage Alex Jones anti-government types to take action that will select themselves out of the gene pool and/or deplete their financial resources that could be otherwise used to fight the power.
1
Our water comes from Hetch Hetchy in the sierras. Every year we get a formal report from the water district with a bio-assay of what's in the water. It's tested daily.
I walk my dogs several miles every morning, and have learned to recognize the sample pipes that allow water samples to be taken from every water feed in the county.
Yes, it's now treated with cloramine which erodes the rubber seals in faucets and toilets, but it "off-gases" if you filter it into something like a Brita pitcher and let it stand for a few hours before drinking.
I grew up drinking well water in New England and had yearly cavities. In forty years of drinking floridated water, I have not had a single new cavity.
10
People: If you care about the taste of your water, buy gatorade. If you care about maximizing the contaminants in water take a multivitamin.
This water is a scam perpetrated on the wellness-obsessed nouveau riche and the personal safety-obsessed conspiracy theorists.
11
Only on the west coast can people push nonsense like this with a straight face.
16
Seriously. The SV set seems game to twist every practical solution into a multi-million dollar investment that goes bust in a no time. These guys won't exist in 2 years.
Tourmaline Spring is in Maine, and Maine is on the East Coast. While we seem to have more than our fair share, we don't have a monopoly on the crazies out here in California.
3
Good grief! The next thing we'll hear is that people should drink raw milk, eat uninspected beef and pork, and refuse to wash their vegetables. Oh wait, there are people who advocate that already. Raw milk is, unfortunately, available in supermarkets here in Washington because of a lobby that pushed through a law allowing it.
There is more stupidity in the world than I would have ever imagined.
19
Here in California, I'll take my water dead. No giardiasis for me, thanks. Pure water doesn't expire.
13
“It has a vaguely mild sweetness, a nice smooth mouth feel, nothing that overwhelms the flavor profile,”
Hipster much? Did you discover water before anyone else realized that water was cool?
16
It also comes from a person who is painfully unaware of the huge crisis surrounding the lack of potable water around the world...
1
First they came for my pasteurized milk, and I did nothing.
And then they came for my cryptosporidium-free, chlorinated water...
Best,
--Keith
@KeithDPatch
6
I couldn't help but note the statement from a Mr. Friesen implying that tap water is bad because "...the government brings it to you." Why would one assume that that's a problem when in fact it's a solution that has worked well for many generations? It would appear that Mr. Friesen is more interested in outworn ideology instead of health or safety.
20
I would assume Mr. Friesen also refuses to drive a car on municipal or state-funded roads, won't walk on city sidewalks, and would wave off the EMTs if and when there's an accident at the Friesen house. Government, you know.
2
Discovering that tainted water was a vector for disease and developing methods to treat it were probably the greatest medical advances in extending the human lifespan, followed in second place by vaccines.
This article reads like an advertisement for a bunch of companies selling dangerous products. There is a bit of token "journalism", tucked well below the fold, where a single scientist, expert in the subject, tries to warn of the dangers of untreated water. Then the article returns to free advertising again.
When people get sick and die because of these companies selling tainted water, and the plaintiffs' lawyers step forward, I hope people look back and find this article again.
The Times needs to do some REAL journalism on the state of water in our country, as well as on the new sellers of snake oil and the distrust of a scientific community that has practically eradicated smallpox, polio, tuberculosis and a host of deadly waterborne pathogens from our water supply.
For anybody who is interested to learn more about their local water supply I suggest you look at the EWG website, which maintains a great database of water testing results, searchable by zip code.
https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/
There ARE effective residential scaled home treatment systems for people who are interested in harvesting rainwater, recycling "grey" water, etc. Texas A&M has a great website with the basics well described.
https://rainwaterharvesting.tamu.edu/
9
I was wondering why cities such as Paris have public awareness campaigns about all the ways in which municipality water is safe, treated and accessible - apparently there is a danger that people forget what peogess really brought!
1
Since one of the uncertainties raised by this article concerns the fluoridation of municipal water systems, it might help to consider this link:
http://www.mercola.com/infographics/water-fluoridation.htm
Some might be skeptical about Dr. Mercola's positions on some issues, but on fluoridation of municipal water systems, he has a growing number of scientists who agree with his opposition to fluoridation of municipal water systems.
2
Can you cite a peer-reviewed study in a reputable journal about the on-balance dangers of fluoridated water?
5
It never helps to consider anything Joe Mercola has to say, except negatively. He is a first rate quack making money off gullible people.
3
D. Annie, that whole website is a pseudo-intellectual pseudo-scientific tripe. The anti-fluoride movement is even more thoroughly discredited then the anti-vaxx movement. Every. Single. Point he makes has been thoroughly discredited for decades now.
In general, "Dr" Mercola is a quack...https://www.quackwatch.org/11Ind/mercola.html
Here is just one link debunking the anti-fluoride crowd, you can find dozens more online easily...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/19/anti-fluoride-scie...
4
"Live water" will be embraced by capitalism and marketed without regard to health. But a reminder that the world creates 1 million plastic bottles every minutes 24 x 7. We do need alternatives to commercially "bottled" water.
5
If you think that paying $2.50/gallon for water, the same price I pay right now for gasoline, is actually healthier because it is "live water" I'd love to offer you my oceanfront property in Montana.
Human beings are weird.
4
The guy who created the infamous Juicero took to trespassing so he could get "raw water". Uh huh. And Live Water is selling "raw water" for $7.50 per gallon. Well, I have access to limitless quantities of an absolute miracle fluid, hydrogen hydroxide. Next up is my other miracle product that I will sell to people with more money than brains: Dehydrated Water. You just add water! It's great for the boat, your car or your home emergency kit.
2
Thank you for not referring to it — deliberately erroneously, in my view — as “dihydrogen monoxide.”
Our cultural pursuit of security is an illusion. Life happens and every story is different. People who live behind walls die of loneliness and boredom. Eating food that has touched the sink or counter while discarding what has fallen on the floor is silly. Pathogens live everywhere. The Buddha said that what comes out of your mouth is much more important than what goes into it. If you want to waste your money on water, go for it. To me, rich people do not seem happier than anyone else, and it takes a lot of energy to figure out how to spend - and waste - the money they have stolen from the less fortunate.
3
a thousand hand claps!
1
We'd all have excellent water if it wasn't for the impulse to breed, breed, breed.
2
Lets here it for raw milk. Hip Hip Moo-Ray
My mother is a retired microbiologist. She will never eat at a Rainforest Cafe for fear of what might be in the air from the misty "rain storms" that occur every now again. I'm pretty sure this would horrify her.
1
i live with a germaphobe,too!
1
I suppose having one's own well is also "safer."
On the other hand, you might have to purchase thousands of dollars of whole-house purification components so that you can get rid of the arsenic, the radium, and so on. Bad for the kidneys . . . .
I've never figured out what you do with the radioactive filters that you have to replace periodically.
We were in a remote area of Alaska, when our guide filled the potable tank on our trawler with water directly from a stream. Using a garden hose, the water traveled directly from stream to tank. When I asked him if the water was safe, he said, “it’s 600 years old and just melded from ancient ice.” We drank it for a week without any ill side effects.
At home we drink bottled water. The township’s water filtration system is outdated and cannot cope with heavy rains and the now over the top use of wipes.
Astronauts may be able to drink their own treated recycled urine, but I don’t think we should be doing that on a community wide basis, which of course we are.
1
Berkey sells a simple and highly effective filter, that, unlike reverse osmosis, keeps minerals in the water but removes contaminants - surprised to see no mention of this product yet.
1
Abandoning fluoride seems foolish, but the threat of lead in the water is real for many Americans who live in our cities. In 1958 in Lawton, OK I worked
for one summer on a construction crew laying water and sewage pipes. We kept a stove going continuously on the job to melt bars of lead for use in sealing the joints of the water pipes. There must be a ton of lead still in that housing development's water pipes. I do not ever remember being visited by any city health inspectors,
And what about chlorine, added everywhere now in small doses to prevent disease?
How to ruin something: Water edition
Create a misunderstanding about what water is and does- focus on necessary update to old model due to safety concerns and need for more features. "The old water is unsafe because of fluoride and it doesn't have enough fecal matter!" might be a successful sales point.
To further cement distrust amongst the unsophisticated and the oppositional, add some talking points about the virtues of private enterprise and government inefficiency. This should convince the bootstraps set of the need to "make water great again". Redundant companies providing overlapping services may seem inefficient but everyone makes money so it is, by definition, efficient (see health care).
If more support for private water supply is needed, play up competition. Tout a God-given right to select which trace minerals people get to taste vs swallowing whole with their multivitamin. As momentum builds pass a deceptively-titled law called the "free water initiative" which will allow people to (at an expense, natch) completely replace their costless water from their home with upmarket, fiscally demanding aqua sourced from an outside distributor.
On the policy end, add and permanently secure tax breaks and incentives for the water profiteers. Contributions/bribes for the corrupt representatives perpetuate the process.
Template previously almost used to ruin/prevent universal health care, social security solvency, childhood vaccination confidence and many others.
4
If you do not enjoy the "mouth feel" and/or "flavor profile" of having so much money to burn … then please send your surplus over to me? ;_;
3
Looking at history, many early civilizations were able to thrive in otherwise hostile environments because of their attention to water management -- collection, storage and waste disposal. Our treatment of this critical issue mirrors the attitude about so many things -- when AC came along the need for opening windows or designing interior spaces for air circulation or even local climate was discarded. It is self-indulgent to look at this new tech as a breakthrough -- as it is dependent upon both electricity and sufficiently high humidity. At the root is the fashionably high concentration of humanity... big urban areas, which magnifies these problems. Small is still beautiful and sustainable, sad to say. And unfortunately, we need to re-learn how to live with our environment, not just bulldoze it. Something our ancestors understood was essential for their survival -- and which we have willfully discarded.
1
Do they test the spring water first for chemicals? Like arsenic or PCB’s for example? I live part time weekends near salt point state park 2 hours North of San Francisco. My family ranch (since 1962) sustainable Redwood forest has at least three springs. One runs almost all year. We’ve been drinking from it for years out of our redwood tank. It’s luscious and tasty but I will not capitalize on it to prey on people given to hype and desperation borne of disconnection from our environment. I share freely but really? Stop driving a polluting car. Live smaller. Volunteer with the Peace Corps. I was extremely lucky to have been born and inherit land and water. But it owns me and my responsibility is as a responsible steward and protector. Not to commodify water when it’s a basic human right. Thanks for this chance to comment and a wonderful year to anyone who reads this.
10
As an Oregonian who purchases hay from growers in the area around Opal Springs, if I were purchasing this "Live Water" I would certainly want to know if the water had been tested for herbicide and fertilizer residues used to produce the alfalfa and grass hays in irrigated fields within a mile of the site. There are also a number of septic tanks in use in the lightly populated residential area nearby. Drink up and enjoy!
10
Haven’t had time to read all the comments, but a very humorous piece. Makes one recall the wonderfully funny campaign many years ago to ban human exposure to Dihydrogen Monoxide. The funniest part, if I recall correctly, was the number of people who fell for the ruse.
4
When I lived in the high desert area of Idaho, I discovered that there was a known fresh water spring nearby and that anyone could haul off water to drink. Fresh water. "Live" water. Free.
It routinely was shut down due to contamination from, likely, runoff or other sources of contaminants.
I'm all for "real" stuff, and more importantly, shutting down the Chemical Factory in which we all live and breath. Far too much "science" with no one checking the effects thereof.
But to just believe that fresh water oozes from Mother Earth in some consistent, uncontaminated rate in this day and age is beyond naive.
Pollutants do not sit still.
Of course, collecting and filtering one's own rainwater or doing other similar things, that makes sense.
But "raw water"? "Live water"? Perhaps just semantics, but mostly it sounds like foolishness, as if a tomato on the vine is "live" and off the vine is "dead".
16
We YACC workers probably fenced it off and built a watering trough for the cattle grazing on the BLM land. Otherwise, the cows would have trampled the area into dust. No better filter than 40 miles of volcanic lava! Of course, if sheep are grazing near, look out for giardia.
1
Decades ago when I visited my grandfather's family's home in the Piemonte region of Italy right on the Swiss border, I put a glass to the spigot in their kitchen. No, no, cousin Mariuccia said, we don't drink water from the tap. She took my hand and a pitcher and led me down a path where she brushed aside some wisteria and showed me a copper pipe hammered into the side of a mountain that dripped water. Pure water from the Alps, no pollution or chemicals she told me. For them it was simply their life.
For people in San Francisco, this seems like an eye-rolling affectation.
5
There are a few similar pipes in the Catskills that I know of which tap a spring in the side of a steep mountain just off the road. But the most surprising one that I know of was in the middle of a vacant lot in Staten Island that a local friend showed me. There are underground rivers in Staten Island one of which floods the basement of a public school on its north shore. Locals say these rivers originate in the Adorondacks hundreds of miles north of the city. How they would know that however, I haven’t a clue.
I have lived in New England and upstate New York mostly, so finding a pure spring to fill my glass jugs for drinking and cooking needs has been easy. I guess I jumped on this "trend" in 1979 or so. Works for me.
However, I travel widely by bicycle, often in undeveloped regions, buying bottled water (however questionable) when I can, finding springs, and drinking tap water or even river water when necessary. So far so good.
Being able to find and drink pure water is clearly a health benefit. On the other hand, drinking from a tap or other questionable sources does not seem to pose a danger to my health -- in fact, I believe that exposing my system to some level of challenge by drinking from a wide variety of sources has strengthened my system. At the very least I do not suffer from it.
Still, at home I go to the trouble of securing water from the purest local spring I can find. The rewards are emotional, and I suspect the same is true for the folks who buy unprocessed water. People want logical "reasons" for their emotional decisions, leading others to provide those "reasons." Thus, this article.
7
20 years ago the middle class started paying for bottled water, after years of drinking free tap water. Today, After reading that people will pay for unfiltered, untreated water, I can see the spirit of American entrepreneurial imagination (and American willingness to spend money on anything that allows them to identify as hip) is alive and well!
13
I bought a 'water from air' appliance a couple of years ago. I'll admit, I was cynical at first, but it has been delivering about 2 gallons of fresh, high quality, untreated water per day in the summertime when the humidity is high, less in the winter. They're widely available and not terribly expensive, but the government, in cooperation with the major multi-billion dollar international corporations (surprise!) want to prevent you from using this technology, so the makers were forced to devise a way to cleverly 'mislabel' them so as not to raise suspicion. Here's one example:
https://www.homedepot.com/p/BLACK-DECKER-45-Pint-Dehumidifier-White-BDT4...
Is this system actually producing potable water? What about contaminants due to the cooling coils and plumbing of the dehumidifier being made of plastics and metals not intended for containing drinking quality water? Not all plastics are "food grade." Same applies to metals used in cooling coils and so on.
15
And what bout the dry deposition of chemicals from the atmosphere. How much of this gets in your water? PCBs, pesticides, heavy metals, soluble organics, they and others are well documented constituents in dry deposition.
1
Mike, I can't tell if you're joking or not. If you are joking, this is not funny. If you aren't joking, you should stop this. Dehumidifiers produce water that is suited for other purposes, but not drinking. Dust, mold, pollen, are all found in water that is pulled from dehumidifiers. Don't drink it.
Pay attention over the next eight months to the Water Abundance XPrize competition for producing water from the humidity in the air, testing starts in January. The energy used must be renewable, and the target is production of at least 2,000 liters per day (2 cubic meters) at a cost not to exceed 2 cents per liter (e.g. $40 for 2,000 liters.)
The article mentions an Arizona company, Zero Mass Water, that offers a solar unit (connected to the internet of course, just like pumps and pencils and paper have always been, no?) but they charge $2,000 for a unit that at most can produce 5 liters per day.
For comparison, I believe (but did not check just now) the the cost per thousand liters of water (one cubic meter) from large reverse osmosis plants has dropped to about 70 cents; of course that requires an ocean (or at least a source of brackish water), high tech on a very big scale, and a water distribution system, which makes the operation not portable.
2
I moved from the Bay Area to Thailand in 2017. It is hard to understate the immense amount of bottled water consumed here. The Bay Area on the other hand is insane. It is suffering from First World problems.
4
A perspective on the perils of "raw" spring water... My water comes from a powerful spring that belongs to my local, rural public services administration. I have deeded rights to water directly from the spring pre-treatment. It is delicious and especially glorious for bathing! Several years ago, the spring was flooded by a nearby stream while I was away for several weeks. While away, my water pump cycled and pulled contaminated water into my home water tank. The result... giardia, a parasite, carried by animals, in my water and in my intestinal tract. I lost weight and was miserable for weeks before the problem was diagnosed. Carpet bombing with antibiotics, which were as bad as the parasites in their side affects, finally cured me. I love my spring water, but it is not without its own unique perils.
35
The public utility should have warned users, including you though you were a private user, that the spring was flooded and that water should be boiled or otherwise treated until the pipes were properly cleared. In your case, drawing the water untreated, that would have taken longer than for the utility, and might have meant that you would have had to hook up at the plant to the treated water for a time.
1
I am a little sad that there is so little faith in the kidney's ability to fix minor contaminants. The entire purpose of the kidney (and I say this as a kidney physician) is to filter your blood and body water many times a day, throwing away everything and then taking back just what you need.
The brain loves its great ideas, and loves to micromanage the other organs. This goes about as well as any boss coming down to "help" the rank and file workers do their job better. The brain brings us high colonics, "live water", megavitamins, radioactive water (in a prior era), snake oil, magnetic bracelets, healing crystals, etc.
Thanks for all the "help", but the rest of the body has been doing quite well for ages, thank you.
39
Right on SW.
The rest of the world has NOT been doing quite well for ages. About a hundred thousand people a year still die from cholera. Pristine untreated drinking water is a rich white man's fantasy .
2
You appear to be unaware of the fact that fluoride is a cumulative poison, like lead, arsenic, and mercury. Don't bother telling me that fluoride is not a heavy metal because I already know that.
1
"Do you realize that in addition to fluoridating water, why, there are studies underway to fluoridate salt, flour, fruit juices, soup, sugar, milk, ice cream? Ice cream, Mandrake? Children's ice cream!...You know when fluoridation began?...1946. 1946, Mandrake. How does that coincide with your post-war Commie conspiracy, huh? It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual, and certainly without any choice. That's the way your hard-core Commie works." - Commander Jack D. Ripper
16
I live in Spokane, Washington, the largest community in the U.S. not using fluoride in its drinking water. The public voted it down years ago, and it has never been approved since. The dental caries rate here is much higher than in the rest of the nation. The complaint here was the toxicity of fluoride. Yes, fluoride is toxic. So is chlorine, also added to public water supplies. But there has never been a case of a person using such supplies suffering from exposure. The public health benefits are enormous, yet the tin foil hat crowd keeps hollering about them.
2
After reading about the highly toxic test results of our municipal water system here on Cape Cod, (a big fail), I now buy gallons of spring water for making coffee/tea and for any drinking or small amounts for cooking.
I never thought it was a big deal to use tap water. No longer.
Citizens of Hyannis currently have a pending lawsuit against the town for not warning them about the toxicity and contaminated town water source they were consuming.
In the future pure drinking water will become more valuable than gold.
9
Agreed. Isn't that why the Bush family bought the largest fresh water spring in the world in Paraguay?
2
I began reading the article with genuine interest up to the section naming an Oregonian who goes by the name Mukhande Singh, born Christopher Sandborn replete with a picture of Mr. Sandborn, sitting on driftwood. Sometimes a picture tells us more than a thousand words...
36
Reminded me of the last shot we saw of yogi Don Draper in “Mad Men.” And you know he could sell coal in Newcastle.
3
More heaps of marketing pretension for the 'Goop' set.
Will they set their sights on toilet paper next?
21
Mullein. Wonderful stuff, more so beyond TP use. Petty sure it is not for most folks though :)
I'm still laughing at this bunch of hoo-hah! hey, Eli from Tiny Town, maybe we can hook up as partners and laugh together all the way to the bank!
1
6
$25million venture capital for extracting water air? Wow, who are these ninnies that have a spare $25million for a contraption that does no more than what an air conditioning unit does? In any hot environment with a humidity above 10%, a stainless steel evaporator coil and collection pan could do the same thing the Zero Mass contraption does. Sure most AC units consume electricity but powering either with photo voltaic or heat (absorption) is no big deal. Amazing, the company must have some good pitch - selling ice to the Eskimos?
17
Worse than that, water collected by absorption is guaranteed to include far more airborne crap than simply condensed by chilling, but even that can easily become a breeder for bacterial nasties.
Well, the water from the air conditioner condenses on the cooling coils, which are made of industrial copper. The copper is not for drinking water production, and there are trace amounts of heavy metals present. That is why most central air conditioner drains are now plumbed to the sewage drains rather than simply running to an outside condensate line. Similarly with high efficiency, condensing gas furnaces.
It ain't about the viability of the product, it's about the viability of the INVESTMENT.
And Eskimos, those who live near to villages, purchase bags of ice from the local store when they need it, just as most moderns do. (You probably do, too, in mid-winter, rather than going out to harvest ice from natural.)
While I am not interested in buying a Zero Mass water machine, neither an I interested in maligning those who do, certainly not on the basis of one weak article on the subject. Check you arrogance.
1
Modern romantics rejecting rational science— as the article notes, not much space between Alex Jones and the overpaid tech weenies. Worrisome to say the least.
15
How about a source of heavy water? ;-) Off the grid water, come on! I am content with on the grid water. You don’t appreciate on the grid until traveling and realize that a sip from the pipe could put you in the hospital. But the sublime taste of e. coli downstream from urbanization. Yuk!!!
5
In early Colonial times water was seldom drank in its natural state. Whiskey and other imbibements were actually safer. Brooks or mountain streams were often the cause of many maladies. You were gambling with your health by not boiling it before drinking or bathing
7
Then I'm a gambler on a 65-year winning streak.
2
I lost once with Giardiasis at a popular spot along with others. Never again.
Corporations and very wealthy, private individuals are racing around the world buying and securing water rights. This includes the George Bush family who purchased 300,000 acres (!) of land in South America, (Paraguay), for this purpose. It is the equivalent of a modern day gold rush.
5
Mr. Singh, I agree you're a conspiracy theorist.
8
This seems like a good thread to announce my new “Raw Pork” movement. Millions of years of cooking pork has made us TOXIC and full of CHEMICALS. It’s time to reclaim our gut bacteria and stop wasting our time cooking pork in service of the government’s pork-ruining agenda!! Trichinosis is actually a CURE for CANCER because it kills you waaaay before any cancer sets in. Don’t be a sheeple - only eat raw pork!!!
14
i don t want to drink chlorine
2
Then don't. You can get all the chlorine free water you want from the local sewage outfall, otherwise known as a stream. When it rains, city gutters flow with non-chlorinated water. To date, the only people poisoned by the chlorine used in drinking water have been people involved in industrial accidents. Better regulations from OSHA have made that threat one of the distant past.
2
Lord, protect the children of these kooks.
19
At first I thought this was going to be an article about people collecting their own water. Water is one of the great environmental crises of our age and if we could encourage people to add rain water tanks to houses, and not pave over every inch of earth, it would be a great leap forward.
But this wasn't an article about that. It's about how the same superstitious mind set that created the anti-vaxx nightmare of sick kids and dead babies is coming to drinking water.
40
You forgot ... and make a handsome profit doing it. $36 for 2.5 gallons!
Dear NYT: please stop doing articles on Oregon, Washington, and preferably the entire west coast. We already have enough people here. We don't need you soft advertising or peddling for us. Encourage people to migrate to the midwest if you must. Lots of open space there. We don't need more people messing up the environment, the water, land, air quality here, but thanks. Stay in your "urbane" area. Celebrate all things urbane. Enjoy brunch. Move to Stuy-whatever, Brooklyn-whatever. Stay. There.
2
I'll move where I please, thank you.
Nothing about this article reads like a travel brochure for the PNW.
That roving bands of brunchistas are going to descend on the left coast from the urban hellscapes that envelop most of the country in order to steal your fecal water and bask in your frigid rain seems like a paranoid manifestation from overconsumption of giardia water. I say that as a former Southern Californian now living in Minnesota (which also received a passive mention in the article- here come the huddled masses out to steal my territory!). And brunch is good all over, poor air quality, fires, and drought are more specific to SoCal.
Yeah, but you live in MN.
A fool and his money are soon separated.
6
I'm sure Rich Torrisi will have his water sommelier stick this on the menu at The Grill any second now. Nothing washes down a fish of kajillion dollar Dover sole like $50 a quart cryptosporidial H Two Oh!
5
You have got to be kidding me. Are people going to pay money to drink unfiltered water from the stream upon which Mr. Singh (Sanborn) was "sitting naked". Will they charge extra for the fecal bacteria that washed off of his behind?
13
Drainage! Drainage! Draaaaaainage! I drink your milkshake, I drink it all up!
Water. Greed. Got it.
Did you know chemists estimate the Rhine passes thru the human body 37 times before it reaches the North Sea?
If that's not Raw, I don't know what is.
3
My biggest worry is that people will disturb the last few remaining pristine water supplies. Where I live I am VERY LUCKY to have natural springs (the locations of which I am careful to protect) and pure well water, which we filter for sediments only and tastes better than any bottled water I could buy. Natural springs are sacred spaces that need to be protected by human influence. Most people haven't been taught to never leave excrement within 100 feet of a flood plain. Or to bury their poop 6 inches deep in desert landscapes. Mostly I just hope the people who are using these water sources are respecting them, so that they can survive another generation of humans.
2
I hope you have your wells and springs tested regularly. Cryptospridiosis, Giardiasis, Campylobacter, amoebic dysentery, Toxoplasmosis, a few others are pretty nasty. Look them up.
1
Lucky dude, if that's your biggest worry. However, worry about the future seems to have caused you to forget your manners. Sharing is a virtue; hoarding is a vice. Enjoy your springs, your private springs that you keep secret. The health benefits you enjoy from the springs have not spread to your mind or heart. Best of luck!
Newsflash folks... Bottled water is required by federal law, to meet the same exact standards for treatment as water from your municipal sourced tap.
It's called the "Safe Drinking Water Act", conceived 1974, amended 1986, it's implementation began in earnest as amended in 1996. While it's intent was initially pure, through stage 1, Congress went WRONG in mandating that the EPA establish a given number of contaminants to regulate every X years.
EPA does their own health effects research...
EPA establishes their own criteria to justify regulation...
EPA picks their own contaminants to regulate...
EPA oversees their own research...
EPA writes the regulations...
EPA writes the law...
EPA forces implementation...
EPA enforces implementation...
EPA dictates monitoring and reporting requirements...
EPA levies fines, forces water systems to spend millions of dollars for NO proven health effect.
Regardless of proven health effect, regardless of cost effect, we now have contaminants regulated simply because we have the ability to detect them. Costs of treatment be damned! We're not talking one or two contaminants here folks, there are literally hundreds on the list of regulated contaminants, with no proven health effect.
As for collecting water off your roof as the article suggests: dust, dirt, soot, ash, bird droppings, bugs, bug droppings, etc... all come to mind on the list of reasons why you might not want to drink it. Water your plants with it yes, drink it no.
2
Collecting water off the roof for drinking and other household uses is fine. Modern systems involve triggers that divert the flow from the collecting vessel for a period of time during rainfall before collecting begins. Testing just as for a well, spring, or stream source periodically, and chlorine treatment where needed are essential for safe water, whatever the source. Oh my gosh, awful, chlorine treatment (household bleach works fine in proper dosage)! Well, better just drink that water "live." That way you can ingest all the pathogens you want. Not me.
1
This article strives to demonstrate "typical" West Coast thinking from those who have way too much money. Should they ever get sick from giardiasis, they would change their habits pretty damn fast. Those in the Third World who struggle to get any semblance of decent drinking water would find this concept ludicrous.
3
I live in CA, on a beautiful reservoir, with a quarry upstream and I would guess, water sitting in a lake full of sludge, washed down mining metals etc.
This is not typical west coast thinking in article, they are crazy.
Huntington NY is a nice place and had great water as I recall!
Not terribly long ago a juice maker decided that pasteurizing the product would reduce its natural nutritive value. Kids died from E. Coli contamination.
Milk was pasteurized first to eliminate diseases like tuberculosis. Water filtration and disinfection have eliminated cholera and typhus. It gets rid of giardiasis, which is a common contaminant of natural sources.
The micro-biome is both a good for us and bad for us. We have moved so far away from the consequences of the bad players - typhus, diphtheria, polio, scarlet fever - that we have forgotten why we started the whole clean water trend.
I'd want the source tested constantly, and I'd want a water profile. "Raw water" is the source of a lot of poisonings around the world, in places in which there is little filtration and lots of arsenic. Some of those minerals in your water aren't so great for you either.
I am a big fan of natural. But I likewise know that nightshade is a natural substance. Natural, untreated, raw - it is as good as what it contains, and no better.
18
Meanwhile I'm thirsty. I'd drink from a plastic bottle right now. By tomorrow, if I don't get some water, I'd drink from a tap. Next day, I'd drink from a stream. A day later, I'd lap up water from a puddle in the road.
Stories like this just makes California look crazy. Of course, it sounds like the people that were interviewed came from the hippie movement.
There’s not much to say. You either believe in science or you don’t. Vaccines, fluoride, and chloramine are all things that have been proven beneficial to health at beneficial doses. I would be the first person to admit that taken 100 shots of a vaccine within one hour would probably hurt me more than it would help. It’s the same with everything.
Theoretically, I can write a research paper, which concludes humans drinking 20 gallons of fluoride within two hours would be lethal. I’m sure it would pass any peer review process to get published. Then, doubters can point to my paper as proof that fluoride is not good for you. Sigh...
1
"You either believe in science or you don't." You either understand the difference between science and religion or you don't, and you don't. The fact is you can't cite a single moderate quality original research study which indicates that taking fluoride in water is anything but harmful and useless, let alone a good quality study. I have 2 degrees in the physical sciences and have read thousands of pages of material on fluoride and fluoridation, including many original research studies and a bunch of systematic reviews and books, so unlike you I'm not just guessing. Fluoride is a cumulative poison, by the way.
1
"You either believe science or you don't." Even scientists avoid such simplistic reasoning. There are many disagreements among scientists as to what is true. Daily, new evidence makes old scientific truths invalid. No one person can keep abreast of this change in scientific "truth," there is so much constant revision. Only the most gullible accept it all as absolute. Many of today's "scientific truths" will be disproved in the coming years. Pat answers like yours are no help. Pointing out abuses of data is no help. Disparaging comments about "hippies" is no help. What's your point?
The first "thinking person" I've come across in this thread. You said it well.
Reverse osmosis systems are relatively inexpensive and supposedly produce excellent quality water in the home.
2
I used a reverse osmosis system on my well water for 20 plus years. It does produce very pure water but removes EVERYTHING, minerals included. Minerals are what give water its taste so the filtered water is just flat, with no character or nutrients, not offensive, just... meh. Turns out my well water is just fine and tastes great.
2
Reverse osmosis systems are quite expensive (unless by "relatively inexpensive" you mean compared to a metropolis-wide water provision and treatment system) and require significant maintenance.
4
While it is true that minerals impart some taste, most of that is the salty taste of sodium chloride. Calcium bicarbonate, the most prevalent mineral in fresh water is essentially tasteless. Aerating water so that it is well oxygenated restores the "fresh" taste that most people enjoy in their water.
Now, the absence of minerals can be a nutritional concern. Drinking water is a main source of calcium for many.
One common thread between the anti-vaxxers and these freaky folks is that they are almost never old enough to remember what it was like before water was treated or vaccines were present. If they weren't so self-absorbed they might ask a senior what it was like inside a polio or tetanus ward. In this case, a good bout with giardia or cryptosporidium might wake them up without killing them.
14
I remember talking to a park ranger who explained how he spent much of his time explaining to Eastern tourists that "yes. Bears do defecate in the forest (and in the streams)"
6
It's not surprising that, in a time and place in which people still willingly believe garbage about homeopathy and amber teething bracelets and many other "natural" products, that they will literally pour money down the drain.
My chief concern about all this is whether there are guys in India who, in the name of cultural fairness, are changing their name to "Bill Jones....."
10
These people are religious zealots & while drawing water from the atmosphere may have real benefits for certain applications, in the long run, this is a path to an early grave.
How pretentious. If people are concerned about impurities in tap water, they can get a simple water filter.
What we really have here is too many people with too much money and no real understanding of the real problems people have with getting access to the type of water we take for granted.
Drop them into the desert in any African nation and in a week or two we can ask them what they think of their tap water.
7
Well, those people can. People in Flint, Michigan (poor folks) not so much. But of course, most of the country is NOT Flint, despite what a lot of nuts would have you think. Read the regular water testing report from your water utility. It details what is and is not in your water, so far as toxic materials are concerned. The utility is required by law to correct any problems, and is required to report to users what it has done to make the correction. Are there criminal utilities out there, like in Flint? Some. But like Flint, they won't get away with the crime for long. Unless we keep electing republicans.
Like It or Lump It Loony Logic
Fluoridationist: Fluoridation is not an abuse of human rights because people can choose to drink bottled or filtered water instead.
Sane person: Bottled and filtered water are expensive. Why don't you make fluoride available for free for those who want it?
Fluoridationist: Not enough people want to take fluoride so we have to intervene.
1
I have to agree with Professor Kuemmerle. It's a terrible thing that people have to choose between spending their money on expensive water testing or feeding their families. And our cities could save millions by moth-balling water treatment plants. Money better spent on fighting crime and helping the poor. Its just not that difficult (and FREE) to use Dr. Kuemmerle's "Plumper Test". You drink some water from wherever, and if your skin feels "Plumper" your good to go! If not? Drink different water eh? Getting "better nutrition" from the food you eat, well thats just icing on the cake! Wait a minute, is cake bad for you? I like angel-food, and cheesecake during the holidays. We just have to take responsibility for our own health, god knows "the government" has enough problems creating corporate tax breaks to create enough income to pay for more water treatment brain altering plants.
My aircon harvests water from the air
our Wallabies love it.
2
I certainly hope that these "raw water" aficionados renember to boil this liquud prior to feeding it to their children. I am old enough to remember that baby food and infant formula had to be made with boiled water to eliminate those very same microorganisms . Baby and young child guts and immune systems CANNOT tolerate unclean water. We will start to see cases of fatal gastroenteritis just like the good old days.
6
If baby guts cannot handle dirty water, how on earth did our species survive the first million years, before civilization? Millions of people die each year, mostly from preventable causes. Society seems to be OK with this. I know I am. Among the senior citizens chiming in here, your naive hope that folks boil raw water stands as an example of condescension from someone who seems clueless.
1
A lot of folks didn't survive.
Regardless, if you give your infant "raw water" and it dies, you will still go to prison.
Crooked river flows through giardia country. What a great idea it is to drink the stuff!
4
Ha, capitalism at its best. Find a raw product, add no value to it, market it as more natural, make a fortune. There is a sucker born every minute.
9
Just remember Chem trails are falling on every one every where and are in the rain the food we eat and we even breath them in. chem trails are nano size chemical particulate matter that can and do penetrate your skin, your lung and intestinal barriers, blood brain barrier. They bypass every natural body defense and penetrate the cell collecting in side the cell and killing it, and they dont stop there, the only way you can see them is under extreem magnification on and in your food and drink or shining a laser in the dark and watching the nano chemical particulate sparkle in the nanometer wavelenght light of the laser. Its Here, its deadly, and its in every one, the water too.
3
Contrails exiting jets, i.e. condensation trails, are water vapor, like clouds — or your breath outside on a cold day.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/science-officially-debunks-che...
Oh, yeah, I forgot the chem trails. Probably because the evidence for them is non-existent. Unless you drop the standards for evidence to a very low point. If they could be seen, where's the evidence? Sparkles in a laser beam? Come on.
Not a single mention of the damage fluoride does to the pineal gland?
1
I have a friend who has a lifetime parasite problem from unintentionally drinking "raw" water. Not so good. It will eventually kill her, and diminishes her health every living day.
12
On the other hand, I grew up with well water and my parents continued to have it in their later house, and it certainly tasted wonderful. In Boston, we have much better water than in the suburbs, where reports show more contaminants, even if at a "safe" level. Yes, large amounts of fluoride are toxic, but the numbers are perfectly clear: drinking water is better, not worse, for people because of it. People "believe" a lot of hooey if it fits their prejudices. Anti-vaxxers, GMO haters, to my left, climate change deniers on the right, they're all off.
6
That is me, but mine is most likely chronic, not terminal.
Makes some people blind, others crippled for life. Some just have an extended bout of severe diarhea, like I did from contaminated water in Mexico. But you can get the same thing here in the good old USA. Just drink raw water.
I've read some comments and want to play devil's advocate. Yes, "raw" or "living water" is a marketing gimmick aimed at an anxious elite. However …
I grew up on a farm where our water came from a well. City water tasted terrible to me. The well was tested to make sure it didn't host harmful microorganisms, but since it wasn't free of microorganisms, it would have had probiotic properties. Studies suggest that reduced gut flora contributes to obesity and immune deficiencies.
My family vacationed in what was then a pristine area of West Virginia. My aunt's cabin was supplied with water from a spring, and at one spot along the route my father would pull over just to drink the sweet water from a natural spring. Nobody ever got sick from this delicious water, though I wouldn't do it now for fear of ubiquitous pollutants.
One point that merits attention is water collection for household purposes. In the summer, I dump the water from my basement dehumidifier on my outdoor plants. Why shouldn't we harvest rain and ambient moisture for purposes such as flushing toilets and watering lawns? We over-process water for most of our daily needs because we make all of it safe for drinking.
Zero Mass Water's Source system is a status item to ensure that you're not drinking the same water as the masses. But a system that minimally processed harvested water for non-potable purposes could supplement our local water utilities. Some say water is the next and most existential energy crisis.
6
I too grew up on a farm drinking well water and during my childhood - I knew many folks that got ill from well water. Municipal water is tested hourly - wells are tested maybe once a year if the owner remembers. Animals can poop in it, they can die in it, pollutants can seep into it... the list is long. People like their 'raw' water (I can't say that without laughing out loud) just like they want their raw milk - until it poisons them in an ironic Darwinian coup de grâce.
10
As others have noted, this is a manufactured campaign against free, safe water based on surface concerns like "taste" and a "inferiority in 'wellness' benefits" whatever those may be.
Any benefits from unpurified water (assuming there are any) pale in comparison to the safety and availability present in our current water system.
The rest of that stuff is just nostalgia and/or pseudoscience.
4
In addition to being careless readers of my comment, most commenters to this article as a whole seem not to know what a spring is: they confuse it with a stream and start talking about manure and cadavers upstream. A spring does not have an upstream as such; it is part of the groundwater and aquifer system. Search "springs and aquifers" to learn the difference between springs and streams from science-based sources. At one time, certain springs were reliable sources of reasonably safe drinking water. The quality of the natural water supply was one of the things that made the North American continent so habitable. I'm not advocating the use of non-treated water for drinking. (And notice I said our well was tested.) What I'm saying is that we poisoned our biosphere and harmed natural filtration systems, and it's possible that making water abundantly safe to drink contributes to the decrease in gut bacteria.
My other point is that we need to develop dual water supply systems for homes so that we can supplement the potable water system with harvested water for some purposes. There's no reason to water our lawns or wash our cars with fluoridated water. And before that's misread: I'm not saying water supplies for drinking shouldn't be fluoridated.
The Times has run several stories on water as a looming crisis. If the presumably better-educated readers of the Times can think of water only as something that comes magically from municipal taps, we're in big trouble.
https://forcedfluoridationfreedomfighters.com/a-preliminary-investigatio...
Anyone who thinks that delivering any medication by dumping it into public water supplies is scientific is scientifically illiterate. As for fluoride, it is highly toxic and a cumulative poison, like lead, arsenic, and mercury. I have asked many forced-fluoridation fanatics to tell me how much accumulated fluoride in the body they think is safe. So far not a single one of them has been able to answer the question. It is unlikely to just be a coincidence that the US, Australia, and Ireland, which have had high rates of forced-fluoridation for decades, also have high rates of joint problems, and poor health outcomes in general.
"US, Australia, and Ireland... high rates of joint problems, and poor health outcomes in general." Source for this bizarre claim? I dunno what's sillier: that those three countries are being singled out for their allegedly poor public health policies, or that the supposed public health epidemics ('in general') are due to fluoride supplementation (which, btw, has been happening during the time period associated with the greatest improvement in life expectancy. ~probably). Also, wikipedia has safe daily dosage information on fluoride with source information.
You're wrong to depict fluoride supplementation as some public health menace which eludes classification and identification. The truth is, that's not how science works. Actual physicians and epidemiologists evaluate any unidentified sources of illness, unusual clusters of disease/symptoms, etc to determine whether there is some new or resurgent toxin/pathogen causing illness. Examples of this pattern include cluster of opportunistic infections in gay men leading to discovery of HIV; flipper-appendage birth defects being traced to maternal use of thalidomide and microcephalic infants born to mothers infected with zika virus informing people about this hazard.
50 years on with 90% of people consuming it daily, it seems unlikely that fluoride is responsible for any significant disease.
15
"Live water?" Put some on your glass slide, take a look through your microscope and "live water" might take on a different meaning.
This is just another variation of privatizing water, a very dangerous, insidious and increasingly ubiquitous transition in the U.S., where it has been a fact that the facets of public health and sanitation that we have been so blessed with are being undermined, whether by ignorance or corporate greed.
29
My city’s water is controlled by corporate greed. We were encouraged to use less water, and then charged more because the shareholders needed their payout. Our city has its own aquifer, but up the chain that water belongs to a corporation in Germany
So 60 years ago I was so far ahead of my time, it was astounding !!! I ate brown eggs, drank raw milk, ate locally grown chickens, beef pork and fish. We got our water from the ground where the hose was sitting. Our chickens ran around on grass and ate bugs, weeds and small stones ( they need that to grind food in their craw ) We had our own garden with tomatoes, pickles, onions, beets, and many other vegetables. We can corn, cherries, peaches, beets and many other items. Now I will grant you that there was a lot of work and time needed to do that, but we sure were ahead of our time !!!!
4
meanwhile in another article https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/04/us/tapwater-drinking-water-study.html
"too much contamination not enough reporting" here in NY pesticides were found in our water so I installed a $300 filter that needs to get replaced annually
2
Well water, natural springs, etc. are wonderful in concept but, unless tested for all types of pollutants, drinking well water is equivalent to playing Russian Roulette. Today, the military is cleaning up PFC-contaminated drinking water near active or former bases in Delaware, Alaska, Pennsylvania, California, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Virginia, New Jersey and Colorado. That's just a sampling. Military officials have upped the number of possible contaminated sites to 2,000. Industrial use of PFCs in chemical or plastic-making has polluted communities like Hoosick Falls, N.Y., Bennington, Vt., Parkersburg, W. Va., and Washington, W. Va. and Michigan. Do you wish to play Russian Roulette with your life or that of your family's?
12
Caveat emptor. ~3.4M people around the world die each year from drinking “live” water; cholera, E Coli, Guniea worms, and more are avoided en masse through municipal water purification.
The idea of atmospheric water extraction is interesting, though at $4,500 probably out of most people’s reach.
12
An ordinary dehumidifier will do the job, though it may produce water with contaminants due to the materials in the device (ie, industrial grade copper coils with heavy metal contamination, plastic collecting container that is not food grade).
One can collect rainwater from the roof with just a drain pipe and a container. No need to intervene with technology to circumvent nature's distillation system. Now, most public health systems recommend treating the water with antibacterial agents. Household bleach, in the correct dilution, does fine. Would I drink untreated water? I routinely drink well water when I am where it is available, but public health systems also recommend that it be tested by a certified laboratory periodically, for both biological and chemical contaminants. Why? So it will be known to be safe. These people are fools.
I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, in the heart of the High Tech Captial. There was a beautiful old hotel named the Ben Franklin. The Franklin was purchased by an uber-wealthy venture capitalist, Tim Draper, who repurposed the hotel into a self-named for-profit university, Draper University. You can pay money and Draper University will put you through a "boot camp" to "teach you" how to become an "entrepreneur." This article reminds of this school for entrepreneurs, where you learn how to do things like, turn you water into a "franchisable product." Like one of the other readers below, I drinlk my water straight from the tap, which comes from the Crystal Springs reservoir, which in turn comes from the Hetch Hetchy waster system. I am fortunate to have such wonderful water, which I drink from a "repurposed" plastic bottle of franchised "energy water" endorsed by "famous" professional athletes. Which all reminds that I haven't watched the great movie about california water, China Town, in a while.
9
“Own the air” we breathe? No, we are only borrowing it for a few seconds.
4
And lately that air has been dangerous for a lot of people, like around oil wells and fracking operations, coal plants, and other toxic waste producers who are hot on the trail for "deregulation".
5
Ah, what a nice luxury to talk about which water is better while in a world where potable drinking water is beyond the reach of billions of people. I wonder if some third world country has a media outlet that talks about which water is of better quality: water collected from puddles or water flowing through gutters?
9
This is absurd. You take good clean New York tap water, run it through a Brita to remove most residual lead and then chill it overnight. It tastes the same as spring water I had camping or well water from upstate. People really do have disposable income if they are shopping for water (and driving on a highway that most likely exposes them to more pollutants than they avoid in sourcing a few gallons of from a seemingly pristine spring).
6
Anyone want to come over and pay some big bucks for water in our house - out of a deep well and no lead pipes. Must say, it is insanely good and most tap water when I venture out tastes awful, chlorine and all. Bu let's all be thankful for water coming out of our taps. And I do get my “raw” water tested every few years as many natural and not-so-natural things can do harm way down deep. Uranium and radon, remember, are natural substances. But all is well and delicious. So bundle up, stuff those coat pockets with money. I have lots of big glass mason jars for you!
3
Another tragedy is unfolding in Michigan, in addition to the Flint story. This time it's an ever-widening area of private wells, deep wells that have drawn on Michigan's deep, wonderful water. The wells, and other waters in the same area in Kent County, were contaminated by dumping of tannery waste. Clean, pure wells, aquifers, streams, rivers, lakes - America's greatest treasures - all ironically poisoned by a product manufactured for water-proofing shoes! Water is life, people. We will rue the day that we treated it so cavalierly. Has no one read "Dune?" "Canticle for Liebowitz?" Water makes our planet what it is. It is both sin and crime to ruin it. Although not known to be PFAS poisoned, the waters of Michigan are waters that corporate monster Nestle sucks away at a gazillion gallons per minute and puts into plastic bottles to sell back to suckers of equal short-sight, labeled as "Ice Mountain" from where no mountains exist. Nestle, Swiss monster - same that encouraged African mothers to buy Nestle products rather than breast-feed - confuses Michigan waters for the Alps, actual "ice mountains" and from where Nestle SHOULD steal water, instead of taking MICHIGAN waters, calling them Ice Mountain and naming the Nestle company that takes them, "Nestle Waters." Privatizing water is a very particular evil that humans should absolutely reject in every way. That water should be called "Plastic Mountain" for the horrendous amounts of plastic fouling Earth - and its waters.
1
So many treats to choose from, but I particularly loved the vapidity of:
The health benefits she reported include better skin and the need to drink less water. “My skin’s plumper,” she said. “And I feel like I’m getting better nutrition from the food I eat.”
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I also wondered what better nutrition “feels like.” Maybe it’s something like how I felt when I was biopsy-diagnosed with celiac and stopped eating gluten. But I doubt it.
2
Her skin is plumper? Maybe she has been ingesting a few extra calories along with that uncontaminated water. "I feel like .... ." Quite a scientific conclusion there.
Nothing in this world is really pure, theirs no way around it, we're fulling ourselves if we think any different. The air we breath is polluted, rain water passes through all the mess left in the air that the cooperate world created for profit.
5
I’ve had the pleasure of having giardia twice, both times by drinking ultra-pure and tasty live mountain water. I’ll take the chlorine and fluoride-laden stuff any day of the week.
16
I hike and camp regularly. I obtain water from springs, streams, and when in desert country sometimes from small runoff bodies of water called in the American SW "tinajas." I treat the water before using it, because the last thing I want when backpacking for a few days is an enteric infection like _Giardia_ or _Campylobacter_. Pristine, untreated water is an invitation to disaster.
4
The right to safe, clean water from the tap for everyone is being eroded by crimes like the Flint water crisis and the retreat to privatization of drinking water. The environmental harm of countless plastic bottles in the trash is a cost everyone pays, but as always the poor pay more. I wish people who are invested in health for themselves could pay more attention to the big picture, because sooner or later what goes around comes around.
9
hazards of our more prosperous society
for some, there is more money available for harmless, marginally eccentric and possibly useless expenses like "special" water
for others, additional income is an opportunity for ever larger private arsenals of more lethal weapons and ammo, which are far from harmless
1
Once again, people look to save their own selves at the expense of all others. Let's really think this through, guys. Water should be safe for EVERYONE to drink and available at the tap in your home. COLLECTIVELY, we should work to ensure that water remains a public resource, and one that is safe for ALL.
10
This 'raw water' is a scam for these 'inventors' to make money off of natural resources. It is not innovative at all, and just like the anti-vaccination movement, will only damage entire communities if it proliferates. I am thankful for modern engineering and the health benefits that come from treated water.
6
It is a disservice to the public and your readers to not balance the human profiles and individual testimonials given here with scientists and doctors explaining the real and present dangers of drinking contaminated water. It is rather galling to know that millions of lives around the world might be saved each year if people only had access to clean drinking water and yet this entire article indulges the unsupported conspiracy theories of a handful of west coast millionaires. Why not a profile humanitarians working to bring clean water to people worldwide rather than a few opportunists profiting on selling dirty water to affluent Americans?
11
This got my attention and at first thought it was a spoof. The more I read the more I realized it wasn't. Oh, it's California.
7
Looks like well off white hippies with more time and money than sense have found another way to waste those resources on themselves, rather than actually help others in need. It's not like there are billions of people living without access to clean drinking water and proper sanitation, or anything.
9
"White Hippies"?
1
Let's put the blame where it belongs. This isn't an issue to blame "the haves" (or hippies) over. The blame for the salting of the earth (plastics, fracking, billionaires, CAFOs etc) should fall squarely on those elected custodians of the commonweal who serve only themselves and their corporate masters, amounting to a conscious ruination of the planet. I do what i can to preserve the planet and help others but it's not my job to legislate or bring clean water to the billions without it.
1
White hippies????
1
Snake oil by any other name is still snake oil.
Wait until the water snobs start seeing the kind of teeth their children will have (or not have, as the case may be) when they eschew flouridated water.
7
If fluoride in the water is supposed to make us “docile”, why am I so anxious?
5
There is no credible evidence that fluoride exposure makes people docile, but there is plenty of evidence that it causes impaired cognitive function, such as this recent study published in Environmental Health Perspectives.
https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/ehp655/
Sneaking across private property in the country of the gun is more dangerous than fluoride in the water.
4
The idea that spring water has probiotics in it is absolutely insane. The right has may be anti-science, but the left woo-peddlers have their own flavor of anti-science. At any rate, how many of these people who disdain tap water because lacks probiotics and minerals take daily supplements for those things anyway? I'm sure they mostly do.
San Francisco has changed so much over the last 30 years. Sure, it always had its "interesting" people, but at least they had the decency to be real and middle class (or lower). Now the city is full of people with far more money than sense.
I got out. They killed the place, these demon spawn crossbreeds of yuppies and hipsters.
3
None of this is about "left" or "right." Good grief. Greed, ignorance, self-interest have no particular party or political bent. Do you have to show your voter registration card to buy bottled water or turn on your water tap? I find it hard to believe that the "demon spawn crossbreeds of yuppies and hipsters" (let's have some names for that group please) can afford to live in San Francisco. Most of those enriching themselves mightily off the ignorance, stupidity, gullibility, desperation and poor educations of others that I have noted are the exact opposite of "yuppies and hipsters." They are oligarchs or other variations of scam artists, con men and women, quite often dressed as wolves in sheeps' clothing.
Why is it when something in our infrastructures breaks down, we get wealthy people investing their millions in "new-age" alternatives, to make more money, instead of fixing the problems for EVERYONE, and not the few who can afford the new trendy product? And there's a Boomer someplace behind it!
The issue isn't that our water is "dead", its that we've allowed the last few generations in charge of things - BOOMERS for those not paying attention - to not reinvest our tax dollars in the things we all depend upon. The issue is why haven't local govt's, etc, been reinvesting our tax dollars in infrastructure, instead of their personal beautification, or Donor projects! The stupid malls and redundant commercial strips get built, where they most often shouldn't, but the water systems can languish, and fall apart, only to become a political issue aimed at gathering votes only! Only to pass the problems down the line, again!
So now we're seeing Boomers who let so much fall apart the last several decades, while they flourished, and filled their garages with expensive imports,and dumped tons of ground water on their fertilized lawns - build expensive "water from the air" extraction systems, so they can peddle more paranoia, and make more money!
What is wrong with that picture?
The Boomers inherited a prosperous system, took whatever they wanted from it, fixed nothing, destroyed a lot of it, and are now going to sell us their "fixes" to the things they let rot and decay! ???
6
Im a boomer and I didn't do any of the things that you are blaming me for. Time to stop blaming and complaining .
4
You are blaming me and others in my age cohort collectively. Only a small fraction of us are among those interviewed for this article. Blame the ones who do what is described, not the majority.
1
Are you a college freshman?
Would have been nice to actually hear from someone who works in a water treatment plant. We don't put fluoride in our drinking water in Montreal- I was curious why (as we aren't adverse to Mind control in Montreal: See MK Ultra at Mcgill University). I read an article linking Fluoridation to Osteoporosis. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8897754. I love our drinking water here, but even growing up I could taste the freshness of brewing a cup of tea with untreated water that we had access to at our Cottage. Are the trace amounts of prescription medication, pesticides and microplastics that are being found in our drinking water affecting how health? Undoubtedly- but to what extent?
5
This issue has been conflated with the risks or benefits of fluoridating water and that is not the right way of considering these issues. Many very educated, science-based people have changed their minds about fluoridating municipal water supplies. That is a totally different question from treating water for safety. Fluoride has been shown to reduce dental caries in children, to the best of my knowledge. However, with the ready availability of fluoridated topical products such as toothpaste, mouth rinses and gel applications of fluoride itself, those have the same benefit to teeth without adding fluoride systemically to the entire body pr to an entire population of every city and town. Fluoridated water does negatively affect thyroid health and skeletal health and even the FDA reduced the required levels for all municipal water systems a couple of years ago. If fluoridated toothpaste and floss help reduce dental caries without harming they thyroid or bones, why is it necessary to add just that one particular chemical to all water everywhere to be absorbed by the entire body?
Well, those substances are just as abundant (maybe more so, some of them are required to be tested for an corrective action taken) in untreated water as in treated water. But the biotic agents that cause disease, and innumerable toxic substances are definitely more numerous in untreated water.
I live in Spokane, WA, the largest U.S. city not fluoridating drinking water. Dental caries is far more prevalent here than in other large cities.
It was a solo hiking and camping trip I took to Patagonia years ago that made me realize that I had never tasted untreated water until that time. I had iodine tablets with me to treat water if necessary, but I was able to find water sources with sufficient flow rates above trails and campsites untainted by humans and domesticated animals. Having said that, doing the same in the US is not generally not a good idea given the the population density, chemicals used to treat animals, crops and yards, manufacturing waste and the unsafe disposal of hazardous materials we see in this country. There are surely still places that are unaffected by these impacts, but, as noted in the article, giardia and other parasitic, bacterial and viral threats are still a concern, especially if local regulatory authorities are going to issue testing/oversight waivers to these companies. With that perspective, filtered tap water is just fine for me.
5
I'm interested that you haven't looked at the effect of high tech entrepreneurs coming to relatively rural communities to extract "free" water which they then repackage to sell to well-off urban dwellers for prices greater than oil. It goes to the question: Who owns water? Should anyone own it at all?
10
Nestlé certainly has reaped obscene profits at the expense of local communities.
4
Corporations and very wealthy private individuals are racing around the world securing water rights. This includes the Bush family who bought 300,000 acres of land in South America, (Paraguay), for this purpose.
It is the equivalent of a modern day gold rush.
1
In Michigan, a small township - Osceola township - tried to resist Nestle's demands to increase their already ungodly amounts of water taken and the giant monster which has the audacity to call itself "Nestle Waters" has put its boot on the throat of every entity that resists its takings. Unfortunately, your characterization is not entirely accurate because it is often local yokels who hand over the keys to the kingdom to Nestle. Sometimes they are responding to the promise of jobs and other improvements and sometimes it is just greed. When you have Nestle trucks running on the what were once quiet country roads 24/7/365 taking away the MICHIGAN waters for, at best, a pittance and depleting the waters of the streams and wetlands and rivers and lakes while they fill billions of plastic bottles with MICHIGAN water labeled "Ice Mountain" under their Privatized Water brand "Nestle Waters," some greedy locals think that is just fine; others are grieving as they witness the theft of something precious and necessary to life. We humans aren't wise enough, good enough or smart enough to deserve the gift of this marvelous planet and thus the psychopaths have an easy route to exploitation.
I think the more than 2 billion people worldwide who don't have access to clean drinking water would love access to tap water. Here are a few reasons why: More than 360,000 children under age 5 die every year from diarrhea because they don't have access to clean water or sanitation. (Mostly) girls in other countries spend hours each day walking to a water source, so they don't have time for school. Lack of clean water means lack of toilets. Imagine being in a hospital or healthcare facility without access to clean water. I'm grateful each day I can walk into my kitchen, turn on the tap and make my coffee. It really is an amazing service we have. Let's not bash it. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2017/water-sanitation-hygie...
46
No one is talking about banning tap water. Or that tap water is unimportant. Which article are you replying to?
But for those of us billions of people that do have it we have to be reminded that what we have isn’t perfect. That we can get it ourselves without all the chemicals that many muni water sources have in it.
So Bill, you're all for this perverse monetization of "alt-sources of water" instead of fixing the water already coming out of our taps?
We have water aleady coming into our homes, andyou want to go out and buy it from someplace 2-5K miles away, that they say is better for you?
How many billions have to be made off of "better for you" products, when whats already there for us, isn't far from being perfectly fine for us! Where a little push from the public could fix any issues of any local water source!?!
But no, lets buy bottled XYZ, because some long-haired hipster conspiracist, or aging Boomer says it is !
What is going on in this nation, that people are eager to buy the latest in "better for You" products, when what you have coming into your home, at a ridiculously modest price, isn't proved bad for you!
3
You seem to have a "thing" about blaming "Boomers" for all the problems you identify. I think you have a different agenda, one that is about "boomers," and not about the issues at hand. It does not appear that those people who are featured in this article even are "boomers," but they are rich, to be sure. Is Mark Zuckerberg a "boomer?" The arguments against the illogical and, in my opinion, irrational, thinking behind the notion of "raw water" are plenty and none of them have anything to do with blaming any contrived group based on their age, or some grandfalloon of generational stereotyping. Attack the issues, not some propagandized generation stereotype you keep pushing.
Fluorine, Chlorine, Bromine and Iodine seem to be both chemically active, but to me the subject of several interesting narratives. Every so often the stories of each become more interesting, in this article, Flouride treated water. My understanding is that Fluorine is a byproduct of Aluminum extraction, and the cost of otherwise safe disposal is huge. Until the campaign to get us all to drink it, the only use for Fluoride was as rat poison. Didn't the head of the Canadian Dental Association resign a few years ago over embarrassment on this very issue? Ah, none of my business perhaps, but our world has no shortage of bad science motivated by economics. My business is to stay healthy, and I am profoundly skeptical on this subject.
6
Do you have any links to back up your claims? I've never heard of fluoride used as rat poison, at least in the USA. Now, warfarin is often used as rat poison, but in the correct dosage it's a highly effective blood thinner used by millions of cardiac patients world wide. fluoride is known to harden the enamel on teeth, that's a good thing!
1
Nutty.
Fluorine is produced from fluorine-bearing minerals such as fluorite; it not a by-product of aluminum extraction, rather it is used in aluminum refining - one of the very many uses, others including making teflon and steel, of this element.
You want to stay healthy? Does that include dental health? Fluoride substitutes for the hydroxyl ion in the apatite for you teeth, making them much stronger and more decay resistant. And there is absolutely no scientific debate on the dental health benefits of fluoridated water - nor any debate on the absence of adverse effects.
A scientist.
6
To Bill White - Thank you for your excellent post!
This is just too hard to read as an environmental engineer. The "government" doesn't bring you water -- a utility brings you water from a treatment plant that is highly designed by engineers and operated by specialized well-trained operators all to bring everyone safe drinking water -- a modern miracle that has done more for human health and life expectancy than the entirety of the pharmaceutical industry. There is a reason why Flint MI and previous failings of water systems are such big deals -- It is because it is aberration of what we in the US take for granted.
211
My question is, is this "raw" water being tested for heavy metals or e. coli, among other things? I would sure hope so, although I have a feeling that they don't conduct quality testing. Even if they did, it would be hard for it to be completely clean unless untreated due to environmental pollutants Water treatment is crucial to a healthy society, albeit I personally drink reversed osmosis water.
4
If testing was done I think it'd be mentioned in this article. I get the feeling the people who bottle this water would be incensed at the very idea of testing their "pure" water.
2
If you think Flint was just an aberration you are kidding yourself. Incidentally, forced-fluoridation started in Michigan. I guess that's because they just love poor little kiddies so much there.
Bottled water is primarily another marketing scheme inflicted on a highly consumptive populace easily conned by the latest product that gathers momentum through creative hype and luck.
The last bacon I bought had the words gluten free prominently displayed on the label which pretty much shows how sophisticated we are as shoppers.
The quality of water is certainly varied and sources are of legitimate concern, unlike the quest for gluten-free bacon, but the rub is that water is heavy and transporting it in diesel trucks leaves a substantial carbon footprint that condemns it as a selfish indulgence.
I do like the idea of collecting rainwater, although in urban areas I assume it would be loaded with soluble air pollution. My own home has a well with an electric pump for a very nice flavored drinking water (no detectable sulfur and slightly sweet). I also have a cistern to serve the vegetable garden. I'm surprised cisterns are't a rage among the wealthier of the environmentally concerned.
25
You are correct! Good (depending on your perspective) marketing has bamboozled people into overspending by attaching a perceived exclusivity to particular products. Just talk to a wine snob, craft beer addict or coffee 'expert' to understand how much you are missing out. We are now moving into the age of hyper-exclusivity at hyper-prices for basic items. No thanks.
2
First, you are spot on with your comments. Your second comment made me laugh!
1
Let me explain to you about gluten free labeling, which helps me. I have celiac disease so I must always avoid even trace amounts of gluten. While raw or plain cooked meat would logically not contain any gluten, unfortunately ANY processed food (including bacon) could have wheat in the ingredients used to process it (such as dry rub flavorings or even soy sauce).
It’s not as silly as it sounds to label many products as gluten free. It doesn’t hurt you, and it helps me.
I see no mention of whether these products have been tested for safety at all. Is there no regulation of this?
The dissolved solids in ground water contain carcinogens such as arsenic. Consuming such products without proper testing is inviting a range of cancers associate with arsenic exposure, including cancers of the bladder, kidney, lung, and skin.
Maybe not such a good idea...
10
It says in the article, the company in Maine got an exemption from regulations based on their 'natural foods' status. In other words, to me, it's a labeling scam. Chemicals are natural processes in nature and this whole 'raw water' think is a scam to me. Just investors taking advantage of natural resources and creating more plastic junk.
1
We have the ability to drink from multiple springs. This clear, clean, & tasty fresh water is something that a substantial portion of the population will never have an opportunity to appreciate. While I prefer mountain side artesian springs, certain wells also offer outstanding water.
It is about the taste. Unfiltered, unprocessed offers the full flavor of the water. There is a difference! There are certain springs where, at any given opportunity, I will empty whatever water is in my water bottle and refill with that water. It is always the most refreshing and invigorating water available. You can’t purchase this.
5
Try having some tested for all the things you can't see or taste. You may be surprised. I suggest getting both "organic" and "inorganic" testing done. See the link below for a lab right there in Colorado.
http://coloradolab.com/
Questions:
When you drink that water, do you KNOW that there isn't the rotting corpse of a small animal 50' upstream?
Do you KNOW that animals, or people for that matter, haven't excreted into the water upstream 50'?
Do you KNOW that the virtually invisible and tasteless Botulism, Cholera, E. Coli, Dysentery, Leptospirosis, or Typhoid bacteria are not present?
If you know all of the above and a whole lot more, then, Yes, the water from your spring is safe to drink.
154
Why dont we just jump straight to raw chicken and get it over with?
96
Some already have:
http://www.foodandwine.com/fwx/food/is-it-safe-to-eat-chicken-sashimi
I'll take Hetch Hetchey water over anything else any day. Wonderful taste.
And that's all these discussions about water should be about: taste, not health. The guy claiming that fluoride is a brain control drug- seriously, go read some studies.
8
https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/ehp655/
Fluoride is not a brain control drug, but the evidence that it impairs cognitive function is stronger than the evidence for benefit. I have 2 degrees in physical sciences from one of Australia's Group of Eight universities and have read thousands of pages of material on fluoride and fluoridation, including many original research studies and a bunch of systematic reviews and books, by the way.
2
Interesting article. Thanks for the link.
It finds a correlation between prenatal fluoride exposure and lower cognitive test scores. But it qualifies that in MANY ways and points out several other unrelated factors that could have influenced results.
"Community water and salt fluoridation, and fluoride toothpaste use, substantially reduces the prevalence and incidence of dental caries (Jones et al. 2005) and is acknowledged as a public health success story (Easley 1995). Our findings must be confirmed in other study populations... However, our findings, combined with evidence from existing animal and human studies, reinforce the need for additional research on potential adverse effects of fluoride, particularly in pregnant women and children, and to ensure that the benefits of population-level fluoride supplementation outweigh any potential risks."
4
Isn't it well accepted science that fluoride is harmful to thyroid health and that it contributes to diminished skeletal health?
If it is added to water for reduction in dental caries, now that fluoride-added dental products are available everywhere, aren't there ample options for fluoride without having it in all the tap water all the time for everybody?
3
Unfilered and untreated. Yum, I love the smell of giardiasis in the morning toilet
45
Living water from a high mountain spring in Appalachia gave me a bad case of giardia in 1980 that I still harbor today. I spent four days in the hospital then and have had several surgeries and more days in the hospital than I can remember. Give me tepid tap water any day.
3
Maybe we really can sell ice to Eskimos. Living proof that PT Barnum got it right.
21
Yes, well, the idea of selling ice to Eskimos isn't as funny as it once used to be.
28
There is danger in this sort of movement. I was once trout fishing in Idaho in a crystal clear creek. I decided to move upstream over a rise and came upon 40-50 head of cattle standing in the creek doing what they do. No thanks.
62
Be doubly daring and organic. Wash down raw milk with raw water.
10
"Water-conciousness movement"? Humans would do well to revere water as a key to life; this selfish bunch is not accomplishing anything in this direction. Safe,clean water is a human right. Trashing safe tap water and promoting water privatization is unhelpful. Water conciousness should be about gratitude for the clean water that flows into our home at the turn of a handle, and concern for those who don't have access to that.
105
I think that there may be a market for designer water, synthesized directly from raw oxygen and hydrogen in a fuel cell when ordered. I figure that custom made designer water should go for about $250 a gallon.
There is a lot of misinformation promoted in this article. There are problems with tap water in some cases. To know what those may be where you live you have to find your local water quality report and identify your water source the contaminants in your water. I only drink filtered tap water.
Bottled water is not the panacea it is made out to be. On the other hand I do drink a local bottled water when I travel.
The notion that water produced by reverse osmosis is 'dead' is just silly nonsense. I've tested it and it is not.
Spring water may be good. It may not be. You have to test it to know and as several commenters have stated the spring may be contaminated.
Hetch Hetchy water in San Francisco is some of the finest water available for a city. I would remove the chloramine and fluoride with a filter but then it is as good or better than any spring water.
The idea of going out to collect your own water is sily. But the carcinogens in tap water are dangerous. Find your local water report and then use the filter that removes the contaminants in your water.
Unfortunately people just make things up and then those ideas get spread. People adopt incorrect notions and may be harming themselves.
12
Drinking local bottled water? Then you're not so eco-conscious after all. Contributing to the forever growing pile of plastic bottles in our landfills and oceans. As for the tap water, the only problem is with the piping, either lead or copper with lead soldering. Why remove the fluoride? It's safe anbd a proven health benefit for teeth.
9
https://forcedfluoridationfreedomfighters.com/scotland-and-the-netherlan...
There is no credible evidence that taking fluoride in water has ever prevented a single dental cavity. The forced-fluoridation fanatics often try to claim that the low rates of dental caries in western European countries which do not have artificially fluoridated public water supplies are due to naturally occurring fluoride in water, or some other kind of artificial fluoridation such as salt fluoridation. They are lying. They also rely on studies which do not measure individual fluoride exposure, are not randomised, are not blinded, are not clinical trials, do not properly account for confounding factors, are highly prone to systematic error, and are typically funded by corporations such as Colgate-Palmolive.
2
There IS credible evidence.
A meta-analysis of dozens of studies over 4 decades, which include 29 double-blind trials, concluding that fluoride mouth rinses are effective.
https://www.nature.com/articles/6400221
This page from the CDC provides a detailed description of how fluoride works to protect the teeth. Also check the References section which provides dozens of titles of books and trials.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5014a1.htm
An ongoing study you might want to keep an eye on.
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02385474
3
Real survivalists don't need VC-funded, expensive, "off the grid" water systems for their luxury homes.
What's next for silicon valley? Making money off of "raw vaccines"?
9
Another manifestation of extreme inequality and neoliberalism. You can drink the purest water possible, buy the most carefully-grown organic whole foods, and send your children to the best schools, but pretty soon pollution, global warming, and widespread ignorance will catch up with you, too. There's no substitute for a strong public sector that produces good, clean water for everyone. If Flint, Michigan's lead-contaminated water scares you, help to support and vote for a good, safe, well-regulated public water system.
151
I agree with your points but please label this neo liberalism.
1
OOps I meant DONT label this neo liberalism.
Raw water may a bit beyond the pale, but this article failed to explore or even mention the fact that San Francisco, in it's infinite wisdom, decided nearly one year ago to begin essentially polluting its Hetch Hetchy drinking water with ground water. Ground water does contain all kinds of harmful substances from pharmaceutical residues to heavy metals. Just because it's kept within an amount "deemed safe" does not make me feel any safer. That's why I began buying bottled water.
The justification is, as always, conservation. But if a large enough segment of the population switches to bottled water, any gains from this "conservation" are offset by increased purchases of water from external sources. Worse yet, citizens who can't afford to switch to safer water are essentially Guinea Pigs in a test to see how much ground water is too much for good health. Ultimately their goal of conservation is not met and people are made worse off. It's sad that our politicians and local government have never learned about the law of "unintended consequences" and how many of their supposedly well meaning policies do nothing but diminish daily quality of life in a once beautiful city.
2
Let's be honest. SF's "quality of life" rests on water stolen from Tuolumne County and Yosemite National Park. Water battles are the history of the West and the future will continue to see them.
11
And then there is "dehydrated water" which is usually sold by the gallon. It merely requires the addition of one gallon of water. Happy New Year 2018.
85
freeze dried water i hear, is the next big thing with the far out eco nuts. Whole Foods already has first dibbs to set it retail.
11
OK folks. We have Nestles "buying" water from the state (using quotes becaUse of ridiculously low rates) bottling, and shipping to you. Water is best consumed at its source rather than being dislocated. Moving water eventually diminishes aquifers. That should also be a consideration of buying "live water".
11
Oh, you're not the only state. Nestle pays ridiculously low rates to steal water from Southern CA as well!
9
Souther CA water? Don't you mean Southern California water that was stolen/bought from Colorado via the Colorado river?
It is a supreme - and very ugly - irony that a huge giant of international corporate greed is sucking what should be unimaginable amounts of MICHIGAN water out of deep wells, re-naming it "Nestle Waters, " filling millions and millions of plastic bottles with it, calling it "Ice Mountain" although it's taken from where there are no mountains - and selling it back to all the suckers who swallow it hook, line and sinker. Call it "Plastic Mountain" and Filthy Greed Water - and Nestle sucks it all away almost for free.
1
Go to the Third World where people are "fortunate" to be able to drink "raw water" all the time and you will find that those folks would gladly trade their "live, healthy raw water" for the stuff that comes out of our municipal taps whenever we want it. I'm sure they will gladly give e up polluted water with the long list of contaminates and diseases that it brings, which those of us in the U.S. have no acquaintance with. Public health in this country has improved immeasurably in the past 150 years as a result of the treatment of drinking water in public and private water systems.
200
Yup, we have spent a huge sum building safe water supply systems all over this country, but now people w/ too much time and money, and even people w/o enough money are hooked on bottled water. People!
14
The people in Wilmington will dissagree with some of you. A company that makes our coated pots and pans has been dumping Gen X into the Cape Fear River for years. Our water supply. which turns up in our tap water. Plus bee keepers have been told to dump their honey. Which leaves us with notknowing what to drink. Maybe I'll look into Pedilite or Saline or something.
But their "raw water" doesn't have the right label on the bottle to impress their friends with.
I drink raw water every day. I comes from the well on my rural property. The county health department has tested it to make sure it is free of bacteria, and it's been tested to make sure it has no agricultural contaminants. I wonder if I could sell it for $2.50 a gallon?
18
If you design a cool label, have an unusual bottle shape and use the word 'artisanal' at least twice, you could probably bump the price up to $10 per litre and the Whole Foods crowd will be knocking down your door to buy it!
2
Last time I went to a local hillside spring for some "live" water, got my gallon along with a dozen juvenile leeches. Natural water with protein enhancement!
35
This has to be one of the most idiotic ideas to come along in quite some time—is bottled air close behind?
Enjoy the giardiasis spring water fans.
61
Oxygen bar - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_bar
Oxygen bar guests pay about one U.S. dollar per minute to inhale a percentage of oxygen greater than the normal atmospheric content of 20.9% oxygen. This oxygen is produced from the ambient air by an industrial (non-medical) oxygen concentrator and inhaled through a nasal cannula for up to about 20 minutes.
2
One word: giardiasis.
21
It's the gift that keeps on giving. I've been fighting it for nearly 38 years.
To go with you raw water i’d like to sell you some raw sunlight.
Regular sunlight contains toxic UV rays, which cause brain cancer, not to mention it damages your skin! It also probably comtains gluten.
But raw sunlight is guaranteed to cure every disease known to man, and it’s paleo-instapot-instragram approved!
Just buy this 2000$ armband and all sunlight is transformed into raw sunlight! I’ve raised 300 million in bitcoin from internet investors and i’m planning an IPO next month, any takers?!
PS: my marketing is just pictures of the sun I stole from stockphotos, with the watermarks still on them.
137
Great sunspot!!
3
Please try to recover the water off those watermarks.
1
Hey, leave the Instant Pot out of this.
1
There's no such thing as "Dead Water" as that yokel was saying. Same molecular compostion. Chlorine is added to kill the deadly viruses and bacteria. Flouride is added to help with maintained strong teeth. "Raw" water, untreated is as dangerous as drinking raw milk. A crap shoot. The biggest danger is to your health is either driving a car , riding abike or beinga pedestrian. Treated and filtered water has been around for generations and it's perfectly safe. It's the lead pipes or copper pipes with lead soldering that is the problem. These people might as well have Mr. Trump as their customer. Maybe he already signed up. Like minded people usually gravitate toward one another. One flew over the cuckoo's nest.
16
Please, all these people likely voted for HRC, if they voted at all!
To be honest they sound more like Jill Stein and Randy Johnson voters.
So if a wild animal or a cow or maybe another human being has taken a wicked dump just upstream from where you bottled your "live" water, is that going to be a problem? Or do you just drink it in and celebrate the natural feel of an inavding army of microbes in your gut? I'll take my chances with the fluoride.
26
The person who talks about the toxic effect of fluoride should check the ever-increasing longevity of Americans, most of whom drink fluoride treated water. Doesn’t seem to be any evidence of mass fluoride poisoning, unless you assume that the increasing lack of common sense in the U.S. is a result of treated water consumption.
Also, check out “Dr Strangelove” see how the focus on fluoride’s danger leads to nuclear war! It’s true! Yeeee-hah!
20
Love the Bomb Loony Logic
Fluoridationist: Fluoridation is good because Dr. Strangelove.
Sane person: You're serious? That's your argument?
Fluoridationist: Fluoride is the bomb. I have been much happier since I learned to stop worrying and love the bombast.
America has the lowest life expectancy of any developed nation, by the way.
1
My dad was a dentist back in the 50s-80s. He told me he could immediately tell when a patient came in from a town or area that did not flouridate the water. Their teeth were always in much worse condition with cavities, etc. Far beyond the normal kid who didn't brush type of problem...
Fools and their money are easily parted.
25
Any wonder that this la la land aka California continues to draw ridicule from many states in America.
Give this much to Mr Singh - he is a shrewd marketer who has realized that ultimate American maxim "a sucker born every day."
These tax payers in the la la land paying hefty taxes to install all this infrastructure - only to stop using it.
And without knowing the source of this raw water - happily consume it.
Reminds me of why pet rock originated in that la la land.
And did I see a bottled water in his hand while Mr Singh is counting his pennies - soaking in the sun.
10
Texas has always seemed crazier to me!
Further evidence, not that it's needed, of how many crazy people there are.
34
Next time I'm in San Francisco, I'll be sure to visit Ghirardelli Square and get a nice, refreshing bottle of Giardia Water.
12
No vaccines, no climate change, no pasteurization, no regulations, no treatment of water, YIKES! Clowns to the left of me, clowns to right, here I am, stuck in the middle with science and you.
350
This link has a number of scientists of various specialties who explain their opposition to fluoridation of municipal water systems:
http://fluoridation.com/calgaryl.htm
1
Larger containers, but some parallels with snake oil, for sure.
33
That’s interesting about the Crooked River water- I live near there. There are failing septic systems that are likely contributing some not so nice flavorings to the water. If you’re not filtering and chlorinating, then you’re taking a risk! Nasty!
19
If "gathering water" is so pure and healthy, how come my clean car is so dirty with brown spots after any kind of a rain fall? Rain water or any water "gathered" will be dirty because the air we breathe is dirty from all of the pollutants from mankind. I see P.T. Barnum's statement "there's one born every minute" still holds true today.
This "ReWild Yourself" concept sounds wonderful and oh so retro, back to nature bla bla bla, but in essence, it's appears to be more reckless than useful. After reading the book "Into the Wild", I have a new appreciation and respect for nature.
20
Raw water is raw sewage - where do you think fish, amphibians, waterfowl, etc defecate?
It's like the raw milk fad - my late grandmother did not understand the appeal, but then again she was old enough to remember people dying from drinking raw milk. Folks who have seen the effects of prenatal rubella aren't opposed to vaccinating, either. Perhaps a few rounds of giardia will cure raw water folks of this fad.
53
The high school chemistry teachers of pretty much everyone quoted in this article owe them huge apologies.
7
Each of us is responsible for our own education. If you don't make an effort to learn what a teacher has to offer, the onus is on you, not the teacher. Look up the German word bildung, which encapsulates this concept nicely.
Hi Todd,
You might want to try again implying I personally dropped the ball on educating people about water chemistry because I have literally door-to-door canvassed on issues related to water utilities (sometimes up to six days a week!). While canvassing I was astounded at how ill-informed people were about the basics - of both chemistry and how city services functioned. Very few people outside of the sciences seems to understand that elements affects on health and properties were highly depended on concentration. Very few people knew that tap water is treated so it doesn't have germs in it. So many people thought we directly consumed untreated surface water. This is all pretty basic stuff that could be understood by most high schoolers. It's safe to assume all these wealthy people quoted in this article went to school. Chemistry is not something one can learn on their own - you very much need skilled teachers with lesson plans. Maybe the teachers themselves are not to directly to blame - maybe it's their hometown's school boards or school funding, but yes, the institutions these people went to have failed them in this very profound way.
I love the idea of collecting my own water, not for the 'live culture' (sounds like masterful marketing to me!) benefits- I take a daily probiotic- but for general water conservation. But what about all the pollutants in the air?? The idea of drinking air pollution bums me out more than filtered tap water...
6
Yep - if the water came off my roof, I would still want a very good filtration system in place.
I'll bet a very high percentage of people who swear they can taste these differences in the water they drink would fail a blind taste test more than half of the time.
10
Grew up on well water, depending on what you get it out of you can taste the difference, not necessarily a good thing. Sulfur water's an acquired taste, that's for sure.
8
Well, not so fast. Thirty-one years ago we bought our home and our local water came from nine municipal wells. it was cold in the summer and tasted great. About 1993 we started getting our water from Cincinnati Water Works and got treated water from a brand new treatment plant in California, Ohio. Hailed as the best water on the planet then, I was happy to have it. it did taste different though, no doubt about it.
Science deniers meet capitalism. Coke and Pepsi were falling out of favor until they realized they could make even more money selling their product with just the water and no other ingredients. Now health food stores want in on that action.
23
Safe and secure public water systems are one of the greatest accomplishments of our nation, and they have contributed greatly to our health and well being. San Francisco, where some of the comments in the article come from, has excellent water. We should all be fighting to protect, improve and defend our public water systems. Our health and well being depends on it! The raw water fad is dangerous and expensive nonsense.
83
If fluoride was added to water (in the 1950's) to make people "more docile," didn't the riots of the 1960's CONCLUSIVELY disprove its efficacy? I mean, science and all.
14
So you don't trust your municipal water company. Why would you trust a for profit water company any more? If it's water comes from deep artesian wells it's probably safe, but if it's coming from a river or other surface supply and it's untreated, you have no way of knowing whether or not anything harmful is in it. Go ahead and take their word: it's your health and their profit that is at stake.
24
A deep artesian well pulls up lots of dissolved minerals like arsenic, a known carcinogen.
1
If you live in an American small town, there's a pretty good chance you drink well water every day. If you think "raw water" is worth paying for, you deserve to have your money taken.
10
There was a reason for so much consumption of beer and wine before the era of mass treated water systems. Most water wasn’t fit to drink. Leaving water treatment to individuals and amateurs on a continuing basis seems to me to be asking for trouble. “But it’s just water....how hard can it be....?” ....Something’s not going to be cleaned or over or under treated. People will get sick. Some may die.
12
I remember when Silicon Valley was full of people trying to solve real problems. Now it seems we've reached the point where people with too much money and prone to anxiety are creating problems that someone else can "solve" for $37.99 a gallon.
18
Silicon Valley used to boast of it's "clean industry". What it didn't tell people was that the chemicals used were toxic and carcinogenic and disposed of by injecting into deep wells below the plants.
Not deep enough, and several municipal wells in Santa Clara County which is how the region gets most of its water had to be closed. Essentially forever. The hills to the west of SV used to be mined for gold and mercury was used to separate the trace amounts of gold. Water from that drainage area is still toxic.
Not enough for me to spend 37.99 a gallon for water, though, and unless you also bathe in it, your skin can absorb chemicals from your shower or tub water.
Never allow science to impact one's emotional decisions. If you "think" non-tap water makes you "feel" better, then non-tap water must be "better".
8
Whoo wee! Water. I never in a million years thought I would buy bottled water. Then, there was Hurricane Matthew. Talk about water! It dumped 15 inches of rain in less than 12 hours on Southeastern North Carolina, blew out every grid we had. The flooding of our river overwhelmed our town and destroyed our water processing plant. We were a week without any water. Try flushing your toilet without it. We were weeks without potable water. Weeks. Bottled water was precious indeed. Did I mention it blew out all the grids? Yeah. It washed out our roads. We could not escape, for about a week. Thank goodness I had done all the emergency preparedness stuff NOA advises. We had enough water to drink for that first week but not nearly enough to make it the month it took to get the water grid back up. Bottled water made all the difference. Thank goodness my house did not flood. Thank goodness a tree didn't fall on my house or car because we drove to a neighbor's pool and collected water to flush toilets. This water collection thing looks very interesting to me...Thanks for the info. Oh, right, and next hurricane I'll be collecting rain from it because bathing cannot be overrated when you haven't had one one in a week. Now, here's a story tip. Houston and Puerto Rico? They are so not over it. Their day-to-day is still in recovery mode. Ask me how I know. And me? I have gallons and gallons of water stored under the bed.
5
Oh for crying out loud. ENTITLEMENT ALERT.
Meanwhile, millions around the world die each year from disease and the other physical dangers that accompany being forced to collect and drink "raw water" in hazardous conditions.
People should take that $36.99 a bottle they're spending on "live water" and donate it to Water Aid Global or another organization focused on bring safe, accessible drinking water to people who don't have the luxury of throwing out water that's "expired."
And flouride, a mind-control drug??? Where do they find these people???
327
Where? California, usually.
1
Done. Thank you for the suggestion.
2
Wow. Would it have been such a stretch to interview scientists who have devoted their lives to the study of these issues rather than a juicer gone bust who transitioned to water? This isn't thoughtful journalism. Potable water for the public at reasonable prices... how passé.
67
Like any of the “pseudoscience” claims out there- show me the data, the double blinded studies, the real science. I’m sorry, but I’m not going to trust a snake oil salesman’s claims without the science to prove them.
11
I drink water from my well. So much for city living.
1
Wow. This year at my church, we made it a priority to raise money to support installation of indoor plumbing and clean drinking water in the First Nations community of Pikangikum, in Northern Ontario. Last year's priority was to help raise awareness for cleaning the mercury-contaminated water in Grassy Narrows, also in Northern Ontario. And of course in the US, there has been the contamination in Flint Michigan. We don't have to look to some exotic place to find contaminated water. What a better place the world would be if, instead of searching the world over for the "best" and "purest" water, that those who were fortunate enough to get clean healthy water simply by opening the tap dedicated their energies towards helping those who lack this most basic human right.
47
Good grief, "raw water". This concept takes the cake. The only thing sillier than this notion is the price folks are willing to pay . . . for water. I'm waiting for someone to bottle sunshine and call it "raw light".
23
I was creating various multi-colored crystals in a lab (a re-used byproduct for experiments) in a well known location, my colleagues were certain my idea of selling the to the new agers would work.
This is just another variant of "advertising based upon fear" coupled with the belief "if it's expensive, it has to be good for me". It is all about emotion and little to do with reality, but then every skilled "marketer" knows that.
6
The only problem with all of this is the carbon footprint attached to that pristine bottle of “live” water being shipped hundreds of miles from Oregon to California. Living in Europe, water can be more expensive than gasoline and is treated like some snobby beverage rather than a basic need for the body of which we need plenty every day. In France its mass consumption means landfills and incinerators filled with plastic and glass in addition to all the fuel burned in transport of this heavy and voluminous commodity. Clean/pure water should be readily available in large quantities to each person...but locally sourced. Maybe consider the connection why California was on fire this year and non environmental friendly consumer trends (if you believe in climate change)?
17
Extreme income inequality leads to extreme BS artists becoming modestly rich.
261
It is difficult to think of all the buyers of bottled water as anything but water snobs. The processing of any natural spring water is likely to introduce into it some foreign substances. Groundwater is often contaminated in many places, so that having your own well dug may not be any better than using tap water. If the panicky predictions of global shortage of fresh water were to become true, we shall be facing wars of water redistribution and/of massive investment in nuclear power for water desalination.
11
When we sought land we always valued good water above most any other quality. You can change many things about a piece of land but you can't change the water. 40 years ago we bought what is now our home farm that we've farmed organically since. We have enjoyed the pure water that comes from a spring just by our home and that flows at a couple of hundred gallons a minute. We have piped this fine water throughout much of the property where we have homes for our extended family so now the grandkids get to enjoy something they won't even notice until they leave home for town.
Being rather a fool for good water I've always thought it the best water I've ever tasted save a spring I found on the side of Mt Shasta years ago.
Up until this year our spring was as steady as sunrise and flowed the same spring, summer or winter year after year. This year we had near record rains and snow and come the thaw our little spring started running at 3 and more times the volume it had anytime during the last 40 years! We now have a new small lake on our land as the increased flow has made a new home for itself next to one of our blueberry fields.
Funny thing water. It changes everything but the changes are often so slow that we short lived mortals never see or notice. Not sure if spring water makes you healthier but it sure can't hurt and is there much of anything better than a cold glass of spring water after coming in on a hot day?
It's one of the reasons I love being a farmer.
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I loved this comment!
As a native New Yorker, I really appreciate this comment. Makes so much sense!
If your spring is changing that much based on increased rainfall, it is "under the influence" and thus is directly connnected to surface flow. Beware drinking water that flows stronger during rainfall events - you're drinking water that recently washed across the ground and picked up anything laying on the ground, like manure, etc.
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There are very few places anymore that really have pristine water that can be pulled from the ground. Certainly not enough for everyone to be supplied with well water. I have no doubt that tap water is generally safe with a few exceptions such as Flint. This is a classic capitalist ploy of creating a need and then filling it. Water is the oxide of hydrogen. It is not alive. Some is pure. Some isn’t. What isn’t pure can be made so.
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with all respect the taste of the tap water in the US is incredibly bad. If you drink Evian and Fiji water for ages then you taste the tap water you will realise that you drink pure chlore. I agree that the plastic bottles are a lethal threat to Earth plus the pollution generated by the transport. No doubt...
New York has great tap water.
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The water is not "live" but the organisms in it are--why "raw".
Look at pond water under a microscope. Make a slide of your tap water and look at that. If not raised in non-science enviro the difference should be clear--vis a via murky.
Possibly it is the microbes contributing to flavor.
How much contamination occurs due to the plastic piping, bottle caps, or bottles? Clean water is a very hard thing to achieve, for most of us it is one of the miracles or modern society that we take for granted in the US. Privatizing that threatens the wellbeing of our country. I hope that this trend fizzles out.
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Fear not. This is a fad, not a trend. And the cost and logistics make it self-limiting.
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Drinking untreated water is dangerous and irresponsible. This country has some of the toughest regulations on water and food for a reason - to keep the public safe and healthy. The people who deny decades worth of scientific research are not only putting themselves at risk (by drinking "raw/unprocessed water") but also the remainder of the country (by denying climate change or not vaccinating their children).
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Actually, Canada has much tougher food safety regulations, even when it comes to dog food.
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There are, in the foothills in the Puget Sound (Seattle and environs) area a number of artesian wells, maintained and quality controlled by the towns whose jurisdiction they are in. Tests, normally monthly or so, are published via town websites. You will hopefully understand that these communities are liable for issues with their wells, and so, no, nobody is putting anybody at risk, and being able to cook and make tea and coffee using water that has no additives like chlorine is quite pleasant. Here is one well's quality reporting website:
http://www.alderwoodwater.com/AboutAWWD/ArtesianWellInformation.ashx?p=1173
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With the recent GOP bill making it almost impossible to pay for a comprehensive infrastructure bill and the 2014 Flint water crisis in the back of my mind, I can't help think how it must be nice to have so much disposable income that you can pay for luxury water. There are real problems in America, I'm not so sure these water purists have their concerns in the right place.
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Look around. All over the thieves are trying to take public goods and turn them for private profit. Look at all that safe, clean water getting to people, for free.
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Re: Live Water.
Do I like having additives to my water, no.
Might it taste better, maybe.
Might it be better, in terms of having live organisms/compounds, perhaps.
Would I trust to drink it, probably not.-Given human and industrial contamination.
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"Live organisms" such as E-Coli, Salmoenella, Listeria? Virures? Giardia? Chlorine kills them. Cryptosporidiosis like what happened in Milwaukee in 1993. Filtration takes care of that and othe contaminates.
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I drink Rising Springs water that is unprocessed and comes to the surface from a deep reservoir. It's carbon dated thousands of years old so the water was created when man-made toxins didn't exist. It's considered a "mineral" water. I still have drinkable bottles from 10 years ago when it was bottled as Trinity Springs. Quite possibly the purest natural water in the planet. https://risingspringssource.com
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If it has enough carbon in it for carbon dating, it’s not as pure as plain old RO. H2O has no carbons... and there are plenty of chemicals that are thousands of years old that are quiet toxic, in case you wondered.
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Pure water is H2O. There is no carbon to carbon date?
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As a geology major, I'd like to point out that carbon dating requires carbon to be present, which it isn't in water. Also, water isn't created underground, it filters down there from above, so that water is likely not thousands of years old. You may like it, and it may make you happy, but please don't try to use pseudo-science to justify your decision. The "purest water on the planet", is available at any supermarket in plastic gallon jugs, sold for 99 cents a pop. It goes by the name, "distilled"
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American consumer capitalism: make people anxious about something...in order to sell a product, good, service or idea to them to temporarily alleviate that anxiety.
The thing about anxiety - as opposed to concrete fear - is that it's addictive. Consumer capitalism depends on that.
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"Thumbs up", but not all of consumerism or capitalism depends on anxiety. However, it is an increasing share of the pie as tangible needs are met with a lower share of income.
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Venezuelan socialism: make people anxious about something ... in order to bankrupt an entire nation that used to be the No. 4 global oil producer. The LOL: that Bernie-bros think that was a good idea.
Are "the raw" testing for lead? Mercury? PCBs? Don't trust the Bernie-bros, they're bumblers .. buy your own tester.
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There is a mechanism you can buy at Home Depot or Lowes - attach it to your kitchen spigot; it filters the water and tastes fine. This might be a better option than depleting the water table by sucking up spring water from the water table which keeps land from sinking. The Central Valley cotton farmers are now taking a large amount of water to grow hop sacking cotton. We can purify our own water at our kitchen sink. This is a lot of nonsense.
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