America's Water Crisis: Keeping You and Your Community Safe

August 20, 2017

America's Water Crisis: Keeping You and Your Community Safe

In 2014 the city of Flint, Michigan changed the city’s drinking water source to the Flint River. In turn exposing over 100,000 residents to high levels of lead and by January of 2016 all residents of Flint were told to only use bottled or filleted water for all daily uses. The city has advised their residents to continue this practice until all the lead pipes in the water ways have been completely replaced as soon as 2020. When this crisis first became public many Americans were shocked that in their country such a crisis could occur, creating a national debate about safe drinking water and water treatment. Water treatment quickly became on the minds of most Americans leading to safe water practices and treatments. The federal government pledged more than $5 billion to improve water accessibility and quality across the United States. The Environmental Protection Agency reported that only nine U.S. states report safe levels of lead in their water supply.

As Americans grow more and more concerned about the safety of their daily drinking water and daily water uses. Here are several ways you can personally make sure your home water is clean as well as help your community around you. The first thing you can personally do to help provide clean and safe water is to not flush non degradable products done the toilet. Some people feel that if they flush something down the toilet then it is gone forever. In reality if you flush daily household items like baby wipes or paper towels they can end up on nearby beaches or other water systems. The same idea goes for the sink as well. Everyday household chemical cleaning products poured down the sink can put toxic ingredients found in these products into our water supply. Toxins such as sodium hypochlorite and ammonia can be found to in these products and can be very harmful if found in other peoples water. Several ways of saving water starts with using the dishwasher more. On average the dishwasher uses up to 3 gallons of water per load versus, on average, twenty-seven gallons of water per load by hand. Another way of saving water is to shower with a bucket, this might sounds strange and unusual at first but this trick will save you thousands of gallons per month and assure you are using your water effectively and in a safe way that helps everyone.