water safety

Toxic chemical waste product allowed in water

If you're not filtering your water yet, I don't know what you're waiting for -- because you're drinking poison, cooking with poison and bathing in poison.

From coast to coast, U.S. water is filthier than a Third World cesspool, and new "standards" out of California show just how bad your water is right now.

The state is proposing limits on hexavalent chromium, aka chromium-6, aka the cancer-causing chemical waste byproduct featured in the "Erin Brokovich" film -- and their proposed limits are a full 500 TIMES HIGHER than what the EPA considers safe.

California says reaching the EPA's level is just not economically feasible.

That's right, folks... once again, your safety takes a back seat to moolah, and don't rest easy if you're not sipping the chromium-6-rich California water -- because odds are, your own drinking water is just as bad.

It might even be worse.

While California's proposed standard is crazy high, it's actually the first and only state to propose any standard at all. That means the chromium-6 levels where you live could be off the charts -- and unless Erin comes to visit, you won't know until it's too late.

And chromium is just one of the hundreds of chemicals in your water.

Some of it, like chlorine and fluoride, are dumped in on purpose. Others, like hormone drugs and birth controls pills, are supposedly in there by accident.

And let's not forget the chemical waste byproducts, rocket fuel, metals and more that routinely turn up in high levels in U.S. tap water.

Don't count on the government -- federal, state or local -- to protect you. As you see in California, they can't (or won't).

That means you need to protect yourself with the only filtration system that can keep EVERYTHING out. It's called reverse osmosis, and it's available at any home improvement store for a couple hundred bucks.

If you're handy you can install it yourself.

Just be sure to place it where the water enters your home, not just in the kitchen, so that every tap and faucet is protected.

Death in a cup

And you still think your tap water is safe?

If the poisons, drugs and chemical contaminants that routinely turn up in US drinking water aren't enough to scare you, consider this: Your water could contain brain-eating microorganisms.

Sounds like something out of a horror movie, and I'm sure some Hollywood hotshot is cranking out a script right now. But that's the frightening reality in American homes today after two people in Louisiana were killed by brain-eating amoeba that came right out of their own faucets.

Both victims were using neti pots for nasal irrigation. That's when you send water up one nostril and out the other to help clear out snot and other junk.

But in this case, what went in was a lot worse than what was already there. Specifically, the Naegleria fowleri amoeba that had been quietly lurking in the water and waiting for just the right chance to eat some brains.

Like I said, this is horror-movie stuff. But at least it's pretty rare.

The REAL scares come when you see what's turning up in water routinely from coast to coast -- including poisons they readily admit they're putting in it, like fluoride and chlorine, supposedly to protect you.

But that's only the beginning. Drugs known to make people sterile and stupid are showing up in water samples, and I'm not entirely convinced it's an accident.

And still other junk is flowing from your tap because water treatment plants simply can't keep them out. Drugs both legal and illegal including cocaine, dangerous chemicals such as rocket fuel, and more have all been found in the water that millions of Americans drink every single day -- including water in major metropolitan areas.

There are two ways to protect yourself and your family. The extreme way is to simply stop drinking water.

I don't drink the stuff myself, so I'm living proof it can be done.

If you can't go that far, then you MUST install a reverse osmosis filter -- the only system that keeps out everything but the H, the 2, and the O. Install it where the water enters your home to make sure that every single tap is protected.