Originally Posted: Nov 16, 2006
Being a self-labeled Political Conservative, I’m not generally for government regulations. Air Pollution and Water Quality Control however, are two environmental issues that I believe Federal, State and Local governments have the obligation to oversee/regulate. Our Water and Air are shared vital resources that require SOME protection (not over-regulation). We should be responsible stewards over the resources God gives us.
This is a letter I wrote to Environmental Working Group:
Dear EWG-
First, I'd like to commend you for your work regarding Tap Water Quality and the compilation of multi-state data. It is great to have access to hard, cold facts as a consumer. I have a BS in Civil Engineering from Cal Poly SLO, and I have been very interested in water treatment since my first Environmental Engineering class. Although I am not currently practicing, I worked in the private sector, not for a municipal water authority:)
It is very important that people are aware of the safety of their tap water for drinking purposes. It is also very important for individuals to be responsible for the water they ingest. The job of the EPA is to set general minimal guidelines, and it is the responsibilities of states and local governments to legislate in more detail based on their needs.
While considering the EPA standards for tap water, it is important to remember that our tap water is used for washing our cars, watering our lawns, flushing our toilets and washing our clothes among other "not necessarily"-potable uses. It is important that "basically clean" tap water be used for these activities but not necessarily to the extent of zero contaminants. For instance, membrane filtration at a municipal level would greatly improve water quality but would increase costs insurmountably and unnecessarily especially in light of the aforementioned "basically clean" tap water uses.
It is my opinion that the public should be encouraged to drink well-filtered bottled water (you have to be selective here) and/or have drinking filtration units in their kitchens to achieve optimal water quality for consumption. This is a much more feasible way to continue using our tap water for all of our "basically clean" uses while greatly reducing total contaminants in the water we ingest. I would like to encourage the EWG to focus their efforts on public awareness and possibly regional/local (not federal) legislation requiring in-home filtration units in areas that are lacking instead of over-regulating our "general tap water providers".
Sincerely,
