Water and health: Do you really know what's on tap?
Thursday, November 2, 2006
Stop
for a moment and think about how water affects your daily life. From
the minute you get up in the morning, you use water to flush the
toilet, make your coffee, take your shower and brush your teeth. You
continue to use water when you clean your breakfast dishes and run your
garbage disposal. Then, it's off to work or to take the kids to school,
and you're probably carrying a bottle of water or a travel mug of
coffee along with you.
As
I write this article, it is Saturday morning, and water (the driving
rain) has necessitated cancellations of all sports activities today,
which gives me time to write; however, I forgot to buy bottled water at
the grocery store, so I have no water to drink while I write. It should
come as no surprise that water affects our daily lives: Water is the
most common substance on the Earth. It covers nearly 70 percent of the
Earth's surface, and is essential to all life on Earth. Hippocrates,
the famous Greek physician, said that water is the source of life, the
spring of health. And yet we all, self included, tend to take this most
precious resource for granted. As we turn on the shower, how many of us
think about where the water comes from? If asked, would you have the
answer? And where does the water go after it goes down the drain?
It
was with these questions in mind that the Wellesley Cancer Prevention
Project conceived of a forum about water and how we, as a community,
can keep from misusing this valuable resource. A couple of years ago,
the WCPP was involved in a debate about putting herbicides in Morses
Pond. At that time, many people expressed surprise to me that some of
the drinking water in Wellesley comes from the pond; most seemed to
think that the pond was merely a source of recreation. I reminded them
that some of the drains around town have a plaque requesting that
people refrain from dumping substances down them because the drains
lead to Morses Pond. The Friends of Morses Pond Web site sums this up
succinctly: "Before you pour chemicals on your lawn (i.e., pesticides
or fertilizers), ask yourself if you'd coat the inside of a water glass
with the same chemicals and then fill the glass with water and drink
it. Remember that what you put on your lawn ends up in Morses Pond,
which in turn is our water supply."
Wise
words, and yet there still seems to be a prevalence of those little
yellow flags on lawns in our town.
Our
forum is not about Morses Pond; I use the pond as a local analogy to
demonstrate ways that people neglect to take seriously the hazards
posed by our use - or misuse - of water. As more chemicals are
introduced into our lives, water treatment plants have to meet the
challenge of filtering them out. Remember the days when we didn't feel
it necessary to buy bottled water? When we actually trusted our tap
water for drinking?
The
Toxics Use Reduction Institute, based out of the University of
Massachusetts, hosts a Web site that provides many suggestions for
reducing toxic chemical use within a community. It is noteworthy that
the first item in their "Top 6 Ways to Reduce Toxics" has to do with
toxic chemicals that are disposed of down our household drains,
probably with little thought to the potential contamination these items
pose: items such as personal care products and household chemicals. The
Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection's "SWAP" (Source
Water Assessment and Protection) report is a "planning tool used to
support local efforts to improve water supply protection." Among the
potential sources of contamination cited in the Wellesley SWAP report
are residential uses of water that are managed improperly, through our
septic systems, our household hazardous materials and stormwater
contamination from our lawn chemicals, automotive leaks and pet waste.
Although
our organization is called "the Wellesley Cancer Prevention Project,"
this particular forum's focus is on a broader look at health issues,
and how they may be affected by water. We are not drawing links between
water and cancer rates, although there are, sadly, those horrific
stories like the leukemia cluster that was identified in the
Massachusetts town of Woburn in the early 1980s, which was eventually
linked to their town's water supply. However, a substance that affects
our lives in so many ways and which we, in turn, could be adversely
affecting deserves a closer look. We hope that you will join the WCPP
for "Wellesley's Water: What's On Tap?" featuring Denise Breiteneicher
of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, and Joe Duggan,
Wellesley's Water & Sewer superintendent, at 7 p.m. on Nov. 9 in
the Wellesley Free Library. I am confident that you will come away from
this program with some questions answered and some ideas to implement
in your own lives. I know I answered one question for myself just by
writing about this program. I realized I had enough faith in the safety
of Wellesley's water to drink a glass of tap water, rather than drive
through a rainstorm to buy bottled.
This column was submitted on behalf of the Wellesley Cancer Prevention Project by Sara Frost Azzam.
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