The 2010 Los Angeles Department of Water & Power Water Quality Report landed in local mailboxes this past week.
The report talks about the water’s journey to us from the High Sierra, the Colorado River and the California Aqueduct, and the filtration, ozone treatment, chlorination and fluoridation it goes through.
Water in our city is tested 240,000 times a year. It is very low in contaminants, although the report does warn of minuscule pharmaceutical and personal care product traces in the water. It urges us to put shampoos and excess medication in the trash and not flush them down the toilet.
Until I spoke to the senior assistant general manager for water at LADWP, James McDaniel, I always thought that Los Angeles tap water didn’t taste as good as that in Boston or New York, but he urged me to simply let the water sit in the fridge so that the chlorine used as a disinfectant has a chance to dissipate. It improves the water’s taste while conserving, because you don't have to run the tap until the water gets cold.
When I raised the question of filtering the water, McDaniel said that the LADWP brings only fresh water into people's homes but he acknowledged that some residential plumbing could add contaminants that could justify using a filter.
Overall, the water quality reaching us is great. If we simply filtered and let it sit in the refrigerator we could cut out those vast mounds of plastic bottles that people buy and sometimes don't recycle.
The LADWP needs all the good news it can get as General Manager Ron Nichols kicks off a two-month educational outreach campaign to explain why Angelenos could see their water bills zoom by 15 percent and their power bills up by 17 percent over the next three years.
As this process shapes up, it’s good that the public voted to establish the position of to look out for our interests.
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Eleven US EPA unions representing over 7000 environmental and public health professionals are calling for a moratorium on fluoridation. The CDC reports that 225 less communities adjusted for fluoride between 2006 and 2008. About 100 US and Canadian communities rejected fluoridation since 2008, including Fairbanks, Alaska, on June 6, 2011 and Calgary, Alberta, Canada, this year NYC Councilman Peter Vallone, Jr introduced legislation to stop fluoridation in New York City January 2011 and is still pursuing this outcome.
Local politicians take a great interest in their budgets, and so they should be informed of the following facts. I am a Civil Engineer, so I am very familiar with community water systems. Fluoridation not only causes cancer, brittle bones, etc., (see www.fluoridealert.org) but is an absolute waste of tax money. People drink only 1/2% (one-half percent) of the water they use. For example, for every $1000 of fluoride chemical added to water, $995 would be directly wasted down the drain in toilets, showers, dishwashers, etc., $5 would be consumed in water by the people, and less than $0.50 (fifty cents) would be consumed by children, the target group. If you doubt any of this, check with your water department. That would be comparable to taking 1 gallon of milk, using six-and-one-half drops of it, and pouring the rest of the gallon in the sink. Can you think of a more wasteful government program? Giving away fluoride tablets free to anyone who wants them would be far cheaper and certainly more ethical.