M5.4 Blog about your Consumer Confidence Reports (CCR) and water quality

1. What is the source of your drinking water? Where does your water ORIGINATE? (It is treated at a water treatment plant, but what watershed or aquifer is the sources of the water?) The source of my drinking water is originated from a local treatment plant. It is a locally treated water that is filtered through our city. 
2. What chemicals were found in your water that were higher than expected? The chemicals that were found in my water were salts of: arsenic, radium, aluminium, copper, lead, mercury, cadmium, and barium. Also some pesticides were also found. I was surprised to find certain chemicals were found. 
3. What chemicals did you NOT expect to find in your water? I did not expect to find pesticides in my water. I did not know that I was drinking water with those chemicals in it. 
4. Are there associated health risks with the chemicals found in your water? (sources for this last question include the EPA, CDC, ATSDR and the National Library of Medicine's ToxNet program). Yes, there are many health risks associated with pesticides including genetic risks. Nitrates can contaminate water and pose an immediate threat to infants. Lead can cause both physical and mental developmental problems in infants and children.
5. Where does your water come from? The source! Track it from the source to your tap. My tap water comes from a public municipal water treatment system. It is a serious of pipes that transports the water to my home. I receive water from a treatment system  and it arrives in my house through a mainline from the distribution system.
6. What did you discover about your water quality? My water quality is not poor according to the websites provided. The only things that I should be aware is the lead that is kept in my water.
7. Do you use a filter for your water? Yes, our refrigerator filters our water or we use a manual filter to filter our tap water if necessary.
8. What are you trying to filter out? We filter out any dirt or chemicals that are in our water. My household primarily tries to filter out the lead and pesticides in our water.
9. Do you drink bottled water? How does this square with what you learned when you watched the Story of Bottled Water (see next exercise)? We drink bottled water but my household attempts to buy water that is filtered well and does not contain a lot of preservatives or chemicals. I learned from the video that you should not reuse water bottles continuously since the plastic does contain chemicals. You must not reuse the plastic bottles because they can cause health issues and it is not healthy to refill them.