Vicki Richardson won’t drink ordinary water.
“I can’t take tap water anymore,” said Richardson, who can’t stomach the taste of the water that pours from most faucets. The education coordinator at the Mustard Seed Market & Cafe in Montrose, Ohio, near Akron, says she is concerned about the health effects of the chemicals in water, whether it’s from a private well or a public supply.
For more than 15 years, Richardson has quenched her thirst with water filtered through special equipment to remove chemicals, particles and bacteria.
“The first thing I noticed is how much better pure water tastes,” said Richardson, who credits her insistence on top-quality water with helping her improve her health.
She’s not alone. The market for bottled water, water filters and home water purifiers is booming. Concerns about the taste and safety of tap water have grown in recent years as water experts have learned more about the factors that affect water quality.
Long-standing concerns about the toxic effects of lead contamination have been joined by more recent news reports about outbreaks of illness caused by cryptosporidium and giardia, harmful parasites that are particularly difficult to remove from water. Even chlorine–the main chemical used to kill harmful bacteria in public water supplies–is under attack from a growing number of consumers who say chlorine should be removed from water before you drink it.
The popularity of home purifying systems got a big boost in 1995 when an unusually high-profile critic declared that tap water could be hazardous to your health, and that he used a home purifier. “I think chlorine is a major health hazard,” said Dr. Andrew Weil, the alternative-health guru and author of the best-selling books “Spontaneous Healing” and “8 Weeks to Optimum Health.”
In both books Weil said that chlorine–and other substances found in water that otherwise meets U.S. EPA clean-water standards–makes ordinary water unacceptable.
Richardson said that’s the reason the Mustard Seed Market & Cafe invested in a large system that purifies its water. Richardson–who sold water-purification equipment before she got her job at the Mustard Seed eight years ago–said the restaurant’s large, multi-stage system produces “just about the purest water you can find anywhere on the planet.”
The system starts with Akron city water and runs it through a water softener that removes most particles and minerals, including the toxic-metal lead. The next step is an activated carbon filter tht removes chlorine, volatile organic compounds and trihalomethanes. Trihalomethanes are byproducts of chlorination which the U.S. EPA says have been linked to some forms of cancers.
After that the water goes through a “reverse osmosis” filter. This treatment forces water through an extremely fine membrane that removes almost all chemical contaminants, including fluoride, salt, pesticides and fertilizer residue. The water is then treated with ultraviolet light and ozone to kill any lingering bacteria or parasites.
In the final step the water passes through another activated charcoal filter that removes the ozone and any particles and absorbs most of the remaining chemicals.
The Mustard Seed sells this water for 39 cents a gallon, not including the container. The water is also used to wash the store’s organic produce, to make food and drinks in the cafe, and to provide water for students in the store’s cooking school.
Because it’s impractical for ordinary consumers to install such elaborate purifying systems at home, most consumers either rely on bottled water or on simpler, less-expensive systems for residential use. Richardson thinks these systems are worthwhile, even though they aren’t as effective as the larger, business-based systems. “I think it’s great,” she said. “I’m encouraged to see that more people appreciate the need to drink better water.”
The most popular home systems are based on activated carbon filters. Some consumers use systems permanently mounted under the sink or on the end of the tap, but the most common (and cheapest) filters are simple two-chambered carafes. You pour tap water into the upper chamber, and it passes through a charcoal and paper filter as it drips into the lower chamber. The whole thing is meant to sit on your refrigerator shelf until you’re ready to drink it.
The effectiveness of the carbon filters is tested by the National Sanitation Foundation, a nonprofit organization that publishes the test results at www.nsf.org on the Internet.
The NSF tests show that the carafes–which range in price from $10 to $30–don’t remove as many pollutants as more expensive systems using reverse osmosis or distillation. Even the least expensive filters, however, were shown to be effective at removing or reducing a wide range of contaminants.
The NSF found that almost all the commonly available filters did a good job of reducing lead contamination. Tap water sometimes contains lead that leaches from lead or lead-soldered pipes. Filters also do a good job of removing chlorination byproducts and improving taste.
The main drawback is that most filters don’t remove all bacteria and parasites, although the most expensive carafe-style filters do. One common filter, the Pur Plus, passed the NSF test for the most troublesome parasites, giardia and cryptosporidium, but most others weren’t reliable in this area.
None of the common carafe filters was effective at removing arsenic (found in some well water) or fluoride, which is added to public water systems to reduce tooth decay. You need a different type of purifying system for these chemicals.
The Consumers Union published the results of water-filter tests in the October issue of Consumer Reports; the group tested faucet filters as well as carafe filters. The magazine says that 20 percent of American households use filters, a figure expected to double within five years. The CU testers concluded “Simple, inexpensive, faucet-mounted filters and freestyle carafes are good choices for getting the lead out, reducing chlorine byproducts like chloroform, and improving taste.”
To see how carafe-style filters affected the taste of local water, five people were invited to sample water filtered by four different manufacturers. They started with Akron city water, which originates in the Lake Rockwell reservoir and is treated with chlorine. Participants tasted the unfiltered water and the water filtered in carafes from Brita, Pur, Pur Plus, Mr. Coffee and Culligan.
To add variety, they also tasted unfiltered water from Canton, Ohio, which obtains its water from deep wells. None of the water was labeled, so the tasters did not know which ones they were rating until after they finished scoring each one on the basis of taste, clearness and overall quality.
The tasters said they were surprised that the different samples varied so much in quality. “It’s amazing how much different they taste,” said Chris Eck, an Akron advertising specialist who served on the panel.
In general, the panelists preferred the taste of filtered water to tap water. The only exception was the Mr. Coffee carafe, which produced water that was slightly cloudy. The Mr. Coffee used a much larger filter which was harder to install than the other types, and water poured into the carafe tended to overflow the filter.
The other four filters–Brita, Culligan, Pur and Pur Plus–got better scores from the taste panel than the unfiltered water.
In general, the panelists described the unfiltered tap water as having a mineral taste or an aftertaste.
