Drinking water in Wichita-Yuck!

It is no secret that the quality of public drinking water is something people care about. Unfortunately, the status quo for most municipal H2O is not good! For instance, the drinking water in Wichita is not as clean as you may think. There is more chemical content in our water than most people realize, and that is obviously not good news.

H2O is essential for the life and health of all living creatures. Drinking a lot of good water helps our bodies function at optimal levels in multiple ways.

Such as supporting skin health and flushing many toxins out of our bodies.

So, what’s in our public water?  What are most Wichita families drinking? This might hurt a bit if you have never read about it. Throughout this article, I will link to many sources on some of the contaminants. 

How Clean Is The Water Supply?

Compared to many countries, America as a whole has great water. However, many countries have much better water than ours because our methods for water treatment are just plain unhealthy. So, let us take a look at the contents of the water from just one state in the Heartland of America…The Sunflower State.

We will first evaluate the sourcing of our water and the methods used to prepare it for our consumption.

Keep in mind that some of the water sources and cleaning methods are nearly identical all over the nation. Unfortunately, this includes corroded pipes and lots of bleach.

Bleach is necessary to use when recycled sewer water is being served to the masses! You read that correctly. It is a sad reality, I know.  I don’t know about you, but I prefer my family not to drink bleach or sewage, thank you! More on that below.

There are a few solutions to that problem, but in case you are unaware, faucet and pitcher filters aren’t the answer. Those only slightly reduce the contaminants in the water. Yes, those filters are indeed better than straight from the faucet, but they don’t take out very many kinds of contaminants. 

If you want to know what is available and affordable to enable you to have clean water for your home, I will point you in the right direction. But, I hope you will finish reading my research on why our public water supply is so bad.

This system pictured below links to the website of our favorite system. There is a bigger picture and link to the website of our #2 recommendation at the bottom of this post. They are both systems called gravity filtration and they are both amazing!

Berkey and Propur are two of the most effective water filtration systems in existence! You would love either brand. They are the top two rated systems in the industry and they are the fiercest competitors of one another. Both companies are passionate about providing clean water!

They are both superior even to most whole-house systems which can easily cost several thousands of dollars and Gravity systems are miles above faucet and pitcher filters.

Seriously, check out the verified lab tests on their websites and compare those to the inferior numbers of the pitcher and faucet kinds. It isn’t even close.

Dry Cleaning Chemicals And Pesticides In Our Water.

The quality of drinking water here in the great state of Kansas has been a subject of growing concern for residents for a very long time.

With chemical pollutants ranging from alarming traces of dry cleaning chemicals like perchloroethylene to the excessive levels of chlorine present in the water, the concern is more than justified.

There are many reasons for unhealthy water. Whether it be dry cleaning chemicals draining in, pesticide runoff, or the simple consequence of the pathetic water cleaning processes that are used in so many municipal water supplies all over Kansas and much of America.

There is no shortage of evidence that the water being drunk by tens of millions of people here and all over the nation may be doing considerable harm.

Yes, Wichita Has Bad Water Too.

The water in our hometown is absolutely no exception to this trend. Our beautiful Air Capital has an ever-growing issue with poor water quality!

Let’s start at the top. Where does Wichita’s city water actually come from and where does the water supplied all over the state come from, for that matter?

 

The answer to the latter lies in a murky, polluted river called the Missouri, otherwise known for being Kansas City’s main source of drinking water.

Most Wichitans drink a mixture of water from the Cheney Lake Reservoir and recycled Sewer Water! That’s right, sewer water! Ultimately, most water sources in Kansas can primarily be traced back to the Missouri River and its own city’s sewer water treatment plants.  

These sources are saturated with chemical waste, fertilizers, and other generally unpleasant human grunge.

They are also major traps for trash and other contamination. Despite all of this, these filthy locations are still the major sources of our great state’s hydration. 

Now of course the sewer water gets cleaned (bleach-pit), filtered, and re-filtered many times before it’s supplied to homes and buildings for drinking.

But with the rising quantity of filth and mud that is being mixed in with the river, isn’t it only natural to ask ourselves just exactly how many toxic chemicals and dangerous bacteria the state-run water cleaning plants can actually remove from the water before our families drink it?

An equally reasonable question is what the bleaches used in the process are doing to our bodies over time. I can assure you that chlorine and other bleaches are very bad for our health and those are just a fraction of the bad things in the water.

These questions are something that more and more citizens in Wichita and cities all over the U.S. for that matter, are asking every day.

The muddy water of the Missouri River is cleaned in a 24-hour process involving the addition of numerous chemicals that separate the silt and contaminants along with a natural bed of sand filters (among others).

Chemical bleaches and filters at treatment plants can remove the sludge and some contaminants in the water to produce something occasionally odorless and “apparently safe to drink according to the bureaucrats.”

Yet, what are those bleaches doing to our bodies long term? The politicians in Flint Michigan claimed the same thing and most of us know what happened there.

Apparently safe is probably not very comforting to the poor families in Kansas that had to suffer from an unfortunate seven years of drinking water contaminated with dry cleaning chemicals. That was just one more example of chemicals causing damage to livers and kidneys if consumed and especially if consumed for a long period of time.

I am tired of hearing bureaucrats and politicians claim that the poisons we are ingesting in food and water are at “safe levels.”

As I mentioned above, chlorine is a major component among these chemicals we drink and in some areas, it leaves a distinct taste in the water since it is used in massive quantities to remove the bacteria.

It should also be noted that the water treatment plants which are carrying out these all-important processes are over 90 years old.

How about spending some of our tax dollars on new filter technologies and systems to safely clean the city water, politicians? I won’t hold my breath!

 

 

More Bad News – Bleach And Heavy Metal!

For a city existing in the 21st century in which new phones and laptops become outdated every few years, how is it possible for something as essential as a water treatment plant to remain unchanged for 90 years?!?

It may be logical to assume that the process used to produce pure water almost a century ago could still be acceptable today, but the fact is the old ways are no longer sufficient or efficient.

Deteriorating water treatment systems are just one more cause of the poor water conditions in Wichita and cities all across America, but poor water quality is also due to the increasing pollution in the reservoirs themselves.

Another big concern of mine and many people I know of which I briefly mentioned above, is the chlorine smell coming out of the faucets.

That smell was one of the things that first sparked my suspicion that the public water supply was full of bleach and caused me to start researching water quality. Sadly, bleaches are at very high levels.

Furthermore, most municipal water supplies are full of heavy metals and V.O.C s (volatile organic compounds)! In the last section, I will elaborate on the hormones in the water which mainly come from human bodies, and their prescriptions that go down the drains. I don’t want to drink estrogen or testosterone, thanks.

Most people have some knowledge of the dangers of heavy metals in water, but V.O.C s alone can do serious damage to the reproductive system, liver, and kidneys over time, just to touch on a few of their side effects.

Cancer-Causing Chemicals And More!

Household chemicals, solvents, pharmaceuticals, personal hygiene products, and everything else that goes down the drains in American homes and businesses often end up in rivers like the Missouri that provide a lot of water for the public.

Leaking pipes and flooding water both can cause overflows of sewage which adds to this whole disgusting cycle. Rain, pesticides, fertilizers, and automotive chemicals run off the streets and down the gutters into those very same sewers.

 Each year, nearly 900 billion gallons of this vile brew escapes sewer systems across the country. That is a whole lot of sewage.

AROUND 3.5 MILLION AMERICANS GET SICK EACH YEAR AFTER  TOUCHING WATER THEY THOUGHT WAS SAFE.

Harmful sewage bacteria are the main source of river contaminants and are supposed to be killed in the water treatment process.

But, as our knowledge regarding water analysis increases, we see all sorts of minerals and bacteria that remain in the water even after treatment.

A test conducted on the water supplies of Kansas showed that particles ranging from chloroform to arsenic and everything in between were present in the majority of the state’s water.

 

Furthermore, higher than average amounts of Chromium 6 (a cancer-causing heavy metal) were found.  A 2016 report found chromium-6 in almost 90% of the water systems sampled across the nation.

 

The persistent presence of residue fertilizer from farmlands (such as nitrates) and common pesticides like atrazine and glyphosate is also a huge cause for concern.

Atrazine is also high up on the list of contaminants that appear in the water of the Missouri. It is the second most used weed killer in the United States leading to its widespread presence in the water… hence leading to the small amounts of pesticide being present in the water of Wichita and all of Kansas.

Sadly, Those Pesky Hormones!

As if what I’d already mentioned above wasn’t enough cause to question the state of the very water the multitudes are drinking, I have a few final disturbing facts for you: hormones cannot be removed from water with typical municipal methods.

People send prescription and over the counter pills down the drain single every day in more ways than one….gross! Yep, the presence of substances like testosterone and estrogen just to name a couple of common ones, are flowing in the pipes. Just a couple more unfortunate additions to the worsening water conditions of Wichita and cities all across the United States.

Is there a Solution?

It’s bad enough that we have to fight the poisons the FDA allows into our food in America, but do we have to drink poison too?

I will write about the poor food quality in America at a later time on my health and wellness website, Chemicalfreedad.com.  

I am all about finding and sharing solutions to problems. Especially when those problems affect the health of our families!

I will link from here to an article when I am finished editing my research and evaluating more lab results about the best and most affordable water filtration systems (and when my daughter is done creating some awesome info graphs).

In that article, I reviewed and compared the top three brands of gravity filtration systems so you can pick the best one for you and those you care about. (spoiler: the two best are linked to above, but I am writing much more extensively about the subject there). Many more stats and descriptions.

I will also explain why this kind of filtration system is far better than the aforementioned pitcher and faucet filters and how the best gravity filters also leave in the good minerals in addition to taking out the harmful stuff.

Until the state and federal government fix the outdated pipes and methods for our public water, there are some really good filters to clean your water. Faucet and pitcher filters are definitely better than nothing, but gravity filters are the future and they are far superior to anything else. 

I don’t know about you but I want clean water from filters that back up their claims with proven lab tests, not empty claims with zero proof.

Many whole-house systems can be close to $10,000 which is a lot of money for most people! Another option that is what I consider the middle of the road cost like this Aquasana whole house system on Amazon. That is also too much money for most people!

 

Is that out of your price range? I know that is more than I can afford right now.

Do you want clean drinking water of the highest quality for you and your family, that comes from a system that is affordable for nearly any budget? Is between $150-$300 in your range?

I spent around $275 for a pretty big tank because we drink a lot of water. There are smaller and cheaper options from both of the two best companies. About 2.5 years ago was when we bought ours and still haven’t needed to replace the filters! That is a big deal to me.

Do you want a system that has high-tech filters that are far superior and much longer-lasting than the leading faucet, pitcher filters, and most whole-house systems? One set of filters can last 5-10 years!

If so, I strongly recommend a system like the one pictured below or the Berkey system near the top of this article!

We have a system in our home almost exactly like the one in the picture link above. It provides clean water that tastes great and we love it! 

One last thing….Your skin is an organ that absorbs what it touches! So, I also recommend a good shower filter! A basic one is around $30 on Amazon like this or a similar one as we bought from Lowes that we really love.

Take my many hours of extensive research to heart and/or do your own research, but please protect your family from the polluted waters flowing through our pipes! Take care.

Sincerely,

David