What Isn’t Clear About Your Shower Water . . .

with Mark Schmidt

As tap and bottled water fall, a healthy, pure solution rises

Water is not only the source of all life, but the key to lasting wellness and vitality. Realization of this eternal truth fueled the staggering growth of the bottled water industry, as millions of health-conscious consumers abandoned potentially contaminated tap water for pristine bottled drinking water. But when it comes to water consumption and overall well-being, drinking water is just the beginning. Between showering, bathing, laundry, washing dishes, brushing teeth, cooking and other uses, the average person uses 100 gallons of water a day—most of which comes straight from the tap.

“Unfortunately, the federal government's water testing is very lax—only recognizing 120 harmful compounds out of 70,000 that exist,” explains Mark Shmidt from Clean Water Services, a whole-house water treatment system service. “The safety is just not there.” On Long Island, where aggressive turf management and agricultural pesticide applications have introduced toxic chemicals to the shallow water table for decades, safety concerns are even greater—especially for the 10% of the local population that still uses well water.

“Most people don’t give much consideration to where tap water comes from, how it got there, and what’s in it,” says Schmidt. In an era when public water supplies face unknown threats of sabotage, what we do know from in-depth studies is nothing short of shocking. Municipal water has been found to contain arsenic, asbestos, benzene, pesticides, herbicides, cyanide, mercury, aluminum, and even traces of pharmaceutical drugs—just to name a few contaminants. Moreover, municipal water is often intentionally treated with chlorine and fluoride—additives that health-conscious people regard with suspicion. Perhaps most disturbingly, a meta-analysis of 10,000 documents performed by the Ralph Nader Study Group found that U.S. drinking water contains over 2,100 toxic chemicals that can cause cancer.

While absorbing toxins through drinking water is an obvious concern, many take for granted another daily activity that can present a heavy toxic load: showering. When we take showers, toxic contaminants in the water can be absorbed through the skin and bio-accumulate in the body—which can potentially encourage a number of different disease states in addition to cancer. “Some studies show that in one shower, you absorb as much water as other people will drink in a single day,” says Schmidt. Other tap water uses may further increase the toxic load in our bodies, past a dangerous tipping point.

Systems like those provided by Clean Water Service present a solution. “For less than a half-cent per gallon, you can get a custom-designed system installed within a week.” Schmidt reveals. The systems, which represent a culmination of over 40 years of engineering expertise, are equally effective in treating city water and well water, and include both filtration and reverse-osmosis units. “Our most popular system uses multi-filtration, a combination of various types of media,,” Schmidt continues. “With this system you get full removal of chemicals, heavy metals, toxins and the like—without changing filters—for 25 years, guaranteed.”

The considerable convenience of not changing filters pales in comparison to the convenience of no longer lugging cases of bottled water from the supermarket back home. With some major bottled water brands exposed as being little more than filtered public water, and other brands exposed for harmful environmental practices, the entire bottled water trend appears to be over.

Americans are now seeking to take control of their own water purity, eager to discover eco-friendly, economical, convenient, and healthy water solutions. As the truth about tap and bottled water becomes clearer, adoption of sophisticated, guaranteed whole-house water treatment systems becomes an increasingly obvious upgrade. “I have been doing this for 22 years—I can tell you that bottled water isn't what it used to be, and the market for regular basic water purification systems has crashed,” Shmidt concludes. “People finally understand that they deserve something better.”

Mark Schmidt, the owner of Clean Water Service, has been purifying water in homes throughout Long Island for over 22 years, he can be reached directly at (516) 694-7873 or www.haguewater.com