Drinking Water... Your Worst Nightmare! Science reacts to 2 stimuli... profits and crisis. Until the end of last century, much of our disease was borne by drinking water. In 1880, chlorine was used for the first time in England. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time, and was heralded as a great discovery. Science had responded to a crisis in the only way possible at that time.

It's Not Nice To Fool Mother Nature!
Man assumes water is the universal solvent, so he thinks he can dump his junk into it and everything will be OK. Nature's recovery process is complete, but it is slow, and frankly, most of us are of the opinion that recovery is someone else's job. The Crypto attack on the City of Milwaukee is a classic example of fooling around with Mother Nature. Authorities would have us believe that the bug just showed up on its own, but if we really get down to the whys and wherefores, we'll find that we created the environmental conditions that the little bug used to breed.

We pull water out of a polluted stream or river and drive it along to its destination with centrifugal pumps. This was not one of our better ideas because aside from being fragile, the crystalline structure of water is very sensitive to mechanical abuse. The water is then channeled to an area where it gets its medicine in the form of chlorine and other chemicals.

Chlorine and It's Heart-Felt Effects

Your body is made up of cells... about 61,000,000,000,000 of them. Bacteria are also cells. If chlorine kills bacteria, what do you suppose it does to cells? If you happen to be one of the 520, 000 people who die from myocardial infarctions each year, there may be reason to believe that it is capable of killing you too. Heart disease is America's number 1 killer. Before the turn of the century arteriosclerosis was unknown? Even Dr. Paul Dudley White, Eisenhower's physician, only saw his first case after 1920... forty years after the first use of chlorine as a water-treating agent. Does that arouse curiosity? At least one dedicated scientist, Dr. Joseph Price took the cue and investigated the matter in his book, Coronary/Cholesterol/Chlorine, published in 1969 (now out of print... unfortunately).

Arteriosclerosis is a hardening of the arteries characterized by the gradual accumulation of fatty substances embedded in the inner wall of the blood vessels, making the passage of blood more difficult and thereby putting a greater work load on the heart. The medical profession would have us think that the problem is primarily dietary. People have been eating fatty foods for centuries. The Eskimo has managed on whale blubber and suffered very few cardiac problems. As dietary rationale goes, peoples of the third world should be dropping like flies, but very few rank heart disease as an alarming cause of death.

Dr. Price noted a high rate of arteriosclerosis among servicemen in Vietnam. Under combat conditions there is no room for gastrointestinal disorders, so chlorine concentrations in the drinking water were maintained high. He noticed unusually high rates of cholesterol in 18 and 20 year old men, and eventually arrived at the conclusion this was caused by chlorinated water. He went on to prove his theory under controlled conditions with chickens: some given chlorinated water and others a diet without chlorine. The theory was borne out, but unless you have happened across this little known publication, you have never heard of Dr. Price or his discovery.

We all drink water, and most of us drink water treated with chlorine. In that case we will all be interested in results of tests conducted by The United States Environmental Protection Agency. Below is an excerpt from a letter signed by Dr. Bercz of the Cincinnati laboratory.

"Studies in non-human primates have shown that the chlorine treated water causes depression of high density lipoprotein (HDL) bound cholesterol, shifting the binding to the low density form (LDL). The protection of the former and the role of the LDL in coronary heart disease is an established medical fact."

That brings up another interesting point. Any chemical product sold in the USA requires an MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) stating any hazards to your health through inhalation or ingestion. There is an MSDS for chlorine. There is no MSDS for our drinking water. It is undeniably a chemical compound containing a deadly and hazardous chemical, but just try asking your local water authority for the MSDS!

While researching his book, Dr. Price found the small town located just North of Allentown, PA. What made this town different from most is that it had no water treatment… and no heart disease even though most of the population was of Italian ancestory, consuming what should have been a high cholesterol diet.

The treatment of water is not yet over. If the water is muddy it has to be cleared of particles and solid matter. Some of this is done by allowing particles to settle out in holding reservoirs, but the final touches are carried out chemically. A precipitation agent like aluminum sulfate or ferric chloride is used to flocculate the solid matter so that the clean water can be drawn off and filtered. After that, an acid or alkaline is added to adjust the pH of the water to lessen damage to the water mains. This is called adjusting to the pH of saturation (pHs). The pHs is established, not to protect you, but to protect the water mains from corrosion or scaling.

The water then leaves the torture chamber under the full force of centrifugal pumps and into the dark dingy conduits for delivery. If you have never had the pleasure of observing the inside of a water main, you have led a sheltered life. The mud and scale deposits on the inside surface of the mains make perfect breeding grounds for microorganisms. The chlorine residual we smell and taste in the water is there to keep breeding sites in check.

How could our water be anything but DEAD… void of any healthful value it may have had.

Most people know the water is terrible. That is precisely why there is a place in the market for water purification devices and bottled water. These devices clean, but they also destroy or remove substances that should remain. Home purification devices are mostly cosmetic. While they do remove chlorine and other volatiles, they do nothing to make the water drinkable... usable for bodily functions. Even so, they have become necessary appliances for the office and home.

A good activated carbon filter will do to remove contaminates. That is how the bottled water industry began. They used city water, just like yours, and ran it through carbon filtration units. Twenty-five percent of all bottled water still comes from city water supplies. A very good filter consists of activated carbon and KDF, a bimetallic mixture that quickly removes Chlorine and heavy metals.

Some home units are based on the use of RO (Reverse Osmosis) purification equipment. These devices and distillation units take everything out of the water, a step that would not be necessary if we knew how to regenerate the desirable properties of water. Nature's water comes with minerals. Why? As a practical matter, we are often forced to make our water drinkable. For municipal water supplies, it is absolutely imperative that Chlorine be removed before drinking. In this case, you may opt for bottled water, or a good activated carbon filter.

For well water, the choice depends on a thorough water analysis, but there are well established, reputable companies experienced in removing major contaminants and softening water for better taste and ease of use.

What about bottled water? It is a viable alternative to avoiding contamination, but most buy bottled water because of taste. It may taste better, but the fact that it is bottled means it is contained, and has no more usefulness to bodily functions than dechlorinated tap water. Even the best bottled waters produced throughout the world lose their essential energetic properties about 20 hours after being packaged.

How Mother Nature Makes Drinking Water.

We mentioned that pumps are harmful to water. Perhaps, you are having difficulty finding a pump in Nature. That is because you are looking too hard. Look out the window and you will see three examples of pumps... unless, of course, you live in a treeless, skyless, soiless neighborhood. The tree is a very efficient pump. It would take a centrifugal pump the size of a house to lift a column of water 200 feet in the air, and even if it could be done, it would make an intolerable racket. On the other hand, the Redwoods in California lift tons of water per day in total silence.

Look up at the sky. The clouds you see are water vapor evaporated from the ground. Thanks to the special properties of Hydrogen bond, water changes phase at exactly the right temperature, evaporates, condenses and falls back to earth as rain. Nature lifts and transports thousands of tons of water in total silence as you carry out your daily chores. It does not always fall back where it came from, but it all comes back treated by Nature. It is not just a pump. It is also a first class purification mechanism. The process of evaporation assures that only water will rise, and while the vapor is aloft, it is exposed to the purifying qualities of the Sun's radiation.

Now wrench your neck back towards the ground and you will see a less obvious pump... the soil. If you have ever put a dry flowerpot in a pan of water, you know that the soil soaks up the water. This also happens in nature, and that is why a plot of soil can appear to be parched and still support plant life. The water that is available under the surface climbs by capillary action.

In 1747 Jean Antoine Nollet discovered that by electrifying a capillary tube, the capillary action of water was arrested. Therefore, electricity does have an influence on the pumping properties of water. Now, correlate this observation with the fact that electrical potential changes with distance above sea level. There is a difference of 200 volts between the ground and the top of your head. If you find that shocking, remember that the delta potential between the ground and the top of the Empire State Building is 40,000 volts. Don't think this observation has gone unnoticed. Scientists think trees use electric potential to pump water.

Aside from evaporation and condensation, Mother Nature provides a multitude of other purification mechanisms. Most people think she has strategically placed waterfalls so we can look at them and take photographs. While that might be one reason, you can be sure that she had some other things in mind. Waterfalls represent one of Nature's most unique water treatment methods. During the fall, water reaches a gravity-free status and is allowed to separate, tumble, breathe, expand and reform.

Nature also provides a few other ways to stretch and expand, tumble and twist. The rocks and other obstacles in creek and riverbeds provide resistance that forces water to flow, thereby allowing it to mix and reform. Waves fold water over so that a homogeneous mixture results, allowing it to seek its most natural form. Waves also serve to fold surface water under and bring deep water to the surface for oxygenation.

If ice is the solid form of water, and all other elements contract upon assuming their solid form, why does water expand by about 7%? The fact that it does expand allows it to float on top of the water. Can you imagine how our World would change it ice sank to the bottom. Where would the fish hang out during the winter? You can thank the Hydrogen bond and its special properties.

Melted water from snow happens to be the most pure form of water. A Soviet study of the longevity of life among the peoples of Nepal has boiled down to just one fact: the water. Their water comes from melted ice and snow of the Himalayans. Freezing is another of Mother Nature's regenerative mechanisms. Try it yourself. Take some water and put it in the freezer. Allow it to develop a skin. Remove the skin and let the rest of the water freeze. After being completely frozen, remove it and let it melt. Drink the water and you will notice a lighter taste. (Incidentally, you may be wondering why the skin is removed. At 4 degrees C, the isotopes of water migrate to the surface.)

It's not nice to fool Mother Nature! Motorboats on our lakes and rivers, trash in our oceans, contaminants in the air, chemicals on the ground, and perhaps worst of all, inadequate water treatment systems, all take a toll on Nature and the quality of water. In the future, we will not have the quantities we need, so we have to take steps to find a way to improve water quality before Mother Nature chokes us off from the very essence of life.

There is an upside. Water is good for you when it is naturally restored. The subtle properties of water are being studied more than ever before, and we are finding that it is not only good for you, but can keep you out of the doctor's office