Chemicals Found in Tap Water

Depending on where a person lives will depend on the chemicals found in tap water. Those who live in a catchment area where rain runoff is fairly well protected, will have a cleaner supply than those whose catchment may be tainted by certain amounts of pollution. The kinds of pollution that can occur in a catchment area are chemical and bacterial. None of these are any good for human health but it is the amount of the pollution which causes the problem.

A city water supply may contain inorganic and organic chemicals. The inorganic kind are some of those classed as heavy metals such as lead, copper, chromium and mercury, and others such as arsenic, asbestos, cyanide, fluoride and nitrates to name a few. The other form is the organic kind such as carbon tetrachloride, atrazine, dioxins, glyphosate, styrene, vinyl chloride, xylenes and there are quite a few more.

These chemicals come from all sorts of activities, take asbestos, this comes from the decay of cement which contains asbestos in older water mains and erosion where there are natural deposits. It may cause development of benign polyps in the intestine. Then there is copper which is alright if it is in trace form, as the body does need a little, but when it gets too much as in the case of corrosion of copper piping in household plumbing, then symptoms of gastrointestinal distress, in short term exposure to a long term exposure, can cause kidney and liver damage. Lead is another which can come from decaying plumbing.

Fluoride occurs naturally in the environment but is also a discharge from aluminium and fertilizer factories. Fluoride is also added to water for the improvement of teeth. This may cause bone disease in the form of pain and bones which are tender, it also causes mottled teeth in children.

The organic type can include things like dioxins. These can come from waste incineration, other types of combustion and is also a factory discharge. They have a cancer risk and cause reproductive difficulties. Then there are xylenes which may cause damage to the nervous system, these are in discharges from chemical and petroleum factories.

Whether these contaminants find their way to the household tap, even though the city water supply has been through a filtering and decontamination procedure, can really only be known if the water is tested. It may depend on the treatment process or where it comes from as to what the supply ends up like at the tap for drinking.