Can Drinking “Raw” Water Make You Sick?

As 2017 came to a close and 2018 began, a growing health fad was reported throughout the news and social media: Americans paying top-dollar to drink bottled “raw” water from a spring. Whether for purported health benefits or a misguided effort to get off the “drinking water grid,” as chair of the Water Quality & Health Council, I felt it imperative to address the very real risks of drinking untreated water.


Water Loss: Challenges, Costs, and Opportunities

I wrote at the end of 2016 about the Future of America’s Drinking Water, and summarized some basic facts about US daily and annual water consumption. For example, Americans consume more than one billion glasses of tap water each day, while just 3% of our nation’s 50,000 community water systems provide safe drinking water for


Controlling the Spread of Invasive Aquatic Species with the Ballast Water Management Convention

Ballast water is the marine or fresh water taken into the ballast tank of a ship to improve the vessel’s stability, buoyancy and maneuverability. Unfortunately, the process of adding and subtracting ballast water, so vital to a ship’s operation, can have unintended consequences for aquatic ecosystems. Ballast water may include aquatic life forms native to


Keeping Your Reusable Water Bottle Clean

The reusable water bottle is one of those “grab and go” items that travel with many of us on a daily basis. The filled water bottle provides a handy means of hydrating on the spot. As we’ve noted, many water fountains now conveniently include water bottle-filling features. There’s just one caveat to deriving the maximum health


Pool Chemical Safety: There’s No Substitute for Vigilance

We could not safely enjoy a refreshing dip in the pool this summer without someone shouldering the responsibility of using and storing pool chemicals correctly. Someone has to apply and store the chemicals that keep pool water sanitized and so clear that a swimmer floundering in deep water is visible to life guards. Pool chemical


Avoiding Crypto at the Pool this Summer

This summer the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and health departments across the country will strive to keep an unwanted parasite out of America’s pools, hot tubs and water parks. The microscopic organism, “Crypto,” short for Cryptosporidium, causes diarrhea and spreads through recreational water via the fecal-to-oral route. Yes, that’s a revolting image,


Sweet Evidence for an Unsavory Practice: Peeing in the Pool

People urinate in swimming pools. It’s been a widely discussed topic since we published the results of our 2009 survey concluding that one in five American adults admit to having “peed in the pool.” Now there is physical evidence for this unsavory act, and it appears in the form of an artificial sweetener, of all


Your Norovirus Season Survival Guide

Norovirus, the dreaded “stomach flu” or “winter vomiting disease,” is spreading misery far and wide this winter. The Wall Street Journal (January 24) reported on multiple school closures across the US and unhappy households in which family members are falling sick in succession like a line of dominoes. Meet the Virus Not a flu but


Science, Technology, and the Future of America’s Drinking Water

Americans consume more than one billion glasses of tap water each day.1  As 2016 comes to a close and a new administration prepares to take over in January, there are over 150,000 public drinking water systems in the US.2  Of these, 50,000 are community water systems that supply water to the same population (over 300


Water Quality & Health Council Member Joan B. Rose, PhD, Receives Stockholm Water Prize

Some 3,000 scientists, government officials and policy experts representing 120 countries gathered in Stockholm this week for the 26th annual World Water Week conference. Organized by the Stockholm International Water Institute, World Water Week is “the annual focal point for the globes’ water issues,” according to the Institute’s website. A highlight of the week was