Water Analysed
Water is supremely important to all living creatures on our earth. It provides a major element in the bodies of life forms of all kinds. The jellyfish is in fact 90% water. So also is a human embryo. In the human body water is about 70% of our body mass. Our brain is constructed of even more at 75% water.
We need to choose wisely in satisfying our natural thirst that helps us direct us maintain the right balance of water in our bodies. We must focus upon obtaining not only the quantity but the best quality of water possible if we are to maintain a healthy existence.
Water is Needed for Health
It is easy to see that water is vital to our health. It also is necessary in contributing to the healing of disease. In remedying disease , we are becoming newly aware of research demonstrating that 8-10 glasses of water can ease back and joint pain in many sufferers; 5 glasses a day decreases risk of colon cancer by 45% and reduces breast cancer by 79%; to drink about the same amount is believed to prevent bladder cancer by 50% .
What about quality? How can we improve present quality?
Sea Water
Although the waters of our oceans are rich in all minerals and trace elements that we ourselves require, including sodium, iron, selenium, sulphur, calcium cobalt, boron, silver and even minute quantities and trace elements such as gold and nickel, we cannot assimilate these elements by drinking seawater directly. Research seeking new ways to enable us to make use of the water in our oceans is making some headway but has yet to show how this is feasible.
The science that allows desalination to offer an answer to water shortage may be instrumental in paving the way to success. The salinity of seawater is slightly variable but about 35 parts per thousand units.
According to Dr J Floor Anthoni of seafriends.org.nz/oceano/seawater.htm the composition of seawater comprises salinity through salt ions, dissolved gases oxygen and carbon-dioxide and bicarbonate from dissolved carbon-dioxide . The sea has an abundance of life elements of all known chemical elements known to us. In addition the oceans contain organisms from bacteria to diatoms and large dinoflagellates in the seemingly limitless phytoplankton that cannot be measured but upon which the inherent life of our oceans and atmosphere depends.
Rainwater
Water that is drawn from the oceans, condenses in the atmosphere and precipitates upon our lands provides us with the natural, pure water upon which our earth life depends. It develops its composition by dissolving materials in the atmosphere or and by dissolving gasses from the atmosphere so it varies according to geographical features and conditions. In open ocean and coastal areas rainwater has a salt content and bicarbonate content but as we know with ‘acid rain’ the saline content will be strongly influenced by local conditions, air traffic, chemical pollutants, industry, smoke and even weather conditions. It is therefore not possible to be too broad about the composition of rainwater in general. A specific testing of rainwater samples collected over a two year period in Queensland, near Townsville, presents results differing from other near coastal sites in Australia in relation to sodium and chloride content, for instance. It is apparent that the analysis of rainwater must be arrived at from analysis of each unique sample.
Wastewater and Ground Run-off
Water that falls and is redirected into channels for storage in dams and water catchments will be influenced by the nature of human activities, animal populations and agricultural fertilizers and chemicals. The effluents from industry, hospitals, chemical factories and production in general will all contribute some negatives to the natural quality of pure rainwater as will any leakage from sewerage systems through groundwater contamination.
Urban areas contribute huge amounts of chemicals related to domestic and business use, traffic and toxic wastes of all kinds are inevitable. With the common use of hormones and personal care products our modern cities and sewage outlets are now providing us with additional problems with estrogens and testosterones making an unnatural and unwelcome appearance in our lakes and rivers evidenced by deformed and disease fish populations.
In the U.S. a report on the poultry industry speaks of almost 12 million mg of litter from poultry, containing concentrations of estradiol and testosterone that cause of concern in this water’s dangerous use in grasslands. So it is not just human sex hormones but those used in farming practices that are now a hazard. Poultry is looked upon as a greater cause of the problem that the grazing animals.
The American Society of Agronomy Crop Science Society of America and Soil Science Society of America published in 2000 papers from scientists titled “Transport and Fate of Estrogenic Hormones in Slurry-treated Soil Monoliths:” “Runoff Water Quality from Broiler Litter-Amended Tall Fescue in Response to Natural Precipitation in the Ozark highlands” “Reuse of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation Wastewater on Agricultural Lands:” “Decrease in Water-Soluble 17beta) – Estradiol and Testosterone in Composted Poultry Manure with Time”
“Persistance of Estrogenic Hormones in Agricultural Soils:I 17(beta) – Estrdil and Estrone ”
This demonstrates real concern at what is happening in our soil – the environmental foundation of our food.
It is not possible to make a general assessment of groundwater. Analysis must be specific.
We can only generally conclude that the degree of toxicity that now affects our water in ‘developed’ countries is a problem that rather increases than goes away.
Public Water Supply Systems
Methods to help upgrade the quality of water in our reservoirs includes chemical treatment to subdue any rapid increase of ‘nasties’ of any kind, both in proliferation of aquatic plant life and algae or bacterial kind that threatens human health. So in addition to all the previous elements in our waters we have to contend with additional chemicals such as chlorine directed into our water supplies and even including injection of fluoride into many public water systems of the world.
Recycled Water (Purified)
This is a contentious issue. Scientific evidence is presented to the public of the ‘purity’ of the final quality of water that has been processed by various methods to eliminate the negative properties appears in the final guise as a pristine element. However, our instincts that question the validity of all techniques that add more chemicals and processes to our water, already heavily burdened with toxins, is justified. Many whose senses tell them that recycled sewage and polluted water, no matter how many processes it is put through, cannot challenge the quality of pure water as we know it, falling from the skies direct from Nature’s laboratory in the skies.
Our government authorities struggle to cope with these issues.
Our personal imagination tells us how difficult a problem it is when a monstrous amount of chemical and pollutants of all kinds affect our water on the planet. In urban situations, from the worn rubber material from motor traffic, the casual,common habits that contribute to the tainting of the atmosphere then to eventual pollution of the water through ‘air freshners’, insect repellents and pest control methods. The list is endless.
We must hope that our scientists come up with better means of keeping our water quality to a level that not only allows our existence, albeit with many aches and pains and diseases, but that hold some promise that people in the future will be able to experience natural state of good health, with water quality as the determining factor.
It cannot be achieved without drastic eradication of the offending substances that are at the core of our modern ‘civilized’ way of living that is fast becoming seen as a failure rather than an achievement . We are growing less able to provide people with the opportunity to enjoy good health and therefore happiness.
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