The Hydrological Cycle

Every day, thousands of billions of tons of water evaporate from the earth's surface.

As the heat of the sun evaporates the water and draws it from the earth's surface into the atmosphere, many impurities are left behind. The water vapor eventually cools to form clouds and then falls back to earth as precipitation. On its way from the clouds to your faucet, soft rain water dissolves and absorbs a part of almost everything is passes. The falling rain cleans the air as it falls. Unfortunately the impurities that were removed from the air have not left; they have just been relocated through the water onto the ground. Gases and other contaminants can cause undesirable tastes, colors and odors.

Rain falls onto the ground, collecting sediments like rust, sand and algae.

The water eventually finds its way to a surface water supply or percolates downward and collects in an aquifer. As it percolates through the earth, the water can absorb hardness minerals, iron, heavy metals, radioactivity, organic contaminants, and many other complex elements and compounds.

Water can also collect numerous harmful man-made chemical impurities throughout this cycle. These synthetic chemicals are generally odorless, colorless, and tasteless; and can often be life-threatening. The statement, "my parents drank this water for 75 years and it never hurt them", is no longer a valid excuse to not be concerned with water quality.

There has been a massive global increase in harmful chemical waste over the last 50 years.

The scientific and medical community has not had time or the ability to study the long-term health effects of the more than 70,000 harmful chemicals that can be found in use today.

Approximately 1,000 new synthetic chemical compounds are entering the industrial marketplace each and every year. Precipitation falls upon commercial and municipal dumpsites, toxic waste sites, industrial refuse depots, military test sites, leach fields, mining operations, farmer’s fields etc... Where it dissolves minute amounts of the toxic chemicals present and carries them along.

The United States Government estimated in 1986 that close to two percent of the nation's ground water supplies were moderately polluted by sources such as hazardous waste dumps and leaking landfills.

Industrial wastewater is also a major source of water contamination. When certain chemicals come in contact with others, they create new compounds.

Chemicals that are considered generally acceptable in controlled amounts may react with other elements and/or chemicals to form new compounds that could be highly carcinogenic.

Chlorine is one of the best-publicized examples; it reacts with organic matter in water and forms deadly trihalomethanes.