What ‘a’ Ya Know!

​Greetings,
First words out of my Pipe: ‘Hold your breath!’  (However, it’s worth the effort.)  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) just gave yours truly a tiny bit of hope: 

The national press will be visiting this health issue closely as progress hopefully will materialize. What’s at stake? Our very health. The technical explanations for this are clearly dissected in the few articles of recent publication mentioned at the end of this Pipe. What the author wanted to bring to your attention in this missive is that: highly portable plug-and-play technology already exists to protect us from Forever Chemicals (PFAS’s) (“PEE-FA’s”) infecting us via the freshwater piping in our domiciles: Photo 1. To protect a family it would require indulging in a unit resembling Photo 2. You do not have to wait for bureaucrats to ‘come up to speed’ when providing critical prevention for you and yours from PFAS in drinking water.

Photo 1

Photo 2

Unfortunately, it’s not just drinking water born Forever Chemicals that threaten, but a cornucopia of causes involving every aspect of our daily lives: We live in a world surrounded by Forever Chemicals such as clothing; food packaging; plastic water bottles; medical supplies, the list is endless. It is estimated that 15,000 individual PFAS threaten our health. Contact by ‘drinking-water’ through some forms of plastic piping/water packaging, is one major culprit (and here we’re going to delve into that).
 
Ancient History

Many (MANY) years ago, Pete the Plumber was very fortunate to find himself the assistant of a ‘mad’ professor. ‘Doc’ was a nuclear physicist living (near me) in desert lands of Southern California. Aside from designing electric deep-space rocket motors (and WMD’s), Doc was helping a start-up R&D design and test solar powered drinking water stills. Their design was applicable for far off-grid operation and emergency humanitarian settings/situations. (Eased his conscience?)  For Pete it proved immensely interesting (dealing with H20 in that way) and the results were highly effective and reassuring.

After recently reading articles (mentioned below), Pete’s heart sank a bit, reckoning how many billion gallons of drinking water were infected with Forever Chemicals (PFAS). And, how much or more would be consumed by humans (before high-tech ‘infrastructure’ could/would make any meaningful difference). THEN Yours Truly recalled how efficiently the ‘long ago’ solar stills purified hideous examples of H2O of viruses and bacteria and *minerals!  That word, minerals, will be re-visited, downstream.

The thought, then, occurred to Pete: “Would a modern, electric, ‘countertop’ drinking water distiller have any effect at leaving behind the Forever Chemicals?”  Answer: Wholeheartedly YES!!!!!  For an explanation, please avail yourselves of the remarkable YouTube eye-openers: “The REAL Reason Why You Should Drink Distilled Water” by Dr. Eric Berg…with a chaser: “How Bad Is Tap Water for Health”, by Dr. Andrew Huberman.
 
Rah-Rah RO

The author installed a number of Reverse Osmosis (RO) units over the years but less than a ten-count of these modern, electric “stills”. Before the “Plastic Problem” we all live with (and contribute to) it was mostly known biological threats to our drinking water supplies causing public concerns. Back (then), aside Water Utility added chemicals, the “bugs” could be dealt-with by employing filtration systems. The “Literature” does mention Reverse-Osmosis (RO) among effective methodologies to treat Forever Chemicals in your domicile’s drinking water. In most homes this technology is still being installed UNDER the kitchen sink (or immediate, lower R/L cabinet space). For ‘family-sized’ drinking water distillers they unfortunately are of the size that coveted counter space is commonly surrendered. For a ‘lone dweller’ though, there’s the plug-in drinking water ‘still’ the size of a coffee pot mentioned upstream in Photo 1.

For Reverse-Osmosis owners it was: “…no space left for ‘anything else’ under my kitchen sink!”  Pete the Plumber just recently consulted on and inspected a commercial kitchen installation for a fledging food Co-Op. Having all that clearance under the big, tall, legged NSF sinks (5) I slid around on my mechanic’s “creeper”.  Pete was relieved there was no RO involved. (If the author were to return in a year or so he’d wager/see a similar reality to most American’s “Under Kitchen Sink” Situation: jugs; bottles; brushes; sacks; bags; rags etc.
 
Safe?

Reverse Osmosis water has long been deemed safe for drinking without further treatment. But distilled water? The old argument went something like this: “The distilling process removes many nuisance and dangerous compounds, BUT lot’s of good *MINERALS, too. If YOU do not add back the ‘good’ minerals, and you consume solely distilled water, your body’s store of ‘good’ minerals will be ‘raided’, to compensate. Prepared packets of these ‘good’ minerals, for adding to distilled water before consuming used to be market available. Well, now, thanks to Dr. Eric Berg for putting that inconvenience to bed, health ‘motivated’ souls with the means now have a wide selection of drinking water distillers to ‘delete’ maybe one of the the major source of PFAS in their family living. (Dr. Berg’s YouTube video under references, below.)
 
I’ll Take That…

The author is pleased to see the recognition of late, by Congress, that many Americans are drinking unsafe water primarily because it’s contaminated with lead* due to a delivery pipe material: lead.

Lead is not the only culprit. There are other minerals (manganese is one) that when occurring in excessive amounts also pose hazards, not to mention organics: ‘bugs’. Our water and waste treatment plant operators are humans. Now and then, somewhere…

By employing Distillers or Reverse Osmosis we can remove Forever Chemicals (and *lead) from their strongest beachhead. However, other than the Forever Chemical threat of drinking water from some forms of plastic water piping (and plastic bottled drinking water) you’re now on your own. Only by practicing due diligence (informing ourselves) will we succeed on multi-levels that are ‘outta Pete’s orbit’.

Until Next Time,
PtP


Reference Articles/YouTube Videos

EPA Announces First-Ever Drinking Water Regulations for “Forever Chemicals”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/epa-first-ever-drinking-water-regulations-pfas-forever-chemicals/
 
Why Drink Distilled Water (Dr Berg) - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSRxZXbQVxA
 
How Bad Is Tap Water for Health? | Dr. Andrew Huberman – YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x2rbkEjjsU
 
Past PFOA and PFOS Health Effects Science Documents | US EPA
https://www.epa.gov/sdwa/past-pfoa-and-pfos-health-effects-science-documents
 
Does Distillation Effectively Remove PFAS from Drinking Water? - Living Whole
https://www.livingwhole.com.au/does-distillation-effectively-remove-pfas-from-drinking-water/


Crossing My Fingers

On an entirely different matter, only slightly involving water (ocean, lakes and rivers): Pete lost his ‘Sea Sock’ for his 2003 Feathercraft K-1 kayak 🥲. Do any readers have one the author could make a pattern from?  (They are very scarce.) You can contact him through the Contact the Author portal on his website: PeterHemp.com