Friday, April 18, 2008

Study: Chicago Tap Water Contains Trace Chemicals

Story from Channel 2...
A new study by the Chicago Tribune might make you think twice before taking a drink of tap water. The report says you could be gulping down small amounts of drugs and chemicals along with that H2O.

As CBS 2's Mike Puccinelli reports, it's the second recent study that shows our water purification systems aren't filtering out everything.

Ryan Russell is one of the 7 million people in the Chicago area who drinks treated water from Lake Michigan – water that he's just learned still contains trace amounts of drugs and chemicals.

"I think that's awful, actually," Russell said. "You would imagine that water would be safe to drink, safe to bathe in."

And Chicago officials say it is, but a Tribune-financed study found tiny amounts of an anti-seizure medication, caffeine, acetaminophen and two chemicals used to make Teflon and Scotchguard in water it sampled.

The paper hired a lab to do the testing after the city refused to the testing on its own.

Commissioner Suzanne Malec-McKenna with the Chicago Department of Environment says Chicagoans should not worry about their tap water and that the trace amounts are incredibly small.

"One part per trillion is equivalent to one second in 32,000 years," Malec-McKenna said.
That's great I just wonder if I should go back to using filters at home like my family used to do in the past.

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