Valuing Our Tap Water
The following is an opinion piece written by Northern Health Environmental Health Officer, Bruce Gaunt:
Why pay for bottled water when fresh, clean water is at your fingertips?
May 4-10, 2014 is Drinking Water Awareness Week, a chance to raise awareness of the value of our water, the need to protect and conserve it, and those who are involved in delivering it to us.
Water plays a critical role in our daily lives and quality of life. When you turn on your tap and clean water flows, do you know how it got there? People use water every day to meet daily needs from cooking to bathing and drinking. Access to public water that is safe and reliable is crucial to a community's health and prosperity.
Most of us don't think about how drinking water systems work. We count on water to flow uninterrupted, whenever we want it for as long as we want. We expect it is safe to drink and never give a second thought about its quality.
Did you know? It takes natural, human and financial resources, as well as physical, chemical and biological processes, to bring safe water to your home.
Those who operate our water systems work hard to ensure that our water is safe to drink and the equipment and pipes used to deliver it are clean and in top shape. They commit themselves to current training to stay on top of changing technology.
Safe drinking water at every tap defines Canada from developing nations. Many developing countries do not have tap water that is safe to drink or to wash or prepare food. Their supply can be interrupted for long periods and without warning. Amounts and pressure may not maintain public sanitation and there may not be enough for fire protection. In some places, water must be hauled by jug from a central pipe or well. In fact, others may need to haul water from polluted rivers and streams.
When we remember examples like this, we realize how much we take this valuable resource for granted. We use large amounts, up to 350 litres per person per day, and we tend to be wasteful. We wash our cars and leave the water running, spray our driveways, water our lawns and, in spring, even melt old snow. Yet, safe drinking water from the tap is one of the primary reasons our country enjoys good health overall.
Have you taken the time to think about the water coming from your taps?
Learn more about our drinking water supply by visiting eh.northernhealth.ca
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written by Bruce Gaunt, NH Environmental Health Officer
Comments
This guy sounds like a paid shill for whoever is providing the fluoride to the city. Seriously, stop dumping unnecessary chemicals into the water before you try selling it.
There is a huge difference between treating water and treating patients with a mass medication of an industrial waste effluent intentionally added to the water.
If you don’t like fluoride in the water could you please lobby the appropriate officials to have it removed? I for one get tired of the same old dribble on the subject.
run it through a Britta or some other such filtration system, floride gone!
You absorb fluoride through your skin bcracer that is going to take a pretty big britta filter! A reverse osmosis system would have to be added to your incoming pipe inorder for you to have fluoride free water to shower with
If the city continues to fluoridate the water after the election in the fall then they should be forced to use medical grade fluoride instead of the industrial waste fluoride they use now.
Lildigger you must be new here! There will be a vote in the fall on the civic election ballot on whether we should continue fluoridating the water as a cost saving issue not a mass medication ehtical issue. No one is forcing you to read the dribble like we are being force fed the fluoride!
“run it through a Britta or some other such filtration system, floride gone!”
If you would have taken the time to go to the official Britta website you would already know that the company has designed its filters so as to not remove any fluoride.
“Lobbying” officials has resulted in reducing the recommended fluoride concentration from about 4.0 ppm to 0.7 ppm when confronted with obvious bad side effects. Now the time has come to stop it altogether, so the “dribble” will stop together with the long term damage.
I’m sure the vocal anti-fluoride contingent will do as they usually do, flood the public with misleading and false information and get everyone to vote it out.
The fact is that there is no peer reviewed scientific evidence that fluoridation at effective levels causes any harm.
Meanwhile, Health Canada, the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and many other health orgainzations continue to support the practice as an effective public health measure.
But as I said, don’t let the facts get in the way of vocal extremist alarmism.
The latest studies have found it to be a neuro-toxin with a whole range of side effects including lower IQ- good news for for businesses looking for people to wear a blue vest to greet customers at the door.
http://blogs.windsorstar.com/2014/03/06/lancet-study-links-fluoride-to-neurotoxins/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3491930/
From the link in the article
“An Environmental Health Officer (EHO) can help address complaints concerning drinking water quality. If a complaint is related to water quality or safety under the Drinking Water Protection Act, an EHO will perform an inquiry or inspection. You will be informed of the outcome, and whether corrective action is required or recommended to address your concern.”
It would be interesting to file a complaint saying that a neuro toxin has been added to the water without consent. Would the response from the EHO show both sides of the issue and say that there are some studies that show that there are real and measurable adverse effects or spout the company line “we know what is best for you,nothing to see here, move on citizen.”
Government bodies seem to be behind the times JohnnyB. A good example is how long it took them to fix a two year old security breach in their encryption software. Health Canada still preach the Canada food guide too JohnnyB while most people see the holes in that guide when it comes to dairy products. Times change practices are stopped for the sake of money, health and ethics. Sure fluoride is good on your teeth but I don’t want it in my drinking water. Like the people and their issues with smart meters we should be able to opt out. The city should install and maintain filtering systems for those that don’t want the industrial waste in their water!
If the process is voted out in the fall it will be for the wrong reason to save money! They should be stopping it for the right reason which is the practice of mass medicating the population without their consent.
ewitt: “The latest studies have found it to be a neuro-toxin with a whole range of side effects including lower IQ”
More misdirection and misinformation. The widely cited Harvard Study looked at fluoride ingestation at far above the approved levels and has been widely discredited.
Lots of anti-fluoride buzzwords meant to cause fear.
“Neuro-toxin”
“Sludge”
“Toxic Waste”
“Mass Medication”
“Industrial Waste”
“Lack of choice”
Lots of words that do nothing but promote fear, but no sick people to show for 50 years of doing it.
No worries, anti-fluoride people. Your tactics will likely pay off in the fall. I have great dental care and hygeine, so it won’t affect me. Not everybody can say the same.
You can add one more to the list of Facts in your post JB, the notion of Informed Consent, a basic right in a free country.
If it works as advertised there should be clear and indisputable evidence the a city such as ours with a long history of adding it to the water has better dental haelth than one that does not add fluoride.
Fluoride is pure evil, unless you hate cavities :)
Here is one more fact. Prince George has above normal levels of certain types of cancer when compared to provincial norms. Could the fact that we are doing what 97% of the province has chosen not to do be a factor?
Among the cocktail mix of chemicals in the industrial grade fluoride that the city uses are known carcinogens, including fluoride itself in some studies. Could the addition of these chemicals be the tipping point for those individuals that are predisposed to these forms of cancer? Should we take the gamble for the questionable benefits that fluoride in drinking water claims to offer? IMO no.
Set up a program to offer fluorine toothpaste or pills to those who need it and keep it our of the water
The Lancet Neurology, Volume 13, Issue 3, Pages 330 – 338, March 2014
Neurobehavioural effects of developmental toxicity Dr Philippe Grandjean MD
Neurodevelopmental disabilities, including autism, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia, and other cognitive impairments, affect millions of children worldwide, and some diagnoses seem to be
increasing in frequency. Industrial chemicals that injure the developing brain are among the known causes for this rise in prevalence…. Since 2006, epidemiological studies have documented six additional developmental neurotoxicants â manganese, fluoride, chlorpyrifos, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane,
tetrachloroethylene, and the polybrominated diphenyl ethers. We postulate that even more neurotoxicants remain undiscovered.
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Please note that fluoride has been added to the list. This is a serious matter. Do not add fluoride to tap water. Period. Keep it out. Don’t gamble with the health of people! There is no such a thing as proven long term harmlessness.
JB:”Lots of words that do nothing but promote fear, but no sick people to show for 50 years of doing it.”
Fear? No. Concern for health? Yes! The hospitals are full of sick people, some can’t even get a family doctor!
JB:” No worries, anti-fluoride people. Your tactics will likely pay off in the fall.”
I sure hope so! It’s been a long time in the making!
JB:” I have great dental care and hygiene (sic), so it won’t affect me.”
So why are you making comments designed to denigrate the motives of others?
JB:”Not everybody can say the same.”
Everybody can learn to brush their teeth with fluoridated tooth paste and floss! If one doesn’t brush and floss no amount of fluoridated water drinking will make save the teeth. You probably know that too!
97% of B.C. is fluoridation free!
I’m sure the anti-fluoride contingent would rather I went away and stayed silent and stopped calling them on their BS, but the fact of the matter is that the vast majority of the science and world scientific organizations out there today do not support their claims.
It is doubtful that there is some sort of worldwide conspiracy between these organizations.
End of story.
Correction:
….no amount of fluoridated water drinking will save the teeth.”
JB: “It is doubtful that there is some sort of worldwide conspiracy between these organizations.”
WHO data shows virtually no difference between countries which do not fluoridate and those who do. The decline in cavities is due (globally) to improved dental hygiene habits and fluoridated toothpaste.
Only 5% of the global population has its water fluoridated – in the other 95% it is either banned or removed from the water.
BS? To you maybe. Not so to intelligent thoughtful people.
So anyone who doesn’t buy into the anti-fluoride rhetoric isn’t ‘intelligent or thoughtful’? Careful, PG, that’s verging on a personal attack.
Eagleone, I would suggest you do everyone on the “no fluoride” side a favour and not be the poster boy for the cause . . .
Fluoride is yummy for the tummy and makes the chlorine taste better too :)
@NMG: I too nominate Eagleone.
JB:” Careful, PG, that’s verging on a personal attack.”
Sorry if you interpret it that way! It was meant to point out that the comments made here by sincere and intelligent people should not be labelled “BS”, in my opinion. Come to think of it, over 4,000 scientists, including Nobel laureates, researchers and dentists have signed an appeal to the United Nations to halt water fluoridation globally. I would recommend not including them in your “BS” category unless you think of them as not being intelligent.
These are the newly listed neurotoxins:
Manganese,
Fluoride,
Chlorpyrifos, Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane,
Tetrachloroethylene,
Dolybrominated diphenyl ethers.
Those who would never consider adding five of the above neurotoxins in any concentration to drinking water should stop and think why Fluoride should be exempted and get a passing grade.
That’s it.
Oops, missed the word ‘not’. ;-)
PG: “Come to think of it, over 4,000 scientists, including Nobel laureates, researchers and dentists have signed an appeal to the United Nations to halt water fluoridation globally.”
If that number is true (and who knows, because you never post any links), they are the small minority.
Hey NMG what is it too you? You live in Ottawa, so why is it you are always trying to be the poster boy for things that directly effect those that actually live in PG? Do you put fluoride in the water you drink?
PG: “I would recommend not including them in your “BS” category unless you think of them as not being intelligent.”
Unlike yourself, I wouldn’t make that inference. However, with any issue like this one, you’re not going to get any group to 100% agree on anything, let alone fluoridation. That being said, I choose to side with the vast majority of credible peer reviewed scientific study.
97% of B.C. is tap water fluoridation free!
Something to celebrate!
Sure is PG we are part of the lucky 3% :)
“Hey NMG what is it too you? You live in Ottawa, so why is it you are always trying to be the poster boy for things that directly effect those that actually live in PG? Do you put fluoride in the water you drink?”
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The last time I checked, O250 was an opinion website where people can share opinions. Heck, doesn’t Ben even laud the fact that he gets hits from all over the place? I figure that 30 years of having lived in PG gives me some sort of latitude to take an interest in things that are going on there.
By the way, why do you post about stuff like the plane that went missing in Malaysia or Israeli conspiracy theories? Do those subjects directly impact you? Do you have other thoughts and opinions about things that occur outside of PG? It would be sort of weird if you didn’t, don’t you think?
As for fluoride, no I don’t add it to my water. The City of Ottawa does though. Since moving here, I don’t recall hearing about any of the roughly 1,000,000 people in the area having died or gotten ill from drinking it.
For the record, I’m completely indifferent about the subject. I’m not convinced that it is really that beneficial, nor do I think that it’s really harmful. Truth be told, I think the money that municipalities spend on it could probably be used for other things that would have a greater impact.
I understand the argument about putting something in the water supply that not everyone wants and that it does present an ethical question. I think it is far more convincing to use that as a position to be against it, than to claim that widespread harm will come from people who drink fluoridated water.
The fear mongering comes across as slightly over the top, as does the suggestion that PG and Walkerton are somehow parallel examples. Truth be told, it reduces the credibility of your argument at least ten fold. Just my opinion.
@NMG
It would be obvious to even a casual reader of O250 that eagleone is keeping a cap on the crazy or a lid on the loonie lately as he is considering a run for council. If a connection is made between the candidate and his online persona he is sunk, so please no mention of planes or Israel till xmas.
This fluoride issue has been around for many, many, years. I think it is a tempest in a tea pot.
I have drank the fluoridated water since it was introduced in Prince George, and will continue to do so, unless it is removed.
I really don’t give a s..t one way or the other because it is not a serious issue. I cannot believe the time and effort that people put into this non-issue.
The average person ingests huge amounts of sugar every day. Now that is something that is detrimental to your health. Furthermore people eat fish from the ocean, both fresh and in the can. There is nothing worse for your health than eating this half rotten mercury infested mess in a can.
Alcohol. If you gave your dog the same amount of alcohol that you drink it would be dead in less than a month. Alcohol in the human body is poison.
One of the most contaminated fruits on the North American market are apples, followed closely by celery, tomatoes, and strawberries.
Many more of the foods you eat on a regular basis are contaminated.
So when you look at the big picture, drinking a little fluoridated water rates pretty low on the scale.
Have a nice day.
All those things you listed Palopu you can avoid by choice! You can’t avoid fluoride in PG unless you put a reverse osmosis system on your main water supply to your house! It’s about being force fed the crap whether it’s good for you or not.
If you think you’re living a ‘chemical free lifestyle’, you’re dreaming in technicolor.
I agree with Palopu and NMG and others. This issue is really small in the grand scheme of things. If people didn’t point out the majority of science that supports fluoridation, these boards would be overrun by the fear mongers and the people spouting pure BS to push their agendas. You have to wonder what it is they’re really afraid of?
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