Is Your Water Safe Part III

Even after filtration, water often fails to have that crystal-clear look. All the bugs may be dead and all the major particles may be gone, but there still there may be a faint haze. You can’t have that or people might talk. To avoid this problem, most municipal water supplies apply an additional treatment step that uses aluminum sulfate, commonly called “alum.” The idea is that the particulate matter remaining in the water, making it cloudy, forms a complex with the alum and falls out, leaving the water clear.

The problem associated with this is that nobody can guarantee all the aluminum is gone from the final product. There are those happy to say that most of it is gone, which may be fine for describing the removal of stains from your unmentionables, but should we really drink this stuff?

Aluminum is everywhere. It’s in cooking utensils, antiperspirants, snack bags, and every soft drink you can buy. Now it’s in the water used to make most of those drinks.

We need minerals. We also need greater or lesser amounts of several metals, but aluminum is not one of them, and like chlorine it definitely is not innocuous. It has been linked to Alzheimer’s disease, implicated in premature aging, and is a know biological toxin. It builds up in human tissues, and it’s hard to get rid of. In my opinion you should avoid drinking this stuff.