What are you so panicked about?

It’s just water.

Remember that lead poisoning in Flint, Michigan? It’s not the only place in the United States with terrifying levels of lead. Some cities don’t even warn the public about it until months or even years go by. Read more here and here. Reuters has a great map of high risk communities due to lead.

Lead isn’t the only harmful chemical in our water supply. Remember all of those chemical spills? Colorado? Texas? West Virginia? Great Lakes? A fucking Reddit user alerting people of a spill in Atlanta (A chemical killing fish in a water supply is still a chemical to be worried about drinking)? Delicious chemicals from companies that don’t want to take responsibility for their bad practices!

Like the taste of pesticides and fertilizer? Doesn’t matter, you’re probably already drinking some. Especially in California. Here’s a handy dandy short fact sheet on fertilizer and the hazards associated with it!

Don’t forget about the fracking craze that took our country by storm! Hope the money was worth all of the poisoned water! Sorry Pennsylvania.

What about all of those poop floods? Surely that untreated sewage hasn’t gotten into our drinking supply. Bad news.

Corporations have our best interests at heart when it comes to utilizing water supplies, right? Let me remind of the chemical spills above. Also, hell to the no.

Surely this is just a problem with us lazy Americans not fixing issues quickly. Wrong again! Fukushima? Yeah, there goes an entire ocean. Welcome to a world full of horrible drinking water!

Panicked yet? Good, you should be.

How do we fix this shit?

From this New York Times article linked earlier: “The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the country needs to spend $384 billion by 2030 to continue providing clean drinking water to all Americans.”
Don’t think that is going to be happening with any urgency given our political environment.

How the fuck did we let it get this bad? Why aren’t we protesting for better water? Where’s the fundraising campaign to help fix this shit?

Laziness and a problem that has become an impenetrable beast. That has been our folly.

Let me be the first to say that grabbing a Brita filter and calling everything good was definitely my way of saying, “Problem solved!”

Just how effective are Brita’s if you get lazy and don’t change the filter? They will literally poison you worse than your tap water.

“That’s fine!” You say, “I’ll just buy new filters all the time! Throwing all of those into the garbage surely doesn’t have a horrible impact on the already overflowing garbage dumps!”

Brita recommends a new filter every 2 months on average. In reality they need to be changed sooner than that if you are using it for literally all of your drinking water.

This adds up quick.

Oh, by the way, hope you got the right filter for what it is you’re trying to avoid in your water because no one Brita filter will cover all of the chemicals. Here’s a handy chart from their website!

Notice the blurb at the bottom: “filters keep a healthy level of fluoride, a water additive that promotes strong teeth.” Love that they don’t say what a healthy level is though. Source.
P.S. Do your own research into fluoride and determine if you are willing to have a “healthy level” for “strong teeth” in your water on top of what is already in your toothpaste.

“I THOUGHT THIS WAS THE SOLUTION SECTION! NOW I’M SMASHING MY BRITA’S AND WRITING ANGRY LETTERS TO CONGRESS! THIS ISN’T HELPING MY PANICKED STATE!”

Just pointing out that not all of the solutions we think of, will be what truly helps us in this.

Filtering

Lets say that you’re all good with your city water supply, whether it be municipal or privatized. Filters on the tap work, just be wary of which ones you get and how effective they are.

Here is a great alternative to Brita, the Aquagear filter. It filters waaaaaay more than a Brita ever could and it still comes as a pitcher if that’s your thing.
It says that each filter can process 150 gallons of water (Brita filters handle 40 gallons before needing to be replaced). So maybe up to 6 months of water if it’s just for one person’s drinking water.
Word of caution here. The filters alone are 50$ and potentially only last 2-3 months (according to reviews) depending on how much you use it and how gross your water is.
This isn’t the best recommendation by far, but it is an option if you like it.

If you really want to go big with a standard water filter go Berkey. There’s even this guy that has used some horribly gross water in his Berkey. He has used the same filters with his for 8 years, and it still runs like a champ.
Each filter has a rated lifespan of 3,000 gallons and you get two, so you get 6,000 gallons of fresh filtered water.
Not going to lie, upfront cost is pretty steep, roughly $250 for the basic version, and the filters alone cost $120 for two.
Included in the Berkey link I provide is also two fluoride filters if you don’t want that in your water either.
This is probably the best option for large, on the go filtration.

The last filter option is probably the most intense.
Reverse Osmosis.
For a dad joke filled article on what the hell that means/does click here.
If you didn’t read that because, TL;DR, basically it strips literally anything that isn’t water out of the water (horrible summary btw).
Downside to this is that you have “brine” to deal with. Most of the gross crap you didn’t want in the first place (the filters do capture most of the grossness). This all goes down the drain, back into the same water system it came from but more highly concentrated. Some say it isn’t worth it because about 85% of the water used ends up becoming the brine.
Also you can’t shove super gross pond water through most of these since the filters are so fine.

If this Reverse Osmosis stuff sounds like what you want to do I have used APEC water systems before. They’re catch phrase is “Free Drinking Water” which is a complete lie since you’re literally spending money to get their filters. This phrase actually applies to their charity arm.
Semantics aside, their systems are super reliable and can expand from a small counter-top version (Plus minerals! Even on Amazon!) all the way to literally your entire house.
Just realize that, like the Berkey, these are big up front costs. Plus their filters (lifespan ranges from 6 months to 5 years depending on type of filter) cost from $9 to $75. You can save by buying assorted kits of course.

A note on all of this, this only covers the water you drink and cook with (unless you do the whole house RO systems linked above).
What about the shower?
The largest organ you have gets this water dumped on it on a daily basis.

To get solid information and recommendations on what brands/types of shower filters to use visit this site.
Basically, Vitamin C filters to get rid of chlorine/chloramine (this thing) and carbon filters (KDF filters) to get rid of sediment, hydrogen sulfide and iron oxide (this thing). Oooooooor, you get the two in one dealy, which has both the Vit C and KDF filters! (READ THE REVIEWS ON ALL OF THESE).
Also APEC has their own shower filters if you want something built in the USA.

At the end of the day with alllllllll of these, we are throwing filters into the garbage. These will get you by for the short term, but for the long term, sustainable future, not so much.

Distilling

BOIL THAT SHIT SON! DRINK STEAM ON THE DAILY!

Boom. No more filters! Problem soved!

Eh, this process takes a looong time, ridiculous amounts of energy and leaves you with about 1/5th of the water you started with that is drinkable.

This is the purest form of water you can get though. Which also means that beneficial minerals and nutrients that are within say, filtered water or spring water, get completely left out.
Side note: distilled water is purified water. Literally the purest you could possibly get. But not all purified water that is sold is distilled. Which means purified water can have other beneficial things in it that your body needs. This mainly depends on the company selling the “purified” water and what they define as purified since that is a very loosely defined term.

There are people that say drinking distilled water continually isn’t a great thing unless you are adding beneficial amounts of minerals and nutrients. Because at the end of the day your body does need some of this stuff to operate.

If you want the safest possible water around though distilling is the way to go.

There’s this Megahome counter top distiller that makes it easy to create your own distilled water. With that being said, it is costly, $240 for this little guy. Also it takes 5.5 hours to get 1 gallon of water from this.

Alright so how about we bypass all of this municipal water stuff. Is there any hope going “off-grid” with your water?

Non-City Water

If you’re a fan of anarchy and don’t want any kind of leadership in charge of the water that you’re drinking and cleaning with, good news!

These are “free” options for gathering water but will either require you to drive out somewhere for spring water or setup a rain collection system. Both of which cost money.

Spring Water

You have a couple options here, the lazy expensive way, or the more labor intensive “cheap” way.

Lets start cheap.
Where the fuck are springs and what the hell do they look like? Is there some kind of pirate map looking thing to find all of this glorious water?
Kind of.

Find A Spring is the best kept secret in regards to finding springs for water collection all over the world.
It rely’s on user submissions, so anyone can point out where a delicious spring is.
This is where it can get tricky though.
Some of these springs are not official or haven’t been tested by any governing authority (yay anarchy!).
Spring water though, should be completely fine to drink without filtration or treatment since it is either fresh snow melt filtered by the untouched terrain that it streams down, or from a deep underground source untouched by human made chemicals.
This is also why you should make sure there is no fracking or farm lands near your spring, since those chemicals could eventually leech into the underground water supply.
Also take note if there’s a farm/pasture at higher elevation from the spring. If there is something like that higher up, the spring could get contaminated by whatever is used at the farm.
Watch the videos supplied on Find A Spring to get a good grasp of what all you need to gather the water and properly storing it.

If all of that sounds like far too much work and you really don’t want to buy any filtration stuff, there’s always delivery!

LOOK AT THIS AWESOME COMPANY WITH ITS SWEET INSPIRING PHOTOS!
Mountain Valley is an amazing company that provides many different versions of their spring water, so you’ll never grow tired of just normal amazing spring water.
Want this water at your work as well? No problem!
You too can be that hippy badass that provides amazing water for all of your coworkers! Even the ones you hate! Because we all know they are aching on the inside for some amazing water. Enemies no more.

There are of course many other options, especially if you live near mountains. Just do a Google search for spring water companies in your area. Almost all of these water companies will provide different styles of water and delivery for home or office.
The main reason I recommend Mountain Valley is because all of their water comes in glass containers rather than plastic and I have had their water several times before and have always been delighted by the quality.

Rainwater

This shit is literally falling from the sky. How about we just catch that?

Before we go any further, make sure catching rain water is legal in your area.
That’s right. Collecting fucking rain has been determined a criminal offense in some states and cities.
“How dare you try and get your own water! It hasn’t been thoroughly tested and filled with chemicals that we must put in it to tell you it’s now 100% safe…ish.”
Of course many states and cities are totally fine with you getting rainwater.
Just don’t end up like this woman in Florida.

Couple things to remember here.
When catching rain water you will have no quality issue so long as,
1) Your area isn’t full of chemical plants or near the plumes of power plants, paper mills, etc., near radioactive fallout or active volcanoes.
2) The surface the water is running off of and the container it is all going in to are clean of debris and all of that raccoon, squirrel and bird poop/party vomit.
It’s a documented fact that these three species will have the most intense rooftop parties known in the animal kingdom.

If you want a bunch of amazing jumping off points in the plethora of directions you can go with catching rainwater, read this article.

The concept here is simple.
Funnel your downspout into some kind of water receptacle, 55 gallon food grade barrel, 10,000 gallon cistern, whatever the hell you want so long as it is at least made from food grade quality materials.
Filter that shit, since I’m guessing you’re not scrubbing down your roof three times a day.
Filter as much as possible before hitting the storage container so it doesn’t fill up with gross poop things with something like this.
Then filter right after the tank since smaller particles/chemicals could still have gotten in there thanks to your animal-party-haven of a roof. Check this out for post-tank filtration. It’s made by Ozark Permaculture an awesome group near where I grew up!
They also have this amazingly in-depth post-tank filtration article if you just want to go about designing your own.

Now you have incredibly clean water for your whole house with this kind of a setup. The only thing you’ll have to change out is the filters in the post-tank filtration system.

Welcome to self-sustainability my friend.

Feel like your water setup is the best shit around?
Why not help out those in need or a developing country?

Charities

Time to save the world you glorious hippy.

As stated earlier, APEC has their own charity for getting their RO systems to those who are in need of them.

Charity:water is an amazing group helping create wells for small villages in developing countries. Fresh water that is much closer than the riskier options they have.

These are charities that I know somewhat about. However, if you want an endless list that you can pick and choose from check this out.

Moving Forward

It’s time to understand what we have been doing to this planet and stop writing it off as, “Looks like that happened again,” and then never really changing anything.

There are clearly answers to this problem that have mountains of scientific research and currently operating systems that can be learned from, adapted and implemented into many different locations across this planet.

Obviously our city systems are in dire need of repair or replacement.

Maybe this is a sign to start empowering ourselves and decentralizing the services we need for basic life on this planet.

Maybe it’s time to implement these ideas that are safe, effective and can be integrated into all buildings so that we no longer have to panic if something in the larger systems fails or is inundated with poisonous chemicals.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s time to panic a little so that we finally take action.

Starting to get panicked about how to change/update the waste water situation? Flail your way over to How to Shit in a Bucket and Save the World.