Toxic Chemicals are all around us - in our air, water, food, the products we use. They're in our bodies too.

There is an explosion of toxic wastes into the air from factories, power plants and motor vehicles. Even our countryside is burdened with pesticides and other poisons sprayed by farmers and governments to control pests.

Studies show that lead, mercury, industrial chemicals, and certain pesticides cross the placenta and enter the brain of the developing fetus where they can cause learning and behavioral disabilities. - http://susanohanian.org/show_outrages.html?id=33

The causes of tap water contamination are many, ranging from agricultural runoff to improper use of household chemicals and everything in between. Few of us realize the extent or impact of these low level synthetic chemicals in the water we use. While the standard use in our society of over 80‚000 different synthetic chemicals has offered added convenience and productivity in our lives‚ it has also come at a tremendous price... drastic increases in degenerative disease.

Toxic chemicals don’t simply disappear. They fall onto people’s skin and into the air we breathe, wash into drinking water sources, cover the grass on which children and pets play, and build up over time in human tissues as well as those of produce and animals in the food chain. These chemicals contribute to many devastating diseases that have become common in only a few decades.
http://www.stonington-gardenclub.org/Earth_Friendly_Alternatives.htm

Our use of man-made chemicals has become so extreme that we can now find traces of these low level SOCs (synthetic organic chemicals) in virtually every public water supply around the world. A recent report by the Ralph Nader Study Group‚ after reviewing over 10‚000 documents acquired through the Freedom Of Information Act‚ confirmed that "Drinking water contains more than 2100 toxic chemicals that can cause cancer."

We've learned that any chemical we use in our society, will eventually wind up in our water supplies. There is no "new" water! Our planet re-uses the same water over and over. And as our use of SOCs increases, so does the toxicity of our water. Earth's natural filtration process is not effective at removing these toxic SOCs... nor is municipal water treatment. Industry, agriculture and individuals... all contribute to the problem. Many of the contaminants found in water can be traced back to improper or excessive use of ordinary compounds like lawn chemicals‚ gasoline, dry-cleaning solvents and cleaning products.

Once we realize that everything that goes down the drain‚ on our lawns‚ on our agricultural fields or into the environment by any means... eventually winds up in the water we drink‚ we begin to see just how vulnerable our water supplies really are.

Our municipal water treatment facilities do not remove SOCs and typically only consist of sand bed filtration and disinfection‚ much like a standard swimming pool filter. For the most part‚ today‘s water treatment facilities are much the same as they were at the turn of the century, filter out the visible particles and add bleach!

"Most Drinking water plants are old and out of date‚ and water supplies are increasingly threatened by and contaminated by chemicals and microorganisms."  Natural Resources Defence Council.

One of America‘s leading authorities on water contamination‚ Dr. David Ozonoff of the Boston University Of Public Health states‚ "the risk of disease associated with public drinking water has passed from the theoretical to the real."

Many illnesses that in the past could not be linked to a probable cause have now been linked to toxins in our drinking water. "While levels of these carcinogens (SOCs) in drinking water are low, it is precisely these low levels that carcenogenists believe to be responsible for the majority of human cancers"  - U.S. Council On Environmental Quality

The use of pesticides and herbicides has become so excessive that they are now commonly found in household tap water and bottled water with alarming frequency.

These first ever "tap water testing" found two or more pesticides in the drinking water of 27 of the 29 cities‚ three or more in 24 cities‚ four or more in 21 cities‚ five or more in 18 cities‚ six or more in 13 cities and seven or more pesticides in the tap water of 5 major U.S. cities. In Fort Wayne‚ Indiana‚ nine different pesticides were found in a single glass of tap water!

As a startling side note‚ it was reported that in these 29 cities‚ 45‚000 infants drank formula mixed with tap water containing weed killers and that "over half of these infants were swallowing 4 to 9 chemicals in every bottle!"

The tragic health effects of consuming these highly toxic chemicals are magnified many times over for small children because their systems are more sensitive and still developing. Small children also consume a much larger volume of fluids per pound of body weight and therefore get a bigger dose‚ yet none of these factors are considered when the EPA‘s maximum contaminant levels are set. The National Academy of Sciences issued a report in 1993 on this subject and stated "children are not little adults" and their bodies are less developed and simply incapable of detoxifying certain harmful compounds."

Another major flaw in the estimated risks of chemicals in our drinking water is the false assumption that only that one chemical is being consumed. The regulations are set based on what is assumed safe for a 175 pound adult drinking water with only one chemical present and does not take into account the combined toxicity of two or more chemicals.

In a 1995 Science Advisory Report to the EPA‚ it was stated that "when two or more of these contaminants combine in our water the potency may be increased by as much as 1000 times!"
It has been shown that areas with the highest levels of these SOCs in their water supplies also have the highest incidence of cancer.

Jacquelyn Warren of the Natural Resources Defence Council commented on this subject‚ "The one thing we know for sure about toxins in our drinking water is that the more we look the more we find."

There is growing evidence that pesticides contribute to "the rash of learning problems showing up in our schools, the disintegration of the family and the neglect and abuse of children, and the increasing violence in our society"  - For the first time in the history of the world, every human being is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals, from the moment of conception until death.  http://www.nutrition4health.org/NOHAnews/NNF98LearnDisAggPest.htm

Three chemicals in farm pesticides have now been linked to poor sperm quality.It was found that men exposed to high amounts of the substances are far more likely than men with less contact to have diluted or deformed and sluggish sperm. http://health.mweb.co.za/Man/Your_equipment/748-755,22923.asp

The continent's stockpiles of poisonous chemicals, estimated at about 50 000 tons, have been accumulating over the past 40 years and longer, the result largely of lack of training, weak controls and aggressive marketing by manufacturers who sold countries more than they needed. Many stockpiles were found in neglected buildings. Others were found in drums in the veldt, under torn tarpaulins and plastic sheets, or buried.

Many of the containers are corroding, adding spillage to the already serious contamination problem of the stockpiles being incorrectly discarded. The toxins seep into the soil and groundwater, contaminating food, drinking water and the air and posing a serious health danger to many communities
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=31&art_id=vn20051023091342813C203450

Wednesday, May 24, 2006 - We're walking, talking toxic waste dumps.
High levels of chemicals found in 10 volunteers – read more… http://www.pollutioninpeople.org/

A water quality issue which is receiving increasing attention among industrialized nations, is pollution by metals and man-made organic compounds, such as pesticides. Serious incidents of health impacts to man and animals have occurred at places throughout the world through uncontrolled exposure to these micro-pollutants. - http://www.dwaf.gov.za/Dir_WQM/wqm.htm