Too often we take for granted the things that we really need and are dependent upon, until such things are either in short supply, damaged, or unavailable, and then we realize just how important certain things are to us, our day-to-day activities, and to our survival. One of those very important things is water, to which, if we didn't have good water that was abundantly available our lives and livelihood would be in a constant state of danger. We often don't realize how versatile water really is as we need it for proper agricultural irrigation, sewage, mining, hydroelectric power, and so many other routine industrial uses that without water being readily available for industry, the whole infrastructure of food, transportation, and power would quickly begin to crumble before falling into utter chaos.
The fact that our physical bodies are about 60% water should send a signal to us that the quality and ready abundance of water, or its substitutes, are of vital importance in the maintaining of good physical health. This means too that we cannot assume that water that is coming out of our tap, or in a river, or a lake, is de facto, water that is good or safe for us as too often water is contaminated by the aftereffects of an age in which we live, which amounts to dangerous manmade chemicals that get into our water supply through happenstance or by design.
There is an assumption that our municipal water supply is carefully monitored by governmental authorities and while this is true to an extent, what is often not discussed is that what an agency decides is an acceptable degree of chemical infiltration may not be actually be safe, let alone measure or count everything that needs to be measured or counted. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) recently stated that: "After analyzing water samples from 201 municipal water systems from 43 states, EWG found chemicals considered “probable human carcinogens” in every single water system they tested."
Most of us believe that the water that we are drinking and utilizing each and every day is safe for us, because it looks safe, it smells safe, and it tastes safe, but that does not necessarily mean that it is safe, and if you are consistently consuming water that has some degree of contamination to it, day after day, this will not be beneficial to your health.
You might very well ask the question as to why our government might allow us to utilize and consume water that is not as safe as it should be and the answer to that question is somewhat complicated, as one esteemed scientist may believe that toxins at a certain low level are not harmful, whereas another esteemed scientist can produce data that demonstrates that it is. The other issue is that the maintenance and continual safety of our water costs time, money, and energy, to which most municipalities do not have an abundance of any of those things.
The one thing that we can state with certainty is that this modern age with its overabundance of manmade chemicals, is an era of uncharted territory, and that should our water become contaminated, this would have very dire implications.