The Modern Chemistry Of Drinking Water Filtration

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ace water, plus minerals, such as calcium and magnesium, that can dissolve into it while underground. Neither form of water is initially suitable for drinking, leading to the necessity of drinking water treatment (Tuttle).
To help head off the problems of water treatment at the beginning, many surface water systems protect the watershed around their reservoir to prevent initial contamination. Similarly, many groundwater systems have established wellhead protection programs to prevent substances from contaminating their wells (EPA 1999 (1)). While these types of prevention are useful for preventing a great deal of contamination, they are certainly not foolproof. They merely keep the contamination at lower levels, making drinking water treatment easier down the line.
Obviously, before there can be treatment there must be testing. In a home situation, water should be tested after a move into a new residence and, on average, once every three years thereafter. Generally, if a home’s water is received from a municipal supply, the water is almost certainly checked on a regular basis, but this may vary from several times a week to less than once per month, depending on the local supplier. Beginning in 1999, the EPA made it a requirement for every community water supplier to provide it’s customers with a consumer confidence report, providing this information (EPA 1999 (1)). If a home’s water is supplied from a well, then a request should be made to the local health department to test approximately every 6 months for bacteria and nitrate and then regularly (at least annually) for pesticides, herbicides, metals, organic and inorganic chemicals and volatiles (Tuttle).
The contaminants most frequently tested for are coliform bacteria, cysts and viruses, nitrate, and lead. Coliform bacteria are microorganisms from the intestinal tracts of warm blooded animals that can often be found in surface water. The presence of such bacteri...