Home Water Filters

An environmental group out in California did a study a few years ago that showed that some of the home water filtration systems that were supposed to make drinking water cleaner could really be increasing the amount of lead in the water; thus increasing the damage that can be done by lead poisoning.

The Center for Environmental Health had several scientists run tests on 16 different brands of water filtration systems in North Carolina…and ALL six brands gave water that was loaded with lead. Two of the particularly well-known brands made by Franke Inc. of Pennsylvania and Omni Corporation of Indiana produced water with readings way higher than the laws in California allowed.

(The California standard for clean water was used because there is no federal standard for lead in water…NOT good folks!)

The scientist seemed to think that the brass faucets in the filtration systems were the primary reasons for the extremely high lead content because brass is a combination of copper and lead.

Some water is always left standing in the faucets even after you turn off your water tap, and if these faucets contain lead, then the water that sits in the faucet pipes for hours will leach out some of the lead in the pipes. The problem is made even worse by the fact that the home water filtration process makes the water even more corrosive and allows it to leach even more lead out of the brass faucets than it would if you had no home water filtration system.

At the time this study was conducted, both Franke and Omni said they would investigate the results of the scientist’s study. Franke pulled the system that was part of the study off the market until tests were made of the system. Both of the company’s filter systems were certified by the National Sanitation Foundation,

Since the results of this study, the Center for Environmental Health has suggested to people two ways to make their home water systems to work better to help fix this problem. They can either replace the brass faucets with ones made of stainless steel, or let water run for at least 10 to 20 seconds before using it to discharge any water that has been sitting inside the faucet for any length of time.

It has also been suggested that you can write your congressman about the lack of federal standards in keeping you and your family’s water lead free as possible…after all our children are the future of this country.