You have probably heard of the statistic that recommends that for optimum health, an individual should drink between five and eight large glasses of water a day. At first blush this seems like a fairly obvious proposition; after all, we use water to replenish our bodies and to flush out any impurities we may have.

But what if the impurities are actually found in your drinking water? Canadians don’t have to look very far back to remember the latest drinking water crisis, when the town of Walkerton, Ontario experienced an epidemic of E. Coli that resulted in thousands of people sick and seven dead.

While the Walkerton example is an extreme one, it does illustrate the importance of knowing exactly how your drinking water is being treated. City treatment plants can be highly efficient, but they are as susceptible to failure as anything else. In addition, remember that treatment plants don’t just operate to make water for drinking; most water that goes through them is used for bathing, watering lawns, sewer systems, and so on.

Still, that does not change the fact that most of the water that runs into our homes does have the potential to be sampled by some member of the family. If you have little kids, for example, you know that despite your best efforts, sometimes bath water is going to end up in their system. Therefore, it makes sense to treat any water used within a home as drinking water.

The problem with receiving your water treated directly and solely by local operations is that you really don’t know if there is a problem until it is too late. The water is consumed, and the bacteria or chemicals within the water are already at work by the time everyone realizes that something is amiss; this is exactly what happened in Walkerton.

The way to ensure that your drinking water is safe for you and your family is by taking control of the situation yourself. Not only should you install reasonable home measures for your own drinking water, as a concerned citizen you should do all in your power to ensure that industries within your area are treating their used water in the most effective manner possible.

For the individual, this will usually mean applying methods such as filters and even on occasion chemical treatments, to ensure that purities of all size are removed from drinking water prior to consumption. Don’t rely solely on the methods used by municipal organizations to get clean drinking water into your home; some initiative could mean all the difference to your health.