One More Reason To Filter Your RV Water

[Zulu]

This CNN story is mainly based on this NRDC report (a handy interactive "Check-Your-Water-Quality" map at the end of the article).

Luckily, the RV Water Filter Store has single- and dual-canister lead filters.

[Darryl&Rita]

Interesting that the NRDC home page has a donation pop-up with no obvious way to get past it. Never heard of them, but raises my eyebrow.

[I'mdonewiththis forum]

Hm, I didn't see any pop ups..... FireFox and ad blocker maybe the reason?

[Darryl&Rita]

Was researching them, as I've never ran across their acronym. Don't follow the link above, but go to their homepage NRDC.org

 

Edit to add: And now it's not there. Still a lot of questions about them.

[whj469]

I do filter the incoming water to my fiver. I still

don't drink any of that water.

[Kirk W]

I do filter the incoming water to my fiver. I still don't drink any of that water.

I filter every drop of water that enters our RV, and we still do drink that water. Been doing that for a long time but we also only put water from approved potable water sources. We aren't much into buying plastic bottles of anything.

[Zulu]

Was researching them, as I've never ran across their acronym. Don't follow the link above, but go to their homepage NRDC.org

 

Edit to add: And now it's not there. Still a lot of questions about them.

 

Understood. When I first saw this story in CNN, CNN didn't really name their sources, but I tracked it down to mainly the NRDC report.

 

The NRDC is definitely an advocacy group -- as you found in their "forced donations" web page. Really annoying.

 

However, that doesn't make their report wrong, but, for me, with some provisos, like attribution. Where'd they get their data?

 

But after checking out the PDF of the NRDC report, I'm satisfied with their info -- which is essentially all drawn from the EPA database.

[Ray,IN]

At my age, lead in my drinking water is of little concern, lead has a minimal effect on adults compared to children. My grandchildren are of great concern to me, just like the Flint. MI parents and grandparents.

Does an RO system remove lead?

[Zulu]

Does an RO system remove lead?

 

Yes, see CDC link.

[Sehc]

I worked in Water Treatment. Aggressive water will leach lead out of alloys. The main one is brass faucets. Some from lead/tin solder if inside the copper pipe. Some community water systems used a short lead pipe from the main to the iron service pipe to provide flexibility. These have been removed from most community systems in most states. The inside of the lead pipe formed a glass like oxidized layer that prevented properly balanced water from reacting with lead. Very corrosive water could leach this lead. The best thing is to run the water for a few minutes which flushes the contaminated water from the piping. Hot water leaches the lead faster than cold water, but both can get contaminated over night. Modern municipal systems use chemicals added to the treated water to prevent leaching. I used calcium, hydrated lime, in my system and did not have a sample show lead in over 20 years.

[elliott&vicky]

Unless the EPA has changed its rules, the MCLs for inorganics are based on drinking 1 liter of water every day for 60 years resulting in 1 excess case of cancer in 100,000 people. If the levels are low, except for some of the inorganics, a taste or two of the water should not harm you. Just my thoughts, take it or leave it. Best to be conservative though.

,

[LFDR3116]

We filter all of our RV water and also drink it. Like Kirk, we only use potable water from approved sources and we flush and bleach our tank/lines twice a year. Each time is after we have been sitting for a few months with city water and haven't used the tank or pump in awhile.

[Klc]

I'm interested in knowing what approved sources are. So far we have only used water from our well which, I love the taste of. We also filter it before it is put in the tank and under the kitchen sink. We also start our trips with a pitcher of filter drinking water. We will be going ft next year and we will want to be able to drink the water in the tank without worry. Thanks

[2gypsies]

I'm interested in knowing what approved sources are.

We drank our water from our fresh water tank for 16 years of full-timing. We mostly used public parks or boondocked. We got our water from the potable water, marked as such, at the dump stations while traveling. Just make sure it's marked. Never use the water right at the dump itself. That's usually non-potable and its purpose is for rinsing the sewer hose. We used RV parks minimally but if we had full hookups we'd fill up when leaving. We also used a filter for the water going into our tank for contaminates and we also had a filter at the kitchen sink for taste.

 

We never noticed a fuel mileage difference if we traveled with an empty tank or full tank. Since we traveled secondary roads and used public parks we always carried water with us.

[Zulu]

I'm interested in knowing what approved sources are. So far we have only used water from our well which, I love the taste of. We also filter it before it is put in the tank and under the kitchen sink. We also start our trips with a pitcher of filter drinking water. We will be going ft next year and we will want to be able to drink the water in the tank without worry. Thanks

 

I believe Flint, MI was an "approved source" and so was Milwaukee, WI where I lived during the 1993 Cryptosporidiosis outbreak.

 

While Flint and Milwaukee are the exceptions, I still filter the bejeezus out of my RV water.

[D&J]

I just use a sediment filter coming in and a RO system for all drinking and cooking water. We have containers to store RO water when we aren't hooked to a water supply.

 

Denny

[Sehc]

Your well water is not chlorinated as other public supplies are. Not a problem until well becomes contaminated. Or your storage tank. You could test the pH and be cautious if it is below 7.1. Put a small amount of Clorox in your storage tank. Small amount, 2 parts per million.

[Chalkie]

I looked at that interactive map in the article and find that it is somewhat deceiving IMO. First, using shades of red. Red is a color most often associated with danger (think red lights, stop signs, etc.). Second when you drill down to a county level you have to look at the specific color shade. When you do, you may find that it is not nearly as bad as the overall color would have you believe. I will use my home county as as example. The whole county is a shade of red. My initial thought was "No way!". Then when I looked at the color key I had to laugh. The color equates to between 101-1000 users impacted which with a county population of over 655,000 comes to an impact of 0.1%. Hardly a significant number. More interesting was a neighboring county where the color key 10,001-100,000. Now the population in that county is only around 20,000, so basically the impact on the users is 100%. Given the gold and silver mining history of that county I would personally be more concerned with arsenic in the water.

 

That neighboring county with 100% impact? For all the bottled fans, consider this: 65,000,000 gallons of water per year are coming from that county and being bottled under the Arrowhead brand.

 

Bottom line to my way of thinking is that we should be more concerned with biologic contaminants in the water we use in our RVs than we should lead or other heavy metals. My two cents.

[StarDreamers.us]

We have always use a double water system in the RV. A first stage outside system connected to the source with a changeable filter going into the RV. That in turn goes into a reverse osmosis whole house system with changeable filters, which I follow the directions on very closely. So far NO problems. I also flush and bleach the water tanks twice a year. Perhaps over kill, but why take a chance.

 

Safe Travels!