No water is completely pure.  Contaminates, both naturally occurring and manmade, occur at differing levels depending on your location throughout the world. 

In the United States, federal and state regulations set standards for the maximum amount of contaminants allowed for water to be considered safe for drinking.  Regulated contaminants include a variety of microbes and substances that at certain levels could cause adverse health effects.

Though most treated drinking water is safe for consumption, some contaminants can be introduced into the water after it is treated. One example is water that comes in contact with lead that can leach into water from the pipe systems in older homes.

Other contaminants that are not regulated as potentially harmful, may yet affect water’s aesthetic quality. Higher levels of minerals in hard water may give water a metallic or unpleasant taste as well as odor and cloudy appearance. Substances such as geosmin, produced by algae, can give water an unpleasant taste and odor.

While some regulated contaminants are considered safe for the average person at levels allowed under government regulations, they could pose a hazard for those with weakened immune systems. People with immune systems compromised through illness, chemotherapy or transplant medications should take a closer look at the treatment of the water they drink, whether from their tap or a bottle.

A potentially hazardous contaminant is cryptosporidium, a microscopic parasite that lives in intestines of warm blooded animals including humans and is passed with waste.  In healthy people, the parasite can cause illness with symptoms including diarrhea, vomiting, fever and dehydration among others. Cryptosporidium can prove deadly for those with weakened immunity. The parasite is very resistant to chlorine-based disinfectants and boiling is considered the most effective way of killing it.

An emerging category of pollutants includes pharmaceuticals and personal care products. Though scientists have found no evidence of adverse effects on human health, some studies suggest these substances can harm the environment.  Research continues on the issue.

Water drawn from rivers, lakes stream and other bodies of water as well as groundwater can be contaminated and could make you sick if you drink it without treating it first. Waterborne diseases, caused by microorganisms that live in untreated water, can cause diarrhea, nausea vomiting and other symptoms, and in extreme cases, death.

Many of these pathogens infect water through contact with human and animal feces, carried there by runoff or seeping into the water supply from leaking sewage or septic systems. 

Water can also be contaminated by any pollutant improperly handled by man, such as dumped chemicals, or fertilizers and other chemicals used in agriculture that wash into lakes and streams.

Some contaminants, including microbes and chemical elements, can occur naturally in the ground surrounding the water. Though soil and rock can filter water as it percolates down into groundwater supply, such water can also become contaminated by natural and manmade pollutants and pathogens. For more information on waterborne diseases and contaminants, click here.

MGD or million gallons per day is a measurement of water flow frequently used in measurement of water consumption. One mgd equals 133,680.56 cubic feet per day, 1.5472 cubic feet per second or 3.0689 acre-feet per day.

Chlorine is one of the elements known as halogens that are commonly used in bleach.  It is used in potable water treatment plants to eliminate bacteria and to minimize odor and taste. 

The amount of chlorine needed to purify drinking water is known as the chlorine demand.

Filtration is the process of separating solids from water during the potable treatment process using a porous material such as a permeable fabric called a membrane or by using sand.

Potable water treatment is the process to purify water to make it acceptable to drink.  Most water treatment processes include some form or a combination of sedimentation, filtration and chlorination.

Raw water is ground or surface water that is taken directly from its source without treatment. Typically, most water is considered to be raw until it is treated by a potable water treatment process.

While water treatment plants can remove some chemicals, at this time, wastewater systems are not designed to remove pharmaceuticals.  At this point, the best way to reduce the amount of chemicals in our water is at their source.

Pharmaceuticals enter the water cycle through a variety of sources including drugs that pass through the human body or domestic animals that are not completely absorbed and byproducts of the pharmaceutical manufacturing process.

Additionally, improper disposal of old or unneeded drugs at homes or medical facilities are another factor that is probably the easiest to change. Federal officials encourage people with unwanted or leftover drugs to not flush them or throw them away, but instead take advantage of local drug take back or hazardous waste collection programs. For more information on this issue, go here.

Desalination is the process of removing dissolved minerals (including TDS, chlorides, and others) from water to produce potable water for human consumption or fresh water for industrial use. The two most popular methods are thermal and membrane technologies.

In the thermal process, salty water is heated to make vapor, which is condensed and collected as fresh water leaving the minerals behind. Membrane processes use high pressure to filter water through permeable membranes which filter out salts, producing  fresh from the filter.

The Authority uses reverse osmosis as part of the treatment process at the Lake Granbury Surface Water and Treatment System, one of the few such plants in the nation used to desalinate (or desalt) inland water. The process is necessary because of high concentrations of dissolved minerals in the naturally occurring deposits in the upper reaches of the Brazos basin.
  

The woody, musty, earthy taste that shows up from time to time in our drinking water is normally due to natural causes. The main culprit: algae. When blue-green algae end their lifecycle they emit an oily substance called geosmin, which has a distinctive earthy taste that humans can detect in even small concentrations. While this added flavor in drinking water can be annoying, it poses no health hazard.

While water utilities have long worked to reduce the prevalence of the offensive taste and odor, customers can also have some success by filtering their water. Keeping the water cool also decreases the taste’s intensity.

But the most effective way to improve water’s taste and odor is at the source by reducing the food supply to the algae that creates geosmin. The algae feed on nutrients that wash in from the surrounding watershed. One source of those nutrients is fertilizer that washes into lakes from the lawns of lakeside property owners and others in the watershed. Limiting such fertilizer will reduce the amount of excess that washes into our streams and lakes during heavy rains.

The mineral content determines whether your elements water is either “hard” or “soft.”  The higher the mineral content, the harder the water. Minerals affecting water hardness can include calcium and magnesium bicarbonate or calcium sulfate, calcium chloride, magnesium sulfate and magnesium chloride.

The harder the water, the more soap is needed to make foam or lather. Hard water also produces scale in hot water pipes, heaters, boilers and other places where the water is kept at higher temperatures.

Soft water is considered to have no more than 60 milligrams of minerals per liter (mg/l). Moderately hard has 61 to 120 mg/l; hard has 121 to 180mg/l and very hard has more than 180 mg/l.

The Brazos River Authority owns and operates two water treatment plants.  East Williamson County Regional Water System serves the cities of Taylor, Hutto and Thrall, the Jonah Special Utilities District and the Nowak Water Supply Company. The Lake Granbury Surface Water and Treatment System (SWATS) provides water to the City of Granbury, the Acton Municipal Utility District, the Johnson County Special Utilities District and the City of Keene.

In addition to the regional plants, the Authority contracts to operate the Sandy Creek Water Treatment Plant in Leander and the Lee County Fresh Water Supply District No. 1, which serves the community of Dime Box.