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Is our Water Safe for Drinking ?

August 17, 2020 | Faheem Fayaz

Currently Kashmir is going through proverbial Indian summer as temperature continues to soar beyond thirties with literally no rain reported from last three months as if we are living in arid desert such is the intensity of sun’s heat. In these challenging drought like conditions one thing that seems to be a cause of the worry is the availability of portable water for drinking purposes in households located in countryside areas and second, those households which are getting water via different government sponsored water supply schemes is that water fit for drinking purposes, is that fit to be called a portable water or not ?, do persons in charge of water purification purify this water in water treatment plants to remove physical ,chemical and biological impurities that needs to questioned and debated in following paragraphs

Treating water to make it suitable to drink is much like wastewater treatment. In areas that depend on surface water it is usually stored in a reservoir for several days, in order to improve clarity and taste by allowing more oxygen from the air to dissolve in it and allowing suspended matter to settle out. The water is then pumped to a purification plant through pipelines, where it is treated, so that is will meet government treatment standards. Usually the water runs through sand filters first and sometimes through activated charcoal, before it is disinfected. Disinfection can be done by bacteria or by means of adding substances to remove contaminants from the water. The number of purification steps that are taken depend on the quality of the water that enters the purification plant. In areas with very pure sources of groundwater little treatment is needed. The commonly used chemicals in water treatment are bleaching powder and alum, the former is used to disinfect the water and get rid of microbes while as the later chemical is used in flocculation and coagulation of suspended impurities, dissolved gases and dissolved inorganic ions like silicates nitrates etc. While protecting against microbial contamination is the top priority, water systems must also control disinfection by-products (DBPs), chemical compounds formed unintentionally when chlorine and other disinfectants react with natural organic matter in water. In the early 1970s, EPA scientists first determined that drinking water chlorination could form a group of by-products known as trihalomethanes (THMs), including chloroform. EPA set the first regulatory limits for THMs in 1979. While the available evidence does not prove that DBPs in drinking water cause adverse health effects in humans, high levels of these chemicals are certainly undesirable. Cost-effective methods to reduce DBP formation are available and should be adopted where possible.
We all know what will happen if we are fed with poison, we will die immediately and What if we are fed with slow poison continuously ? we will die slowly and the death will be more painful and excruciating. The exact thing is done by our Jal Shakti department employees .Few days back, while talking to an employee of water purification section (name and place of posting kept secret), I enquired to him about the amount of bleach and alum they use to disinfect our drinking water and upon knowing i was shocked to know that they don’t prefer to measure the amount of chemicals that they have to add in water for purification purposes. He said and i quote and I quote it verbatim “ esi chi trava eki saat ek dael alum ti 2-4 kilo bleach “ ( we usually add 1 block of alum weighing about 4-5 kilo and about 2-4 kilos of bleach). There is a great possibility that about 30-40% of chemicals remain unused in the water. It sent a shiver down my spine. Being a chemist I know how much harm these chemicals can cause to our body specially to our gastroentric tract and kidney’s. Some of the serious effects of unreacted bleach(source of chlorine) include :
#Respiratory symptoms include coughing, difficulty breathing, and fluid inside the lungs.
# Digestive system symptoms include burning in the mouth, swelling of the throat, ,throat pain, stomach pain, vomiting, blood in the stools.
# circulatory system symptoms include changes in the pH balance of your blood, low blood pressure, serious injury to the eyes, including blurry vision, burning, irritation, and in extreme cases vision loss, skin damage, resulting from tissue injury with burns and irritation.
This really made me think how on the earth are we allowing these people to poison us slowly and let them kill us. The problem is not with the technique of chlorine disinfection, the problem lies in the administrational setup that governs the department of Jal Shakti. For the sake of Heaven , please stop recruiting on the basis of favouritism like recruiting a person on the recommendation of a politician, recruiting a person for personal gains etc. Recruit a person on the basis of his knowledge and talent, recruit a person having atleast a diploma or even 12th pass out, if not the well-qualified person. Train them by organising various workshops, expose them to proper training, this will provide them with an understanding of how these chemicals work and what are these capable of and how drastic effect they can have on our body. Give them a measure of chemicals required for the different water samples. Equip them with the knowledge they need to do their job.

 
Email: faaheemfayaz112@gmail.com

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Is our Water Safe for Drinking ?

August 17, 2020 | Faheem Fayaz

Currently Kashmir is going through proverbial Indian summer as temperature continues to soar beyond thirties with literally no rain reported from last three months as if we are living in arid desert such is the intensity of sun’s heat. In these challenging drought like conditions one thing that seems to be a cause of the worry is the availability of portable water for drinking purposes in households located in countryside areas and second, those households which are getting water via different government sponsored water supply schemes is that water fit for drinking purposes, is that fit to be called a portable water or not ?, do persons in charge of water purification purify this water in water treatment plants to remove physical ,chemical and biological impurities that needs to questioned and debated in following paragraphs

Treating water to make it suitable to drink is much like wastewater treatment. In areas that depend on surface water it is usually stored in a reservoir for several days, in order to improve clarity and taste by allowing more oxygen from the air to dissolve in it and allowing suspended matter to settle out. The water is then pumped to a purification plant through pipelines, where it is treated, so that is will meet government treatment standards. Usually the water runs through sand filters first and sometimes through activated charcoal, before it is disinfected. Disinfection can be done by bacteria or by means of adding substances to remove contaminants from the water. The number of purification steps that are taken depend on the quality of the water that enters the purification plant. In areas with very pure sources of groundwater little treatment is needed. The commonly used chemicals in water treatment are bleaching powder and alum, the former is used to disinfect the water and get rid of microbes while as the later chemical is used in flocculation and coagulation of suspended impurities, dissolved gases and dissolved inorganic ions like silicates nitrates etc. While protecting against microbial contamination is the top priority, water systems must also control disinfection by-products (DBPs), chemical compounds formed unintentionally when chlorine and other disinfectants react with natural organic matter in water. In the early 1970s, EPA scientists first determined that drinking water chlorination could form a group of by-products known as trihalomethanes (THMs), including chloroform. EPA set the first regulatory limits for THMs in 1979. While the available evidence does not prove that DBPs in drinking water cause adverse health effects in humans, high levels of these chemicals are certainly undesirable. Cost-effective methods to reduce DBP formation are available and should be adopted where possible.
We all know what will happen if we are fed with poison, we will die immediately and What if we are fed with slow poison continuously ? we will die slowly and the death will be more painful and excruciating. The exact thing is done by our Jal Shakti department employees .Few days back, while talking to an employee of water purification section (name and place of posting kept secret), I enquired to him about the amount of bleach and alum they use to disinfect our drinking water and upon knowing i was shocked to know that they don’t prefer to measure the amount of chemicals that they have to add in water for purification purposes. He said and i quote and I quote it verbatim “ esi chi trava eki saat ek dael alum ti 2-4 kilo bleach “ ( we usually add 1 block of alum weighing about 4-5 kilo and about 2-4 kilos of bleach). There is a great possibility that about 30-40% of chemicals remain unused in the water. It sent a shiver down my spine. Being a chemist I know how much harm these chemicals can cause to our body specially to our gastroentric tract and kidney’s. Some of the serious effects of unreacted bleach(source of chlorine) include :
#Respiratory symptoms include coughing, difficulty breathing, and fluid inside the lungs.
# Digestive system symptoms include burning in the mouth, swelling of the throat, ,throat pain, stomach pain, vomiting, blood in the stools.
# circulatory system symptoms include changes in the pH balance of your blood, low blood pressure, serious injury to the eyes, including blurry vision, burning, irritation, and in extreme cases vision loss, skin damage, resulting from tissue injury with burns and irritation.
This really made me think how on the earth are we allowing these people to poison us slowly and let them kill us. The problem is not with the technique of chlorine disinfection, the problem lies in the administrational setup that governs the department of Jal Shakti. For the sake of Heaven , please stop recruiting on the basis of favouritism like recruiting a person on the recommendation of a politician, recruiting a person for personal gains etc. Recruit a person on the basis of his knowledge and talent, recruit a person having atleast a diploma or even 12th pass out, if not the well-qualified person. Train them by organising various workshops, expose them to proper training, this will provide them with an understanding of how these chemicals work and what are these capable of and how drastic effect they can have on our body. Give them a measure of chemicals required for the different water samples. Equip them with the knowledge they need to do their job.

 
Email: faaheemfayaz112@gmail.com


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