Metro area water problems
I guess if the state Health Department has not issued any sort of limitation or regulations on water usage in the Twin Cities' area, then I'm not going to be too worried about it. However, the fact that this story on chemically contaminated water being discovered in the Metro, with a huge picture of a child swimming in a pool (get it because if it affects our children then we must act now) was on the front page of the Sunday edition of the Strib may be somewhat of a cause to take a closer look.
Basically, the Minnesota Health Department has been finding traces of chemicals that have seaped their way into the supply of thousands of residents in the Twin Cities' area. The cause of this seems to be due to a connection with the location of water supplies and current or former landfills (and other various garbage disposing facilities) and factories/plants that need to dispose of large amounts of chemicals. Now while this may seem like a cliche problem that only Erin Brockovich could solve, the fact that long-term exposure could be dangerous to our health, means that a red flag needs to be raised and dollars spent. However, it's not like flipping the switch and all our drinking water is going to taste like kool-aid and make us younger, health officials have spent over $200 million over the past two decades to stop the problem with littler results and a lingering nusense of a problem.
So basically the problem is expensive and there is no real clear-cut way on how to deal with it. Let's hope that the good ol' scientists can get some filters pumping soon because one of the chemicals found in an Edina well in 2002 is vinyl flouride, which is a cancer-causing compound. That's freaky. I found this story on www.startribune.com and its title is, "Battling tainted water."