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Contamination Of Waterwater

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Domestic wells are usually shallower than public wells and are more susceptible to contamination from surface waters (Kumar et al., 2010). From 1971-2008, private wells were responsible for 67 percent (n=40) of reported outbreaks from groundwater (Wallender et al., 2013). Contamination of the groundwater that feeds drinking water wells results from infiltration from rivers, septic tank leach fields, and leaking sewer lines (all sewer lines leak). Cross contamination with septic system wastes due to poor design, maintenance or improper spacing is listed as the primary cause. Contamination of groundwater is reportedly widespread (Auld et al., 2004; Curriero et al., 2001; Fong et al., 2007; Thomas et al., 2006; Tornevi et al., 2015) and …show more content…

Treatment standards are set based upon the estimated numbers of pathogens in the water to be treated. To achieve the USEPA goal of a risk of 1:10,000 per year of infection the levels of some pathogens have to be less than one in 10,000 to 1,000,000 liters of drinking water (Craun, 1993). Of course, with these risk estimates there is always a level of uncertainty because they are often derived from studies based on animals- primarily mice and rats- and the need to extrapolate probability of negative health outcomes to very low levels of exposure via drinking water to humans. To compensate for this uncertainty, safety factors are used extensively. Reducing risk by addressing occasional higher levels that may occur due to treatment deficiencies or excursions to higher levels from averages is possible with treatment at the tap.
Point-of-Use (POU) devices may provide the consumer with an additional protection and lower the risk of adverse health effects. POU technologies have been shown to reduce pathogen levels in drinking water and offer significant reductions in diarrheal disease rates (Sobsey et al., 2008; Souter et al., 2003). During the Milwaukee Cryptosporidium outbreak of 1993, persons who had a point-of-use filtration device in place reported significantly lower incidences of

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