Hydration is an important component of overall health. Your cells require water to maintain their structure. Joints need water to stay lubricated so that movements are smooth and painless. Your skin needs a reinforced moisture barrier to prevent bacteria and other chemicals from entering the body. If you are not drinking enough water, then you could develop various health issues outside of simple dehydration.
But what do you do if your water is contaminated? Maybe there is a local groundwater contamination that requires some time to be cleaned up or neutralized. Perhaps wastewater from a nearby industrial plant leaked into the main water supply. Whatever caused your water to be contaminated could take a while to rectify, and you need safer water to use in the meantime.
Many individuals assume that boiling water is enough to remove all harmful substances. After all, the high temperatures should be enough to burn off the contaminants, right? Let’s dive into how effective boiling water is at removing contaminants.
What Does Boiling Do?
First, let’s talk about the why behind this method. The various chemicals and molecules that could be in your water have a certain structure. When that structure is exposed to very high temperatures, it tends to break down. This leads to inactivated chemicals that do not have the harmful effects that they normally would. If the boiling water does not kill the bacteria or virus, it still is able to disrupt enough living processes to remove the harmful aspect of it.
It is better to think about boiling water as pasteurization rather than sterilization. You cannot reach a high enough temperature to fully sterilize the water you intend to use. However, since molecules can be broken down enough to be rendered unharmful, the process is more similar to pasteurization.
Why Boil Water to Make it Safer?
Now let’s dive into the importance of having cleaner drinking water. Contaminants in water can cause a wide variety of health issues. Most of the results will be related to physical health, but there can also be mental wellness symptoms as well. Dealing with mental health is challenging enough, especially when navigating insurance coverage. When you add in physical conditions such as diarrhea, typhoid fever, salmonellosis, or even various forms of cancer, the effects can be life-altering.
For example, Camp LeJeune is a major marine base in North Carolina. For decades, the water near this base was contaminated with substances like trichloroethylene and benzene. These chemicals resulted in thousands of veterans, their families, and nearby residents contracting various diseases, forcing them to file lawsuits with Camp Lejeune lawyers to cover their medical and financial burdens. If the problem had been dealt with or at least known about, fewer families would have suffered the consequences.
Does Boiling Water Make it Safe?
The short answer is both yes and no. If you bring water to a rolling boil for at least a minute, then most solids and bacteria will be either burned off completely or rendered harmless due to denaturing. This can help make your water safer to drink and use when many potential contaminants are found in the water.
However, boiling water does not affect many common contaminants, such as chlorine or lead. In fact, boiling water that has lead in it could make the material more concentrated, making it even more harmful if you consume it. Therefore, boiling water can be helpful in some cases, but only if you know certain contaminants like bacteria are present.
Have Your Water Tested to Be Sure
The best way to protect yourself from using impure water is to have it tested by a professional service or lab. This way, you will find out exactly which contaminants are present in your water. If boiling is an effective method to deal with those chemicals, then this strategy can be sufficient to make the water safe. However, if other contaminants are found that boiling would not affect, then you will need to find another solution. No matter the cause of the contamination, it is important to attack the source of the problem. Boiling water is a half-measure that should only be used in emergency situations.
There are a few ways to test your water for common contaminants. First, you can buy a home testing kit and conduct the test yourself, though these tests are not going to detect contaminants at low levels. You could also hire a professional service to come and test your water with more effective methods. If your local water treatment plant sends out tests regularly, you could send in your samples and wait for the results, though this might occur infrequently.