I never used to think about the water we drank.
In fact, I thought most people who worried about whether their water was filtered were a little high maintenance. I was a self-proclaimed “tap water girl.”
It was only once we were preparing to leave Okinawa a few years ago that I started to take a second look. A friend of mine explained how being a military base, a lot of chemicals had been buried into the ground or leeched into the ground from chemical spills and that it’s nearly impossible to get out of the water.
I stood there silently as I recalled going through my entire second pregnancy and a year of breastfeeding while drinking the potentially contaminated water.
Not a soul ever said I shouldn’t drink the water.
And as recently as May of this year, Japanese officials have continued to warn local nationals NOT to drink the water surrounding Kadena Air Base due to unsafe levels of contaminants. Even the Washington Post covered this big controversy.
After digging deeper into some of the water issues at Camp Lejuene and bases in South Carolina, it became obvious to me that this was an issue I was no longer willing to take a chance on.
Adding fuel to the fire, was a recent article that detailed numerous military bases that tested too high for dangerous water chemicals.
Here’s the hard part.
Halting the use of dangerous firefighting foams and switching to “safer” options is a start; however, the remnants of past chemical contamination remains. Once it’s in the water table, it’s not all that easy to get out.
Three Colorado communities are looking at an 11 million dollar bill to clean up their water due to firefighting foams used at Peterson Air Force Base.
Many military bases tout safe water.
I get it.
The drinking water might be safe.
But, I’m no longer willing to play Russian roulette with my drinking water, only to find out two decades later that it contained contaminants known to cause cancer and organ failure.
There’s another problem for military families with any water contaminants near military bases: It is very hard to prove.
With military families moving every few years, it’s difficult to know which water source may have contributed to disease. A disease that may not show up for 10-20 years.
To go back and say, it was this base that we lived at 15 years ago is a hard thing to do.
Regardless if the water is deemed safe or not, we do not drink the tap water.
For a while we were purchasing water from a reverse osmosis water station and filling four 5-gallon jugs once every week to week and a half. We would pour it into a water dispenser and used it for everything from cooking to drinking to making coffee.
The only problem with the jugs is they are heavy, and when we ran out of water, we would need to make a trip to the water station and get them refilled. On top of that, reverse osmosis does not reduce volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) or endocrine disruptors.
At home water filters like a Brita or PUR, aren’t enough. They offer basic filtration by reducing chlorine, but are not effective at removing VOCs, heavy metals, endocrine disruptors or fluoride.
(Side note: If fluoride has any benefit, it would be directly to the teeth, as drinking the fluoride has not been statistically shown to increase oral health at all. Additionally, fluoride has been linked to thyroid problems and other disorders when consumed internally.)
To read more on water filtration options and see all the pros and cons, check out this post on water filtration options from Wellness Mama.
Here’s what we use now:
Berkey recently gifted us a water filter and dispenser, and we will never go back.
The Berkey filter gets out…
- Fluoride – Removed to greater than 99.9%.
- Viruses – Removed to greater than 99.9%.
- Pathogenic Bacteria – Removed to greater than 99.9%.
- Lead – Removed to greater than 99.9%.
- Arsenic – Removed to greater than 99.9%.
- Iron – Removed to greater than 99.9%.
- Mercury – Removed to greater than 99.9%.
- Chlorine – Removed to greater than 99.9%.
- Trihalomethane(THMs) – Removed to greater than 99.8%.
- Bisphenol-A – Removed to greater than 99.9%.
- Chloramines – Removed to greater than 99.9%.
- Pharmaceuticals – Removed to greater than 99.5%.
- Petroleum Contaminants – Removed to greater than 99.9%.
- Methylcyclohexane-methane – Removed to greater than 99.9%.
- Pesticides – Removed to greater than 99.9%.
- Heavy Metals – Removed to greater than 99.1%.
- Coliform and e-Coli – Removed to greater than 99.9%.
- Atrazine – Removed to greater than 99.9%.
- Uranium – Removed to greater than 97.0%.
- Gross Alpha emitters – Removed to greater than 98.7%.
When it comes to filtering water in your home, this is the best you can get. You can read more about the Berkey test results here.
It’s really easy to use.
All you do is add more water in the top. It goes through the filter and into the bottom reservoir. Then viola, place glass or pitcher under spout and dispense. It’s easy to take with us if we are going camping or traveling somewhere with the car. Just take along and filter as you go. It saves on buying bottled water and the plastic waste that goes along with all of that.
Berkey has all different types and sizes of water filters, but the one we have is the 1.5 gallon Travel Berkey.
Here are all the features that come along with the Travel Berkey…
- Great for 1-3 People
- Comes Standard with 2 Black Berkey Filters at $249 (4¢ per Gallon!)
- 2 Black Berkeys Filter Approx 6000 Gallons of Water
- Storage Capacity: 1.5 Gallons (5.7 Liters)
- Height: 19″
- Diameter: 7.5″
- Portability: The upper chamber nests within the lower chamber for transport and stands only 12″ in height
- Weight: 8 lbs (2 BB Elements)
- Max Filters: 2 Black Berkeys (upper) + 2 PF-2 Fluoride Filters (lower)
To help give back and spread the word about Berkey filters, I’ve partnered with Berkey to giveaway a 1.5 gallon Travel Berkey to one of YOU.
In order to enter, all you need to do is two things:
- Comment below about how you consume water – via the tap, a filter, a water station or something else.
- And include in your comment if you’re thinking about making a change.
This giveaway will be open for one week (closes Aug 10, 2019) and I’ll name the winner in the comments and email the winner to get the shipping information. The water filter and dispenser will arrive to your doorstep directly from Berkey!
Want more on military life?
- The Reality of Surviving a Surprise PCS Move
- 13 Totally Awesome Military Spouse Facebook Groups You Didn’t Know About
- To My Military Spouse Friends…You’ll Never Know
- 21 Best Deployment Quotes for Military Spouses and Significant Others
Asunción Kahn
My daughter in law grew up in a military base and was diagnosed with lymphoma at her first pregnancy. She went through chemo and had two more pregnancies. She has a put water filter but with three boys (youngest is 5 months) they go through a lot of water. She can’t afford to filter the well system so she tries to dilute juices and keep filling the filter container. So far she is cancer free and I would love for her to get this filter. Her mother died of the same cancer.
Sarah p
I am a tap water girl and my husband is a filtered water from the fridge kind of guy. This was a great eye opening article for me as a new moma and as a nurse. Thank you! I will be reading more into these issues to learn more and perhaps get a filtration system as well!
Rene
We currently use a Pur faucet filter. We just began our mil journey (at age 30 and 32!), and this was really interesting to me. I lived in the same area for the first 30 years of my life in an area that openly adds fluoride to the water supply. I have minor thyroid issues (probably because of this, after reading this post!), but have been using a Brita or Pur filter for about 10 years or so- now I know its not enough and am DEFINITELY considering a switch, now!
Crystal
We currently use the fridge GE filter for drinking, the tap for cooking. I have thought about switching to a different filtration system but something else always comes up instead. I definitely never considered that drinking the water around bases were unsafe! Thanks for the heads up!
Gabriella Foster
We have been using a water filtration provider to deliver water to us, but it’s a little costly and the company isn’t located everywhere we have been. I have been searching for a water filtration system that filters everything out of the water for us, but that we can also take with us wherever we pcs.
Kirstie R.
We typically drink bottled water, but use the tap water to cook, make coffee, exc…..
I learned a lot while reading your article! I have never really minded drinking tap water, but my husband grew up drinking bottled water. After reading this though, tap water is out! this was very enlightening!
Julia C.
We have been drinking tap water since we moved to the Fort Bragg, NC area. But when we were stationed out at Fort Irwin, CA we always drank bottled but used tap for cooking, coffee, etc. They had little “reverse osmosis” faucets installed in all the homes (but none in offices where we worked or for the water soldiers consumed in the training area) I know they just re did the water treatment plant out there, but I wonder why? If the reverse osmosis system was supposedly taking care of the impurities in the water…
Reading your article and we might switch back to bottled here, but I feel terrible about the environmental impact!
Sarah Martin
We’re stationed at Lejeune and opted out of living on base partly because of the water issue. We currently use filtered water from
our refrigerator since we are renting a home.
Switching to something portable sounds like a fabulous option! Thanks for raising awareness about this issue!
Leslie Inglis
we currently use a PUR filter but this news is disconcerting to me we’re stationed at Yokota and I assumed that the water was fine but hearing about contaminants so close to us hits home. I will be researching alternative water sources.
Carrie
We have used the britta-type water pitchers for years. But the Berkeley sounds amazing and I would love to change to something that is a better filter!
Haleigh
This has always been an “ignorance is bliss” thing for me…but we have a reverse osmosis system that we drink from. We pay a company monthly for that and water softening, because it is a MUST on Camp Pendleton according to everyone when you ask! lol.
We are PCSing to a small base soon and I don’t think there is a service like this offered by a local company, so we may have to invest in something similar to your Berkey filter.