What's in Your Water?

It's not just the traces of this and that, but the "stew effect."

It is true that trace amounts of birth control and other medications—as well as household and industrial chemicals of every stripe—are present in many urban and suburban water supplies around the country, but there is considerable debate about whether their levels are high enough to warrant concern.

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What may be more troubling is the mixture of contaminants and how they might interact to cause health problems. “The biggest concern is the stew effect,” says Scott Dye of the Sierra Club’s Water Sentinels program. “Trace amounts of this mixed with trace amounts of that can equal what? We don’t know.” Read more