ECOsmarte blog

Hi, was wondering if our eco-smarte system would remove the malathion and other pesticide/herbicides in our water?

(as i am sure you know, there is a lot being sprayed in matilija
canyon. dead toads and fishes and other animals higher up the
chain. so dumb!) (i lived through the massive spraying in LA)

p.lyn

Hi P.Lyn,

Malathion is an insecticide, an organophosphate. What they are spraying in Matilija canyon for the arundo eradication is “Rodeo”, also an organophosphate. It is a form of Round-up, which is an herbicide and the active ingredient is Glyphosate. Here is more information about what they are doing.

The removal guidelines for your an ECOsmarte Water Home filtration system.offer the best available removal of both pesticides and herbicides.

Here is the link to the MSDS sheet for Rodeo.
Rest assured - you have the best possible filter to make sure these things do not end up in your drinking water!

We are moving to a home with ‎very high lead and iron levels as well as very hard water. I am looking for a water filtration/softener system that does not use salt, but I don't want to read reviews on a company website. I think it will be biased. I am not having much luck locating a site that has a lot of good information. For the water filtration system, I am only finding filters that deal with iron. I need one that deals with lead as well. Would the same filter work for both. Our water also has a high sulfur content as it smells like rotten eggs. What are your suggestions?

Thanks,
Pam

Lead, Lead, Lead....Okay – prepare yourself for lots of information.
Lead removal is not simple. The only surefire ways to completely remove lead are reverse osmosis or distillation, and another method I came across in my research which I am not very familiar with called “activated alumina”. If your lead levels are already above the action level of 15 micrograms, you may need one of these options just for drinking, no matter what you decide for the rest of your home. Reverse Osmosis will also remove the iron, but is normally a point of use application (under the kitchen sink) as opposed to whole house filtration. Distillation has a very limited output. From what I have been able to find out about the activated alumina, it will remove lead, arsenic and (yay) fluoride, but does not do anything to remove any other contaminants, specifically chlorine or disinfection by-products....

So let's talk about taking minerals out of drinking water. I had a bit of a head to head with a couple of people on an informational board where a person wrote in asking about a solution for her well water. Without fail the responders recommended she use a softener for the hardness and RO (reverse osmosis) for drinking water. Then they began to discuss the various pros and cons of a couple of systems, one of which was actually called EcoWater. This kind of fried me - because I know all the reasons that softeners and RO are absolutely NOT environmentally friendly or ecologically beneficial (or even benign). So, tell me how can a company who does the following in any way claim to be ECO-anything? RO water wastes 3-4 gallons for every gallon it produces Water softeners put harmful chlorides into the environment (whether potassium or sodium) Water softeners waste even more water by regenerating approximately 2-3 times per week at 50 gallons a pop for an average family of 4 - do the math - that's 100-150 gallons of wasted water a week Water softeners require regular servicing, using significant fuel for service trucks, and causing increased carbon emissions into the atmosphere. So that's all about the environmental costs...which sound pretty significant to me, considering ECOsmarte does, like, none of the above. Thus ensued a varied and spirited discussion about whether ECOsmarte technology was valid and/or effective and why tried and true salt softener/RO combinations are all they could see their (limited) way though to considering. To be fair - they are purveyors of salt/RO systems and I am obviously a purveyor of a new (and superior) technology option. So of course we were debating each other. Then one of the contributors seized on something I wrote about leaving the minerals in the water. Specifically: "The healthy minerals stay in the water where your body needs them". His reply:

" I am always a bit confused on the thinking here. What minerals from water do we depend on? I try not to confuse what miniscule[sic] amount of INORGANIC minerals that might be in the water that could possibly replace the organic minerals we get from a proper diet and mineral/vitamin suppliments[sic]. That always seems to be little more than a marketing ploy. I believe that water should be a transporter of nutrients and not a supplier. Unless my doctor prescribes that I drink 14 gallons of HIGH MINERAL content of water, I would never depend on H20 to provide my nutritional daily needs.

When I am spurred on to do a bit of research, it's always an exciting time. I mean, you can find out just about anything on the internet. Yet one must be careful because you can find contrasting views on most everything, too. Information obtained from websites that are selling things that benefit from the opinions or "facts" expressed are suspect. Formal studies are preferable, from objective sources. Articles can be tricky - because the person writing the article can have an investment in what they say being true, no matter how seemingly official the place you find the article. So imagine my delight when I found a study by the World Health Organization (no less), on the health aspects of calcium and magnesium in drinking water and the potential health consequences of long term consumption of demineralized, remineralized and altered mineral content drinking waters. Excerpts:

“Over 80 observational epidemiological studies have been reported in the published literature since 1957 (Calderon) relating water hardness and cardiovascular disease risks. Most, but not all of the studies found an inverse (protective) association between cardiovascular disease mortality and increased water hardness (measured by calcium carbonate or another hardness parameter and/or the calcium and magnesium content of the water. ….The group concluded that there is sufficient epidemiological evidence of an inverse relationship between calcium and magnesium concentrations in drinking water and ischemic heart disease mortality, and that consumption of water containing calcium and magnesium, and therefore all the reintroduction of Mg and Ca into demineralized water in the remineralization process would likely provide health benefits in those consumer populations. ….In addition, limited but suggestive evidence exists for benefits associated with other diseases (stroke, renal stone formation, cognitive impairment in the elderly, very low birth weight, bone fractures among children, pregnancy complications, hypertension and possibly some cancers). Hard water is a reliable and stable source of calcium and sometimes magnesium although the absolute and relative concentrations will vary greatly by source. Consumption of moderately hard water containing typical amounts of calcium and magnesium may provide an important incremental percentage of their daily intake. Inadequate total dietary intakes of calcium and magnesium are common worldwide. Therefore, an incremental contribution from drinking water can be an important supplement to approach more ideal total daily intakes. Moreover, hard water can reduce the losses of calcium, magnesium and other essential minerals from food during cooking. If low mineralized water is used for food and beverage production, reduced levels of Ca, Mg and other essential elements would also occur in those products. Low intakes would occur not only because of the lower contribution of these minerals from water used in beverages, but also because of the high losses of the minerals from food products (e.g. vegetables, cereals, potatoes, or meat) into water during cooking.”

Leave the minerals in, people! Stop wasting huge amounts of water with RO and water softeners. Stop putting chlorides into the environment. ECOsmarte Water is your solution.

Major contributor to this article Larry Couture, our ECOsmarte CEO. His mind never stops working and periodically he offers up a topic of interest - This one is important and enlightening...

Ionized Micro Water Devices
Known by many names: ionized water, high pH structured water, alkaline water, energized water, micro-water, micro-clustered water, reduced water, or ionic mineral water (and that's not all of them), what they all have in common is high pH, or alkalinity. The measure of acidity and alkalinity is called pH. The range is from 0 to 14, with neutral being 7. There are many people that adhere to the belief that alkaline water is good for you.

Why Do People Drink Alkaline/High pH Water?
Here's the basic theory. Our bodies are normally slightly alkaline, from 7.2 to 7.6. All our cells are slightly alkaline and must remain that way to stay healthy and alive. Disease is known to thrive in an acidic environment in the body and will not do well in an alkaline environment. If we have chronic acidic conditions in our bodies we become vulnerable to disease. The more acidic our body is, the more susceptible we are to disease. When blood pH is acidic people are usually very sick and high pH waters consumed help increase the blood pH.

The body tends to become more acidic with age. A 1996 study entitled "Age and Systemic Acid-Base Equilibrium: Analysis of Published Data" by Anthony Sebastian, MD and Lynda Frassetto, MD at University of California at San Francisco showed that at about the age of 45, acid wastes accumulated in the body start to overwhelm the body's capacity to buffer acidic conditions. How does your body buffer the acid up to that point? You're not going to like this. By dipping into its reserve of bicarbonates (calcium, magnesium and potassium) - read BONES here (and organs, too). Bicarbonate minerals are an alkalizing component, countering the acidity. Your body responds with short term fix that has long term consequences. This theory explains why we lose bone density and become more susceptible to disease as we age.

Why do our bodies become acidic? Well, all cells produce waste, which is acidic. You eat food, metabolize it, and the end waste product is also acidic. These wastes leave our bodies through perspiration (so get out there and sweat) and urine. Other contributors of acid conditions in the body are quite interesting to take a look at.

Diet is a major factor. Rather than go into the details here, there are many places online where you can find lists of what to eat to encourage alkalinity in your body. As you could probably guess, the "bad" list contains the usual: meats, dairy products, coffee (ouch), sweets, soft drinks, microwaved food, fast food, processed food, etc.

Drinking/Cooking Water is mega-important. The various chemicals put into water to sanitize it are all acidic, esp. Chlorine. So, hmmm... let's think about what really happens when you use reverse osmosis for your drinking/cooking water. You are removing all the minerals, as well as all the nasty chemicals. But minerals are an alkaline component in water, so yes, you are creating acidic, albeit clean, water. Test it with a pH strip if you don't believe me.
Showering/Bathing Water is the probably the most important. It is the component that could actually cancel out all your efforts with diet and drinking water. Here's why. Unless you have a whole house water system that removes the Chlorine and other sanitizing toxins, your body will absorb five times more acidic water through your skin membrane than you could ever drink and cook with. The vaporizing of the Chlorine and direct inhalation into your lungs is acidic as well. Efforts towards alkalizing your body without filtering your shower water would be an exercise in futility.

So where does ECOsmarte come in?
Well, ECOsmarte water systems change the minerals in the water to bicarbonates, which is exactly what you need to buffer the acid, so that your body does not continue to tap your reserves.Conventional biology recognizes that water with calcium, regardless of pH, is absorbed through the stomach wall, minerals broken down by gastric acid, which all become part of the blood. Our bicarbonate calcium is soluble, more bio-available, and takes less gastric acid to break down when the calcium is in bicarbonate form-- important for older people with weaker stomach acids. ECOsmarte has had many instances over the years of customers calling in to tell us that their various illnesses have dramatically improved or even disappeared after installing an ECOsmarte whole house water filtration system. This is all anecdotal, but seems to be supported by the theories and claims of the proponents of alkaline/high pH water.

For you readers who are already owners of a high pH water device, ECOsmarte filtration and bicarbonate calcium reduce the damage the city water causes on these portable units that can self destruct in a matter of months without pretreatment due to scale and chemical damage. Plus, our whole house water filtration and treatment will turn your shower/bath into the healthy, alkaline place you've been looking for!

Alkaline/pH/ionized water stories/comments welcome...

With all the information at your fingertips through the internet these days, why would anyone still choose a chlorine pool? I don't get it. Asthma is a very real danger; studies/articles you can read about it here, here, here and here.

So how many of you out there missed the switch from chlorine to chloramine for disinfection of our drinking water? I started looking into it when I happened across an article in Salon.com November of last year that spoke about the connection between increased levels of lead in the water and the switch to chloramine disinfection.

A warm welcome to all of you who have discovered ECOsmarte's new blog. Why are we here? Because our passion is water. We are here to create a forum to discuss and explore the fascinating world of water, how it affects our health and our planet.