Nitrite In Water

Which Home Water Treatment Systems Can Remove It Effectively

The US EPA regulates the nitrite in water because it is believed that at certain levels, nitrite is harmful to public health.

What Is Nitrite: Nitrites (and nitrates) are nitrogen-oxygen chemical units which bond with various organic and inorganic compounds. Nitrites are used in fertilizers.

Source of Contamination: How does nitrites get into your water supply? It does so from fertilizer runoff, erosion of natural deposits and leaching of septic tanks.

Drinking Water Standard: Congress passed the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974. Under the act, the US EPA is mandated to determine levels of safety for various drinking water contaminants.

One of those "levels of safety" is known as the maximum contaminant level (MCL). If a particular contaminant exist in the water supply at a level above the mcl, that contaminant is deemed harmful to human health.

In such an event, water authorities are legally bound to reduce the contamination to levels below the mcl. Furthermore they should notify customers of the contamination within 30 days of it occurring.

If the contaminant in question exist in the water at levels below the mcl, that contaminant is not deemed to be harmful to human health. In this case, it would be safe to drinking that water.

The mcl for nitrite in water is 1 mg/L.

Health Risks: If for an extended period of time, people drink that water that contains nitrite at a level above the mcl, they could experience health problems or die.

Infants for example are particularly vulnerable. If they consume water that has excessive amounts of nitrite, this can interfere with the oxygen-carrying capacity of their blood.

nitrite in drinking water

This could lead to shortness of breath and methemoglobinemia (blue baby syndrome). As a parent if you observe such symptoms in your child - get him/her medical attention immediately.

Home Water Treatment: Water authorities are duty bound to screen for the nitrite in drinking water but no water treatment is foolproof. There is always the possibility of excessive amounts of contaminants leaking in our water supply.

Just take a look at this report about drugs in drinking water - proof that people have to be proactive about the safety of their tap water.

Being proactive means getting a home water treatment system to filter out harmful contaminants in your tap water. But not all household water filters are capable of removing the nitrite from drinking water.

The best water home water treatment devices for this purpose are the ones certified to NSF Standard 53, Standard 58 and Standard 62. NSF certification ensures that filtration devices are able to effectively perform.

This activated carbon filter and reverse osmosis filter are both certified to the applicable NSF standards.

A water distillation unit is also capable of reducing the nitrite level in water.

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