-A significant portion of the drinking water in the city of El Paso, Texas goes through asbestos cement water pipe.
The "competent authorities" say that this should be no cause for concern. That it in no way is a health issue.
Government authorities also t
old us that smoking cigarettes and using pesticides like DDT were not health hazards. I don't like negativism and I don't want to be a prophet of doom. But it sure won't hurt to put a water filter on your sink. Several companies make them. I have the Brita brand and I am satisfied with it.-
LINK: http://www.dir.ca.gov/Title8/341_17.html
http://asbestos-anyu.blogspot.com/2007/12/400000-miles-of-drinking-water-pipes.html
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Update 12 February 2008: I got an e-mail today from a lady I know who works for the local water utility company. She informed me that there is no AC pipe in use anywhere in the system. She also let me know the strange fact that employees of the local water utility are not permitted to drink bottled water when at work!
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So I told her about a fight I got into with them back in the early 1980's. I wanted to run plastic pipe to our factory when we connected up to the city system, but the municipal water utility felt that there might be health issues involved with the plastic pipe. So they insisted that we use asbestos cement pipe. Odd but true.
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I also let her know that in some areas of the city the water tastes fine. But that in the newly built suburb which I live in, the tap water has an offensive odor and taste. And that the Brita activated carbon filter does a good job of taking those offensive odors/tastes out.
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I really don't think that the El Paso Municipal Water Authority has some kind of a coverup or a conspiracy going on about this asbestos cement pipe. Apparently it has not yet even been proven that drinking asbestos is harmful to one's health. I really think that my friend is simply more familiar with what types of pipe are being used nowdays, and that she just does not know what happened in the past.
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