Contaminants in your drinking water. Cydian Kauffman Part 2

It's all a matter of first testing your water or in some other

way, identifying what's in your water.

Then deciding for yourself, what do you want not to be in your

water anymore, and then target the problem with specific solutions.

Water is a necessary natural resource.

But what do you really know about your drinking water and

drinking water issues globally.

Engage actively and stay informed

Hello there.

I am Catherine, host of this variety show podcast.

Your positive imprint is transforming how we live today for a more

sustainable tomorrow through education and information, your own

positive actions inspire, change.

Follow me on social media.

Facebook and Instagram your positive imprint.

Connect with me on LinkedIn.

Visit my website, your positive imprint.com, where you can

learn more about the podcast and sign up for email updates.

Music by the legendary and talented Chris Nole and I absolutely love

elevated intentions, which he composed for your positive imprint.

Check him out.

ChrisNole.com

c-H-R-I-S-N-O-L-E.

And thank you once again for listening and for your support of

this podcast, your positive imprint.

What's your pi?.

Well, hello everybody.

Today's topic is Sustainable Water Practices.

My guest today cares about the water we drink, not just in

his community, but globally.

He is familiar with environmental protection standards

from United States EPA.

And I am so interested in learning about the myths regarding water, but

very interested in learning the truth surrounding all of the discussion

over these past years regarding polyflor kill substances or some

of us know them as pfas or forever chemicals, and these do not break down.

So what is it doing in our body and in the bodies of our dogs and cats,

and the wildlife and birds who get into our water system sprinklers?

What about the fluoride discussion?

Cydian will also share how water access has a large impact on

gender equality around the world.

I'm so thrilled to have Cydian Kauffman here on your positive

imprint to share water science.

Cydian, welcome to the show.

How are you?

I'm great.

Thanks for having me on.

part two with Cydian Kauffman

You have spoken about the water access having a large impact on

gender equality around the world.

Yeah.

This is a known thing, but it's just not known by enough people.

And I think if more people knew it, more people would, honestly, they

donate to those, , nonprofits like Ryan's Wells or other nonprofits

who, who drill wells for people.

There are a lot of places around the world where they don't have

access to water and they're drinking water out of puddles when it rains.

And that creates just the worst infant mortality rates and

growth outcomes for children.

When it's not raining, they're trekking themselves 4, 5,

6 hours away to get water.

And there is no question who is doing this.

More than 98% of the time it's women or children doing that.

, men are not, they're working a job, hopefully.

, but even if they aren't working a job, just culturally, that's what's expected.

, And it, it, it is a very unique scenario where, . Our country,

, and where I am, where you are

if a woman felt like she was not being treated fairly or did felt like she

didn't want to do that anymore, , she would just make a different choice.

Or if a whole community of women felt like, you know what we want gender

equality, they would have the option to go get jobs or go get education.

But in these areas, it's a non-starter.

If someone doesn't go get the water, then uh, they die.

And if they choose, if they protest and say, I'm not gonna go get the water,

then they die because then men have to go get the water and they're not

bringing any food in or money in then.

For food.

So it becomes a impossibility.

And there's, , women there, then they, if they're being abused,

they can't escape the situation.

If their children are being abused, they can't escape the situation.

, it's a life changing and socially restructuring event to drill a single well

just to drill a single well, immediately children and women have, , a full third

of their day back that they can get a job, they can get education, they can,

it, it changes the entire society,

Before COVID, we were actually, , creating.

, was going down to South America.

They were doing this ground penetrating radar to try and locate water

sources and drill wells, and then we would've helped with the water

science and treatment systems, , that completely fell apart due to COVID.

, now we just offer our expertise.

, if, if these companies need us, , we help them for free.

Oh, that's awesome.

Yeah, so that's awesome.

A lot of times they've got water scientists on staff if they're big enough.

So our niche is not like the big giant companies like Ryans Wells.

, it's, it's more the smaller local nonprofits, , people who

negotiated with this other well drilling company to use their

rig, , for two projects per month.

Now that we've, we've got this, we can, we've, we'll drive the rig out

to this area, drill the well for these people, but then what do we do?

, and once we pull the water up from the ground, how are we powering it?

They, they have to, , partner with a different company for

solar power to power the pump, to pull the water out of the ground.

And then what if the water's filled with arsenic or uranium

or radium or any of that?

What do they do then?

That's where we can help with some.

, advice, some sources where they can source, that kind of thing,

but our help is not huge.

I'm, I would love to be able to partner with more people If they,

if they wanted to have our help, we, we would do that for sure.

Time and transit, it's really important for water.

Hydrogen is, uh, well, just by way of example, pH is directly related

to hydrogen ions, and that is going to change as the water sits and

moves and just gets hotter or colder.

It's all very relevant.

If they were to send it to me, they'd have to pack it in ice in one of

those very temperature controlled styrofoam containers and ship it so

that I have the highest chance of the least amount of molecular action

occurring in the water, in transit.

The arsenic won't dissipate.

So the arsenic levels will be pretty accurate regardless.

Anything that's a gas and chlorine is a gas.

, anything that's a gas will tend to dissipate.

Some of the byproducts of chlorine will not dissipate.

Some of the Hal acetic acids will stay there, , but not as intensely.

So, yeah, it does change for sure.

That's part of the reason you have to cap these bottles really

tightly when you send them too.

But even then, some of it will be released the first moment they open it in the lab,

Cydian,, I never thought about the fact that there are companies

out there because, you know, when we think about the communities that are

being built by citizens like you and citizens like myself and listeners

who go out with these organizations

in Africa, we don't think about the water, we don't think about, , building codes.

And some of those we're just thinking about the fact that wow, they're going out

there and, and helping to build schools.

, let's cheer them on.

But there's so much more to it that we just don't think about.

We, we do,

so much residential work.

And that's what what started our company is, is helping people just in their homes.

A lot of people are on well water and they, they don't really know

that well water needs to be treated.

We've helped some people in pretty profound ways actually, before we,

we had a community of people who had cryptosporidium, , and this was like

eight houses on one water source.

And Cryptosporidium is a really nasty bacteria.

It's very, very dangerous.

And there were children there.

, we changed that community, completely.

And uh, we had another, another guy who, moved his cattle onto his

land and 50 of his cattle died and.

, he had a naturally occurring cyanide spring, which is one of the rarest things.

, you could go probably 10,000 different homes and never run into that scenario.

And, uh, we, we had some people who were definitely sick because of arsenic.

Arsenic is odorless, tasteless.

, you cannot tell it's in your water at all.

And they were definitely sick because of arsenic and we were

able to help them identify that.

So, , the residential work is definitely the most fulfilling thing we've done.

But it, it won't, it won't make a company be able to expand greatly.

So we've moved into commercial work and government work as

well, , for water treatment.

And as soon as that stabilizes, we are going to revisit this nonprofit,

, thing, but we can't do it alone.

We would have to partner with, , another company like we would before.

Company that does ground penetrating radar, , helps I identify sources

of water and, , can, can actually get well- drilling equipment to

some of these crazy, far away places

in order to drill the well and at which point then we could come in and donate

our time, our treatment methodologies, , tanks for the treatment system.

And then power would probably need to be figured out.

But, but yeah, that was what we were in the middle of figuring

And, um, we are hoping that we can do that in the next few years.

Well, I'm hoping so too.

And I have a question as you were talking about residential, because I

like that you're residential because we need the, he we need the help.

Yeah.

We need water science.

We need to understand EPA, right?

Yeah.

People in communities were dying or getting sick because of the

water that companies were dumping

substances in.

How do we combat that?

I have a story about that.

A customer called us about seven, eight months ago, because their

hair was falling out and, , they're on a municipal source of water.

And so we went out there and we did some very thorough testing.

, they were getting scale buildup on their glass shower stalls that was so thick and,

it could not just be from hardness.

Hardness is calcium magnesium.

So I had to do some really in-depth investigation, and it turns out they

had, incredibly high levels of chlorides, sulfates, silica, and PFAS in their water,

like forever chemicals in their water.

The EPA set a new standard for PFAS.

Well above, , which is I think four parts per trillion.

They had about 4,000, 5,000 times that amount.

And that is probably, and this is the where PFOS gets tricky because there

are, I think, I can't remember the exact number, but I think around 10,000

different kinds of PFAS compounds, there have been many of them that have shown to

potentially lead to things like hair loss, , from just skin contact, not from drinking,

from just skin, skin contact with it.

So it, it's a weird thing, , they are forever, chemicals are weird.

They are in, in, probably, I. A hundred thousand different areas in the United

States right now at different levels.

And, probably a good solid 20, 30% of our water has it

in it right now at some level.

And some of those are really dangerous levels.

It crosses the placental barrier.

, there's no known safe level of PFAS.

The reason that the new standard is gonna be four parts per

trillion is because it's doable.

It's an actual doable number.

The industry knew for decades that it was a problem and they

just didn't have another solution.

Fire foams before we had this new green foam.

What are you gonna do?

Not use a foam to put out a fire, you're not going to.

Right.

Otherwise people are gonna die immediately.

You're like, there are some fires you can't, you know better than I do.

There are some fires you can't put out with water.

, we're dealing with what we're dealing with and the EP is doing what it can.

There are two standards set by the EPA and I. I'm not saying this

to dog, the EPA, because they are trying to do their best, but given

the resources that they're given.

But they, they, they do set a health standard, the health standard for

arsenic, for PFAS, it's all zero.

Like there's no healthy amount of arsenic, there's no healthy

amount of forever chemicals at all.

But the legal standard for, for arsenic, for example, is 0.01 parts per million.

And what does that mean?

Meaning, uh, well, you could think of it as

in an Olympic sized swimming pool

, , a single drop in an Olympic sized swimming pool would probably be a

good representation of what that is.

That's the legal level.

, that is a very small amount.

It does make a difference to treat your water, but I do want people to

know, so if they go in and they, they ask their lab, , is my water safe?

The lab is going to answer from the legal level, not the health level, because

that's what they're trained to do.

They're not answering the right way.

They, if someone asks me, is my water healthy?

Is my water safe?

You have to answer from the health guidelines set by the EPA.

And a lot of laboratories do not do that.

So knowing the standard that you're actually considering, are we considering

the health guideline or the legal level?

Anybody that's going for permitting, any of that, that's

always gonna be the legal level.

Any real estate transaction will be the legal level, meaning you move

into a brand new home and they did water testing on your, on your house.

That means virtually nothing to you if your concern is the health level, you

have to do your own testing and a full battery of tests to identify what the,

what it is based on the health guideline.

And then if you want to get it down, that, that's easy to do.

They have definitely defunded the EPA already, which means there's less

oversight, which means that if someone were to go beyond these standards, it

is unknown whether anything will happen.

, so that is all the more reason for people to personally look

at what's in their water and self-identify in their own house.

So how do you test it?

Do we just go buy a tester off of the internet?

Yeah, if you're near us, , we can do it for you.

You can go to a, a, , service called, , TAP score.

And they will sell you full spectrum kits for between 200,

300, $400, right in that range.

And that will get you a full battery of tests.

They'll mail it to you.

You follow the instructions, you mail it back.

Make sure you use the ice pack, especially in the summer.

, they'll get you a report.

And then if you have a report in front of you, interpreting it is another matter.

So if you then take that report and talk to a laboratory or talk to the lab techs

at Tap Score, you have to tell them what standard do you want to know about?

Do you wanna know about the health standard or the legal standard?

You have to tell them that they will default to the

legal standard if you don't.

, if you want to contact us, , we do consulting around the United States,

we'd absolutely be able to help with that as well, and help with, uh, solution.

This is great information, Cydian Legal Standard and Health Standard.

Your website is purewaternorthwest.com.

That's right.

Yeah.

When we're looking at the world and we know that

USAID has been pulled, how is that affecting, I know it affects farmers.

I've already spoken with farmers in, in different areas here in the United States,

but how does that affect water treatment and water in those other countries?

The EPA standards.

It's all a matter of whether or not those actual countries,

follow the EPA standards or follow the, , standards set by another area.

I think in the UK, I don't remember what they call it, but they have their

own completely separate standards.

For example, the action level for lead here is like 15, , micrograms

per liter, I think, and in lead.

And for there it's 10, so it's a little, it's a little more strict.

For nitrates here, it's 10 milligrams per liter.

And in the UK I think it's 50, so it's less strict.

So I know.

I know there's influence from one to the other, but I, and, and I think we've

been influenced by the UK standards.

For example, the UK standard for heterotrophic plate count is

becoming our standard for the same.

So there's cross influence that occurs and then other countries that are

developing, they will generally look at these standards and then bring

them on as their own standards.

They'll choose a standard to go by and they will bring them on

and make them their standards without doing their own research.

That happens often.

Cydian, this has been very educational and informational, and I

appreciate all that you're doing and all that you're going to be doing.

You have a lot of upcoming ideas that you're putting into,

into, , action here soon, and I wish you all the best with that.

Thank you.

And with those endeavors.

And thank you for doing residential because we really

need somebody to have to talk to.

Cydian, what are your last inspiring words you'd like to

share with listeners on anything

inspiring?

, I don't, I didn't know I was gonna be inspiring today.

I think, my final words would be,

well, I'm gonna say this.

I think that everyone should be able to make their own decision about

what they wanna do with their water.

And I think the trick to being able to make a good decision

is having all the data.

So there's a lot of people who don't wanna look at their water, don't like to think

about it because they're drinking it.

And if they learn that all this time there was a problem with

their water, it may be worrisome.

But I really think that it is worth the effort to test not

guess and find out what's in your water and decide for yourself.

Is that acceptable to you?

I think that's what I would say.

Cydian Kauffman.

Those are absolutely wonderful

last inspiring words.

Decide what is acceptable for us.

To learn more about Cydian Kauffman, go to purewaternorthwest.com.

Cydian again,.

Thank you.

Thank you.

If you'd like to support the production of this podcast by buying

me a coffee, here's how you can help.

Visit buymeacoffee.com/yourpositiveimprint or paypal.com/paypal me slash your

positive imprint and any contribution you make will be immensely appreciated.

Thank you for your support and for listening to your positive imprint.

We walk on this planet for just a short time.

What actions can you take to inspire change for a more sustainable tomorrow?

Your positive imprint.

What's your pi?