By Dr. Mercola
Polluted drinking water is a significant health threat that is sorely underreported and oft-ignored. A recent article in the Star Tribune1 highlights the very real struggle to access clean drinking water right here in the United States."Debbie Carlson can laugh at the irony: She's the wife of a well digger who can't find good water for his own family. Like one out of three wells in Dakota County, hers is so contaminated with nitrates she won't let anyone drink from it -- especially her 8-year-old granddaughter.Most likely it comes from nitrogen used as fertilizer on the cornfields surrounding her home," Josephine Marcotty writes.2 "'Nitrogen was a great thing for the family farm,' Carlson said. 'But I am paying the price.'"
Minnesota Facing Growing Water Contamination Problem
In part due to the fact that Minnesota is prime farm land, many of the state's inhabitants now face the problem of having elevated levels of nitrogen in their drinking water. The conversion of grasslands and pastures into chemical-driven, industrial crop land has eliminated much of the natural filtering of ground water that such native landscapes typically provide. The areas worst affected include: Read on...
