Water treatment plants are charged with keeping our water free of bacteria, poisonous chemicals, parasites and other waterborne toxins. However, keeping facilities manned, maintained and up to date is not cheap and requires substantial taxpayer dollars. Even in communities with state of the art treatment facilities, the infrastructure that connects these facilities to homes, businesses, and schools is often in dire need of repair and maintenance.

Extreme rainfall can deluge sewage systems, especially those systems that are called upon to manage both waste water and storm water runoff. Storm water and wastewater can then mix and overflow, ultimately resulting in contaminated drinking water.

The problem is further complicated by limited taxpayer dollars set to the backdrop of towns and states facing major budget shortfalls. In Pittsburgh for example, officials are debating over how to fund needed updates to both their water treatment facilities and maintenance of sewer lines which were installed in 1912.

The condition of infrastructure in Pennsylvania and across the nation has been in the spotlight as federal stimulus dollars begin to dry up. The 2010 Report Card recently released by the American Society of Civil Engineers gave Pennsylvania's water and waste water management systems failing grades. Local governments are looking to the Commonwealth's H2O funding announcements to help cover a small portion, but it is estimated that more than $25 billion will be required. Meanwhile, as this gets worked out, the risks to your health ever increase without a home water filter.

The results of a recent study indicate that it may not even take a severe rain event to cause contamination of tap water. Dr. Marc Gorelick, chief of pediatric emergency medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, led a group of researchers that studied the incidence of illnesses following rainfall.

The study reviewed data detailing the number of emergency room visits by children due to gastroenteritis or diarrhea. Children were studied because they, along with the elderly and those in poor health, are the first ones to become ill following an assault upon their immune systems. Researchers found that the average number of emergency room visits increased by 11 percent for four days after any amount of rainfall. The study concluded that the incidence of waterborne illnesses occur more frequently even after comparatively mild rain events.

Study collaborator Sandra McLellan is a senior scientist at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee’s Great Lakes W.A.T.E.R. Institute (Wisconsin Aquatic Technology and Environmental Research). According to McLellan, water leaving Milwaukee’s treatment plant is very high quality. Dr. Gorelick stated that the mystery “is what happens to water between the time it leaves the treatment plant and gets to your tap.”

The answer to that mystery likely lies in an aging infrastructure of pipes used to transport water. These pipes are kept under pressure and are designed to keep contaminants out of the treated water. However, this pressure can fail after a water main break results in a breach. This can also be an issue after rainfall saturates the surrounding soil, allowing contaminated water to leach into the piping system. In this way, even moderate rainfall or water events can contribute to drinking water contamination.

These variables affect water after it leaves the treatment plant and makes it difficult to guarantee that water exiting the tap will be consistently safe. For this reason, spending the time and resources finding a home water filter should be a top priority.