[00:00:00] Eric Goranson: It's around the house.

[00:00:09] Eric Goranson: Okay. I got a question that is probably the most controversial water thing in the world. Fluoride in the drinking water.

[00:00:17] Marianne Metzger: Oh, I was just talking about this the other day. Um,

[00:00:22] Eric Goranson: this is how we make yeah. Everyone mad in our listening audience. All at walks.

[00:00:27] Marianne Metzger: yeah. Um, Mean, technically fluoride is considered a poison mm-hmm

[00:00:34] Marianne Metzger: So, I mean, we are adding it to our water. Um, they're not, they should not be adding it in an amount to where, you know, it would cause significant damage, but here's the thing. Um, the way that they add it, they have a hard time controlling the levels. So you could, you could end up with a slug of fluoride in the water that's higher than you would like when it comes to remodeling and renovating your home.

[00:00:58] Marianne Metzger: There is a lot. [00:01:00] Well, we've got you. Covered list is around

[00:01:04] Eric Goranson: the house. Welcome back to around the house with Eric G and Caroline B, where we talk home improvement every single week. Thanks for joining us today. We have a special guest back on Caroline. This is great. She's our

[00:01:18] Caroline Blazovsky: water guru. I love

[00:01:21] Marianne Metzger: it.

[00:01:24] Eric Goranson: Marion Medgar. I love you. Welcome to around the house and welcome.

[00:01:30] Marianne Metzger: Thank you guys so much for having me.

[00:01:32] Eric Goranson: This is great. I'm looking forward to this. So water quality just keeps getting to be such a bigger subject. I know Caroline deals with it almost every day and more and more people are starting to figure out that what they were drinking might not have been what they thought they were drinking.

[00:01:50] Marianne Metzger: Absolutely. Absolutely. There's so many contaminants that can be found in drinking water that don't really make themselves known in [00:02:00] obvious ways like taste and odor and, and that sort of thing. So it's like the unseen contaminants that you don't know about. Uh, That are really the ones that are more health related.

[00:02:10] Marianne Metzger: The, so yeah, it does get a little bit scary.

[00:02:13] Caroline Blazovsky: PFOS is getting out of control. Cuz now everybody's calling up and asking for PFAS testing. Like that's the new thing. So I guess the word is out and, and just for our audience too. And for Eric, just explain how PFAS, how, what the actual name of P a S cuz we always call it this, this sort of shortened name and then there's all these different P a S PFAS.

[00:02:35] Caroline Blazovsky: P F O a S like there's so many derivatives of it. Are they all the same chemical? And how do they kind of filter out into these different chemicals names?

[00:02:47] Marianne Metzger: So like P O S is like, kind of the general term that is used to kind of describe these chemicals they're called like per, per or polyfluorinated, uh, alkaline [00:03:00] compounds. So it it's, it's kind of like an overall description. There's about three. Thousand, I believe chemicals that have been identified under, under, under this class of chemicals and like probably the most two popular ones would be, uh, the P F O a and the P F OS, which are actual specific, uh, chemical names for certain compounds and, and.

[00:03:25] Marianne Metzger: And what I, it's not really funny, but like this has been going on for years. , I mean, these compounds are not new. They've been around since about the sixties. Um, we just sort of, kind of discovered how prevalent they are in our environment. Uh, probably about. 10 years ago, um, when they started, uh, looking for them under the UCMR.

[00:03:49] Marianne Metzger: So, so now that we know they're in drinking water, or now they're kind of saying, oh, well, how dangerous are these? Um, but here here's sort of the, the thing. Yeah. It's in [00:04:00] our drinking water. But it's also in our house, it's in the clothes that we wear. It's in cosmetics that we put on our face, it's in, um, dental floss that we use every day, hopefully.

[00:04:12] Marianne Metzger: Um, you know, so it's, it's, it's, it's in fast food wrappers. I mean, it's in a lot of different products that people use. Every day. Um, so it's not just, you know, the drinking water. Yeah. Is it upsetting that it's in our drinking water? Absolutely. Should we do something about it? Absolutely. But also keep in mind that you're, you're exposing yourself in other ways.

[00:04:35] Marianne Metzger: Wow.

[00:04:36] Eric Goranson: That's that's interesting. So what are some of the common ways to get or to treat or deal with PFAS coming into your home? For instance, whether you're on a well or a public water.

[00:04:51] Marianne Metzger: Yeah. So there's a couple of different ways to, uh, remove or reduce P a S and you know, we're, there's still a lot of, uh, [00:05:00] research going on about this, because like I mentioned, there's, you know, about 3000 of these compounds, we probably test, uh, laboratories can probably test accurately for maybe.

[00:05:11] Marianne Metzger: Maybe 30, 45 is probably pushing it. Um, our lab actually tests for a total of 18 different compounds. So it, it kind of all depends on what's in the water, which compounds some technologies work better, uh, than others, depending on what's there. So like the sort of the legacy ones, the P F O a and the P F OS, which are, um, what they refer to.

[00:05:35] Marianne Metzger: Commonly as an eight chain, meaning that it has eight carbon chains in it. Um, those are removed easily using like, um, carbon systems. Um, certain ion exchange, uh, medias will help reduce and remove them. Reverse. Osmosis is also, uh, an approved technology for that as well. But, you know, as we look at more of these [00:06:00] compounds, um, we're starting to study like, you know, reduction rates.

[00:06:04] Marianne Metzger: And so some of the, the newer P a S compounds, the ones that they said, well, I mentioned the whole eight chain. They said, oh, eight chains bad. So let's break it down to six chains and four chains. That must be better. Not so much because they're harder to remove from the water. Hmm. Um, so like your typical, carbon's not gonna remove some of those compounds compounds.

[00:06:26] Marianne Metzger: Um, so it, it, it's, it's very tricky and the, and the science is still out on a lot of it as well. Um, The EPA just recently, uh, came out with new health guidelines for P F O a and P F OS. They said initially 70 parts per trillion was okay. And now they came back with levels that, you know, virtually no laboratory can detect down to.

[00:06:50] Marianne Metzger: So , I mean, wow. Yeah. I mean, they're below our detection levels out there, you know, for labs that are testing for it. So, I mean, that [00:07:00] sort of speaks volumes to me. Like this stuff is not something to mess around with. You know, I just had a client test. I had a

[00:07:06] Caroline Blazovsky: question, no, I just had a client test there building, uh, a doctor and they came back at 27 parts per trillion.

[00:07:13] Caroline Blazovsky: So, you know, they're concerned.

[00:07:19] Marianne Metzger: Absolutely. I mean, and, and here's also the other thing about P a S um, when you're testing for it too, like I mentioned, it's in so many other products, like you could actually be contributing to those test results depending on how you're collecting samples. So like that, that's crazy too, to think about.

[00:07:40] Marianne Metzger: Um, so if you're using a lab and you do a field reagent plank, which I is what I highly recommend. You could see, like, okay, I took this sample and then I did my field reagent blank, and my field reagent blank shows that in the IFP Fs as well. So. yeah, it's, it's in the air right around where you're [00:08:00] collecting the samples and that's how it gets in there.

[00:08:02] Marianne Metzger: And, you know, you gotta take that into account. Like that's not technically, you know, what's interesting Maryanne

[00:08:07] Caroline Blazovsky: in this particular job, we tested the water outside. So they're build, they were, they're doing a building. So the actual spigot was on the outside. Right. So that would help to sort of lock down the fact that it was probably coming from the water.

[00:08:20] Caroline Blazovsky: Correct. Or could it be in the air in, in naturally occurring, fresh air? It.

[00:08:27] Marianne Metzger: It could definitely be in the air. Um, and here's the other thing, like if it was, if they were building in the area, like a lot of that lumber could be treated with, uh, some sort of PFAS compound, so like, When, when you're collecting samples, a lot of times they'll be like, you know, they show the spigot right next to the deck.

[00:08:46] Marianne Metzger: Yeah. , it's probably, you know, that you just treated with like water repellent the, the week before, like, or my brand new composite, he just

[00:08:54] Caroline Blazovsky: got a lot of PFAS in his body. You're full of

[00:08:57] Marianne Metzger: PFAS. [00:09:00]

[00:09:00] Eric Goranson: Yep. Very well could be, could be never tested. So I dunno, you know, jury's out. . Well Maryanne, I had a question this kind of whole, this is kind of the basis of why we even reached out again real quick, cuz we love having you on the phone, but I'd ask Caroline this question and she went, we gotta talk to Maryanne about this and I went great.

[00:09:24] Eric Goranson: Let's get her on. I'm seeing a lot of different water filtration systems that are coming on the market now over the last number of years. And they're kind of an all in one solution that they're claiming to be. That they will deal with hard water without salt, that they've got a, you know, six stage filtration system that doesn't have.

[00:09:50] Eric Goranson: Any replaceable filter in it, but it says it has a 20 year warranty. And it says that it creates like alkaline water or it's we went through this, [00:10:00] you know, dealing all these things. yeah. What do you, what do you seeing with those? Do those even, do they even work before you go out and spent thousands of dollars?

[00:10:07] Eric Goranson: I'm curious.

[00:10:10] Marianne Metzger: Well, I mean, there are products out there that will reduce scale. Um, but they have to be applied properly. And a lot of times that's not a residential application. Although, you know, there are some products that do work, but here here's like sort of my caution to somebody is. If you're looking at a system and there's, there's no maintenance, there's no replaceable parts and it it's Gar, you know, they're, they're promising you the world, then it's probably not gonna work.

[00:10:41] Marianne Metzger: Um, I tend to recommend people look for products that are certified, whether it's through, uh, the national sanitation foundation, NSF or the water quality association or IMO, which is a, a plumbing association. Those, those organizations [00:11:00] all test under the same protocol. And they're all like, you know, verifying that this filter does indeed, you know, remove lead or, or whatever it is that they're claiming to remove.

[00:11:11] Marianne Metzger: Mm-hmm um, A lot of these, a lot of these units, especially the ones out there that are, that claim, the scale reduction without using salts. Um, the, the biggest thing is there's no protocol out there to test them, to tell you that, in fact, this does work. So, you know, I I'm gonna say the jury's kind of out on that.

[00:11:33] Marianne Metzger: I have seen like, uh, like anecdotal evidence that in fact, like there is some sort of reduction in scale. It's it's hard to test and prove that it actually does.

[00:11:45] Eric Goranson: Yeah. Cuz they're promoting it as like this and again, I'm kind of, I'm not well spoken on this, so excuse me if I get it wrong, but it's like a magnetic ionization chamber for the water that makes it, so the scale [00:12:00] doesn't build up or something like that, which is fascinating to me.

[00:12:03] Eric Goranson: Yeah. But again, when I go onto people's websites and look at the different systems out there, It seems cool, but I don't see test results that go, oh, here is this.

[00:12:13] Marianne Metzger: right. Cause it, cuz it's hard to test for like basically I've talked to a lot of these guys over the years. Um, and basically what they're saying is like, whatever it is that they're adding, whether it's magnet or, or some other special like secret recipe, whatever they wanna call it.

[00:12:33] Marianne Metzger: You know that it's changing the structure of the water molecule so that it will not like, and the hardness that's within the water so that it will not attach to the side of the piping or anything. So it won't form the scale. So, you know, what's interesting is, you know, I used to do some work, uh, at. At a previous position.

[00:12:55] Marianne Metzger: And we used to test systems before and after. And we tested for a company [00:13:00] that, you know, didn't, didn't use, you know, salt or anything. So what you tested before and what you tested after was the same exact thing, cuz it wasn't removing anything. Um, their big claim was that in fact it just changed the structure so that it would not form the scale on the side of the pipes.

[00:13:19] Marianne Metzger: So yeah. Okay. It's it's hard to measure that. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:13:24] Eric Goranson: Okay. That's what I've been wondering, cuz it's, you know, I, I remember geez, 15 years ago there was that little thing you could clamp around the water pipe that had a power in the magnets and it was like the latest, um, multi-level marketing scheme that I saw out there cuz I had a guy trying to sell that to me 15 years ago probably.

[00:13:43] Eric Goranson: And I, it seemed like it was a similar kind of product. .

[00:13:46] Marianne Metzger: Yeah. Yeah. They've been around for a long time. And, and actually, I mean, I, I have heard that some of the magnets do work, um, but they work in, in areas where there's high flow and consistent flow. So is that a [00:14:00] residential application? Absolutely not.

[00:14:02] Marianne Metzger: Nope. Um, You know, so there, there is some truth to some of what they're saying. Okay. Um, but like I said, there's not, there's not a lot of testing protocols out there that can say, yes, this is working, you know? Okay. You can't can't prove it. And that's where in my mind, I mean, , I'm always like, Hmm. It's always based on the science.

[00:14:23] Marianne Metzger: Right.

[00:14:24] Eric Goranson: That's where I become the, where I'm the skeptic going? All right. Show me, then they go well, and. Are you showing me? I'm not sure I can't see it. So that's where I struggle. That's

[00:14:33] Marianne Metzger: where I struggle. Yeah. All right. I I'm right there with you and also

[00:14:38] Caroline Blazovsky: Maryanne, and I will tell you too, where your products are manufactured or how they're manufactured is really key.

[00:14:44] Caroline Blazovsky: And her and I have uncovered this. Yeah. Now in, in different, in different ways, but the, the filters that you use can have just as many contaminants as something that you're trying to remove from your water. So you have to be careful like you may be taking something out [00:15:00] and adding something in like a benzene, because that product was manufactured overseas.

[00:15:04] Caroline Blazovsky: And there were no guidelines for the washers or the products or the tubing that was used. And so you may be thinking you're doing something better for your health. And in, in turn, you're actually making the water worse, which we've.

[00:15:18] Marianne Metzger: Yep.

[00:15:19] Eric Goranson: So people that are out there that maybe have that KitchenAid or LG or Samsung refrigerator that has the water filtration system, if you go onto Amazon and go, wow, this filter is only like a 10th of the price of the one that has the name brand.

[00:15:34] Eric Goranson: I'm gonna order that. And it's coming from, you know, Kaza, Stan, or someplace like that out. There you go. Huh? Maybe there's a reason why that's $4 instead of.

[00:15:46] Marianne Metzger: Exactly exactly that. And that's a huge, huge problem on Amazon is, uh, these knockoff filters. Um, and they're coming from, you know, these countries where, you know, they're not as heavily regulated as we are here.[00:16:00]

[00:16:00] Eric Goranson: yeah, very true. And it's one of the things that I, every time I order the new filter, cuz mine's a pretty good filter in it. And of course it's expensive and it's like, I just gotta do it. Just gotta do it. But it's so tempting to jump on and go, wow, I can, I could buy 10 years of filter for this price, but you're also gonna get something that could be worse and not even having the filter.

[00:16:21] Marianne Metzger: Right. Next thing, you know, you got arsenic poisoning. Speaking of arsenal, let's

[00:16:26] Caroline Blazovsky: talk about arsenic a little bit because the standards that we see nationally are not typically what you have in your state. You have to look at every state and then you have to look at your national standard. And arsenic is a Carson gin that's found in the water, which to me, it means you really want zero of it.

[00:16:43] Caroline Blazovsky: You don't wanna have it floating around. Right. But we do.

[00:16:47] Marianne Metzger: Right. Absolutely. So explain that a

[00:16:49] Eric Goranson: little bit. Yeah. We used to run into that a lot when I used to live in Tacoma, um, in the Tacoma area, Washington, uh, it was a town over from where I was living, but we [00:17:00] had for like 70 years, they used to make railroad ties in this arsenic plant right there.

[00:17:06] Eric Goranson: So they actually yep. Did the arsenic and then the, and then treated the railroad ties there for the railroad when they were expanding, you know, a hundred plus years ago. And so. It's interesting. They had to go through and they had huge water quality issues they had to fix. And actually within about a half mile around the arsenic plant, they had to go in and they dug up all the playgrounds, front yards.

[00:17:30] Eric Goranson: They haul off everybody's soil and this was only 10 years ago, but that's how high the arsenic levels were. They were digging up the lawn at everybody's homes and replacing the grass in the soil and putting new soil in there and hauling that off to haz. just because of that. And that groundwater was never the same.

[00:17:48] Marianne Metzger: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's pretty, they take that kind of stuff seriously. Um, You, you definitely have to reduce the arsenic. Um, and Carolyn you're absolutely right. Like, um, [00:18:00] with the safe drinking water act, uh, you know, you've got the federal limits under that, but each state can have their own. Different regulations.

[00:18:10] Marianne Metzger: Um, so a lot of states can have regulations that are much more strict than what the EPA says is allowable. So, I mean, the state of California comes to mind, New Jersey, uh, the state of New Jersey. Yep. New York, those, um, probably Massachusetts has some stricter guidelines as well. So like even though, um, EPA says like 10 parts per billion is good.

[00:18:37] Marianne Metzger: You know, those states are probably more like five. Yeah. And, and I think, yeah. Yeah. And I feel like, um, the same thing with the P a S you know, the federal government hasn't really done anything, but like, with everything that's going on with P a S and it's popping up so much and people are testing for it.

[00:18:55] Marianne Metzger: So they know it's there. These states have now started to make their own [00:19:00] regulations. So when the EPA was saying 70 parts per trillion is okay, you know, Probably like over a dozen states came out and said, Nope, we're gonna say it's much said,

[00:19:11] Caroline Blazovsky: I think we said 27. So I think that's the right parts per trillion.

[00:19:16] Marianne Metzger: Yeah.

[00:19:17] Eric Goranson: So here's the question are I was just gonna ask, are you seeing this in well, water? Are you seeing this in municipal water? Is it everywhere? Is there a, is there a place that it's most common .

[00:19:32] Marianne Metzger: I think it's pretty much everywhere. I mean, it's, it's found in a lot of municipalities. Um, it's found in a lot of well water.

[00:19:40] Marianne Metzger: I mean, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a place where you didn't find at least a small trace of it. Um, you know, unless the water's actually being treated. That's the only time I've not seen P O S is when, you know, we've actually done a test on treated water. Um, So, so it is, [00:20:00] like I said, I mean, it's, it's all in our environment.

[00:20:02] Marianne Metzger: What's in products that we use every day. So of course it's gonna, you know, find its way. Into our aquifers and you know, our lakes and, and everything like that. So I, I don't think that there, I don't think that there's not a place where you wouldn't be able to find this.

[00:20:18] Eric Goranson: Gotcha. Okay. Interesting. Go ahead, Caroline.

[00:20:21] Eric Goranson: With what you

[00:20:21] Caroline Blazovsky: were gonna say, yes. People find it and they often ask me this because we uncover it quite a bit. What do you recommend? Is it something that you do wanna call your state and let them know? Like, so for PFA S we found it in a building up in Northern New Jersey at the. Limit that it isn't acceptable.

[00:20:39] Caroline Blazovsky: So what do you do, do you call the state? Do you call the water board? What is your recommendation for that?

[00:20:45] Marianne Metzger: Well, yeah, definitely. I would, I would let, like, if it's a municipality, I would call the municipality. I mean, chances are, they already know. They may have even sent letters out saying that, you know, it's there.

[00:20:56] Marianne Metzger: If you're finding it in well, water. Yeah, I would let, I would let [00:21:00] the, uh, The health department and everybody know that it's there. I mean, will you be able to, you know, Get somebody to pay for your system based on that? No, I don't know. Uh, there, there are, there are some areas I know in New Jersey where, um, some of the polluters are being held accountable.

[00:21:23] Marianne Metzger: Um, so they're required to put systems in and the company's paying for it. So that's gonna start to probably roll out as states change their regulations on that. , you know, but it, it, it's all gonna depend. And unfortunately, it's the homeowner who ends up paying in

[00:21:42] Caroline Blazovsky: Southern New Jersey or central, I would say central to south.

[00:21:44] Caroline Blazovsky: We had a massive problem with it. And then recently I just uncovered it up in Northern New Jersey. And so, and it was in municipality water. So my, you know, that was my question is should we report it and call the municipality? Are they aware that it's even there who know.[00:22:00]

[00:22:03] Marianne Metzger: Yeah. I mean, I, I would say definitely report it if, if they have not gotten some notification from the municipality that it's in there. Chances are they haven't tested for it. And I can't even imagine that in New Jersey, they haven't tested for it. Um, because it's all over in that state. welcome to Jersey I, I, I mean, right.

[00:22:25] Marianne Metzger: Well, and they just, you know, I think it was in December with the private well testing act, they just included the P F O a and the P F O S. So now they're starting to find even more of it. Um, so yeah, I mean, I would notify the. The municipality, will they be able to do anything about it? They probably are already working on, on a solution, but unfortunately for municipalities, um, the systems are large and they're expensive.

[00:22:55] Marianne Metzger: So, you know, it could, it could take two years before they find the solution that they're [00:23:00] able to install and then also afford. And of course, you know, they're gonna pass some of that cost done to the, to the homeowner. Sure.

[00:23:09] Eric Goranson: Like in my area, we just built, uh, a huge new water treatment facility that services my city and a few others here in my area, which is great.

[00:23:18] Eric Goranson: And they provide a water quality report that goes out to the public for, for people that are on the water system, but there's no PFAS or anything on that water quality test that they're doing that they're sending out to us at least. So they do not even address it. And I'm like, Hmm. I'm gonna have to ask a few more questions now, aren't I, because it's not on.

[00:23:39] Marianne Metzger: Yeah. Most of the, like a lot of the states that kind of like took a hard line on this P F a S and started making their own regulations. Um, they put together testing protocols and yeah. If they found it, then they had to notify people. Um, the state of Washington does not come to the top of my head when I'm thinking of PFAS [00:24:00] regulated states.

[00:24:00] Marianne Metzger: So, yep.

[00:24:02] Eric Goranson: And I'm in Oregon. It's the same thing. It's not here that I know.

[00:24:06] Marianne Metzger: So they're like head in the sand. We don't test for it. We don't know what's there. I , you know, but at least they

[00:24:14] Caroline Blazovsky: come on guys, get it together. There's least they Buster contractors out in Oregon. You guys are good at maintaining good quality construction.

[00:24:21] Caroline Blazovsky: We don't have that in New Jersey or New York, Oregon, Connecticut. And the list goes

[00:24:26] Eric Goranson: on and on. Yeah. We're brutal out here on contractors that, uh, so they're state licensed and uh, every, you know, plumbers have to be licensed plumbers and, uh, you can't have handyman doing stuff if they actually have guys that are actually, you know, I say guys, but male and females driving around that are looking and they're even setting up stings to find unlicensed contractors.

[00:24:49] Eric Goranson: And it's a $5,000 fine. They don't mess around.

[00:24:53] Marianne Metzger: Wow. That's crazy.

[00:24:56] Eric Goranson: Uh, I see that they have a new thing here addressing PFOS and [00:25:00] Oregon. Yeah. The, the EPA is 70 parts per trillion and that's what they're trying to, uh, make sure everybody's drinking water is better than that is what they're saying, but we'll see what

[00:25:08] Marianne Metzger: happens.

[00:25:10] Marianne Metzger: Uh, they just changed that level. Like within the last, I wanna say last month. Wow. They changed it down to like the super low detection levels. Exactly. So. Yeah, so many parts per trillion, old news now.

[00:25:22] Eric Goranson: Well, that's, that's that's Oregon for you.

[00:25:25] Marianne Metzger: yeah. Little little behind the times, little

[00:25:28] Eric Goranson: behind the times on that stuff.

[00:25:30] Eric Goranson: Little question for Marion.

[00:25:31] Caroline Blazovsky: We'll we'll get there one day. And then, so what is the, your number one? Like if you're looking at water, whether it's a municipality or well, What's your number, one thing, like your pet peeve that you don't wanna see in the water out of all the things that you know are out

[00:25:45] Marianne Metzger: there?

[00:25:46] Marianne Metzger: Well, I mean, I'm very passionate about the whole PFAS thing, but the one thing that, that I, I definitely do not like to see in municipal water or well water or any water really is led. [00:26:00] I think like the whole, like the safe drinking water act and the, the lead and copper rule, like people don't understand that.

[00:26:07] Marianne Metzger: Um, because they give up to like 15 parts per billion for lead, uh, in order to meet that like, uh, Lead and copper rule and the, like the requirements and everything. And they just changed a lot of this. So people think that it's okay to drink 15 parks per billion of lead. And that's not, it's not good. It's not so, so like, um, you know, a lot of times municipalities will, or like labs will, will mark on their report.

[00:26:36] Marianne Metzger: Like, um, you know, it meets the requirement. Oh, well it meets the requirement. It doesn't mean that it's safe at all. The way the rules are the, the way the rules are written, it it's, you know, It, it's just, uh, it's crazy because everybody thinks like, okay, the city of Cleveland doesn't have a, a lead and copper problem when each like [00:27:00] individual home could have that problem.

[00:27:02] Marianne Metzger: They're just not happening to test that particular home or, you know, there's, there's a lot of ways they get around that, I think. Um, but I'd have to say lead's probably one of my pet peeves to see in municipal water. And how about softeners?

[00:27:16] Caroline Blazovsky: Cuz I'm kind of anti soften. right. And people always say to me why.

[00:27:20] Caroline Blazovsky: And I say, because a lot of people really don't have that high mineral content where they're actually putting it on and trying to soften it. They just put it on as a gimmick, right. They go to a local box store. The box store says, oh, your water, quality's poor, put a softener on. And then the softener ends up softening those pipes that contributes to the lead and copper issue.

[00:27:37] Caroline Blazovsky: So, I mean, what's your feeling on softeners?

[00:27:42] Marianne Metzger: Well, I, I full disclosure, I work for a resin manufacturer, which, uh, manufacturers, can I in resin that goes into these softeners? Yeah. Um, so full disclosure there, but I. I feel like, um, there is a point at which hardness [00:28:00] minerals can become a problem in a home where they build up in your hot water tank.

[00:28:05] Marianne Metzger: They build up in your dishwasher, your washing machine, your, you know, that, that sort of thing. So it could have a detrimental effect on those types of large appliances. Um, but it's gonna depend on the level. Um, so I, I think testing is obviously, you know, me, me and the testing girls. So. Te, yeah, you get a test, you gotta find out what your levels are.

[00:28:28] Marianne Metzger: Um, you know, if it's, if it's, to me, if it's above a hundred parts per million, then you should consider a softener and you'd have, you know, you'd have a reduction of that. Um, not, not so much that it would soften the pipes, but you know, you'd have less, uh, scale buildup on those types of appliances. Yeah.

[00:28:46] Marianne Metzger: Yeah. So that. I mean, and that's sort of a pet peeve of mine as well is like these gimmicky water treatment guys that are out there just to sell softeners. Um, you know, I feel like a lot of the reputable guys that's sort of [00:29:00] gone by the wayside and that they're looking at the water as a, as a whole, um, like what are the other health implications cuz hard water.

[00:29:07] Marianne Metzger: You know what? You can drink that all day long. It's not gonna hurt you. Um, but hard water with our SNIC, you know, you don't wanna be drinking that. Yeah. So I think a lot of guys, especially in, and this are taking a look at like the, the whole water as a whole. What else is in the water besides hardness? So, yeah, so they can make the right recommendation.

[00:29:26] Marianne Metzger: See,

[00:29:27] Eric Goranson: as an interior designer of 30 years, I have recommended. Treating that water when it gets hard like that, where you're starting to get the build up on the inside of the appliances, you know, I've had clients put in a brand new shower system and they spent $10,000 in a shower, but refused to treat the water.

[00:29:44] Eric Goranson: And then a year later the shower looks horrible. The glasses etched, you can't save the shower door and they just absolutely ruined this brand new shower due to the absolute hardness of water in there. And. Now that now the door looks [00:30:00] cloudy and it's all kind of been, you know, trashed. And so for me, I've always pushed him just for that reason, just to not damage the house.

[00:30:09] Marianne Metzger: right. Right. And same thing, same thing with the, uh, you know, the dishwasher and the washing machine and think of your hot water tank. And a lot of people don't like, uh, um, like drain their hot water tank enough so that they're flushing those hard minerals out. You know? So most people

[00:30:26] Eric Goranson: with hard water when they go to drain their water tank for the first time, if it's been a couple years, they'll mm-hmm, , you know, turn the power off or turn the gas off to it.

[00:30:34] Eric Goranson: So they don't hurt it. They'll go to open the drain in the bottom. And the water won't come out, cuz there's so much sediment build up in the bottom of that. I have gone into help change out friends' water heaters that had died at five years in and it was half full of sediment. So that 50 gallon tank only had 20 gallons of water in one element working because the sediment had built up so much inside of it.

[00:30:59] Eric Goranson: Just from hard [00:31:00] water scale.

[00:31:01] Marianne Metzger: Yep. Yeah, definitely, uh, a little crazy on that hard water scale. And, and like I said, not everybody knows to do that. Yeah. You know, to, to drain that out on a, on an annual basis. Not every couple years. Yeah. see.

[00:31:16] Eric Goranson: Mine's pretty good. I mean, I I'm on a municipal water system. Uh, our water comes from a mountain lake, so we've only got 25 parts per million on our water.

[00:31:26] Eric Goranson: On our soft, you know, we've got soft water naturally coming outta that. Yep. The thing I'm worried about though is it's coming out of a mountain lake and, you know, Oregon has wildfires. There's plenty of PFAS that is used. Yep. In when they're out there dropping the water from the airplanes during fire season.

[00:31:44] Eric Goranson: So it they've had P FFAs in that for a long time. So it's always something that I want to make sure. Oh, it's mountain water. Great. But yeah. Was there a fire around that lake recently where maybe they dropped that in the last 10 years? And so now you've got a high concentration, a foam that came down, that's now got [00:32:00] PFAS in it.

[00:32:00] Eric Goranson: That's right next to the lake. Right. So you gotta be careful,

[00:32:03] Marianne Metzger: right? Yeah, for sure. There's always a source of contamination nearby.

[00:32:11] Eric Goranson: one of the problems we've had down here. Um, and this happened a few years ago and I. I had people on the radio show, making fun of me cause I have my killer water filter and people go, oh, you'll never need that. We got plenty of water around here. Well, it was, this was in Salem, Oregon, south of me. That was probably four or five years ago.

[00:32:31] Eric Goranson: They ended up having a boil water notice for she three weeks, four weeks because of water contamination. So they had, um, I forget what it was. It was some. I don't remember what it was, you know, if it was, um, trying to think if it was like cryptosporidium or one of those kind

[00:32:53] Caroline Blazovsky: things perdium in, there's what it was.

[00:32:55] Caroline Blazovsky: They get

[00:32:55] Eric Goranson: that out west. Yeah. Is that what it was? Yeah, I think that's what it was, but [00:33:00] anyway, wow. They, they couldn't get on it. Their system couldn't deal with it. So it was coming from the source. And so they basically had to wait for whatever happened in the lake. They were pulling out for that to go away cuz they didn't have a way to treat it in their.

[00:33:16] Marianne Metzger: Yeah, it it's difficult for large municipalities to treat for something like that. So, wow. That's crazy for three weeks that you're under that advisory. Yeah.

[00:33:28] Eric Goranson: I'm happy. I wasn't me, but I was just, you know, it's half hour, 45 minutes south of me, but I had friends that were like, Hey, can we come take a shower at your house, man, come on over.

[00:33:36] Eric Goranson: Cuz they were like, I don't wanna shower in that. You know, I

[00:33:39] Caroline Blazovsky: remember when that happened, cuz my friend was out in Portland and she was saying that was like a big issue.

[00:33:45] Eric Goranson: Yeah, and for us, I'm, I'm happy cuz they, they built in ways to treat that, you know, everything's treated, that's coming through the system using carbon filters and, and they've got a way to deal with that if that ever happened, but they just had an old water system.

[00:33:57] Eric Goranson: So you're almost better to be on a well at [00:34:00] that point in that area because it was coming from a different water source.

[00:34:03] Marianne Metzger: Right. Absolutely.

[00:34:05] Eric Goranson: So, what do you recommend Marianne for people that have Wells? You know, there, we there's so many, you know, people around the country that are like Caroline you're on a well, right.

[00:34:14] Eric Goranson: Mm-hmm yes. I love it. What do you recommend for testing?

[00:34:17] Marianne Metzger: I always have. So I, I mean, obviously I am the testing girl. Yeah. Um, that's where my whole background has come from. Um, I, I'm a firm believer in test your water on a regular basis. If you have your own, well, you're not paying for your water. So you've got to pay to be your own water treatment plant.

[00:34:37] Marianne Metzger: And part of that, Testing on a regular basis. So I do recommend running a fairly extensive test annually because water quality can change, um, over time. And, you know, based on, you know, drought conditions and rainfall and all that, it can change pretty significantly. So I'm all about testing on a regular basis, um, at least [00:35:00] annually, uh, you may even wanna te test for bacteria on a more regular basis, depending on, you know, what kind of.

[00:35:06] Marianne Metzger: What kind of results you've had in the past. Um, but once you know what your problems are in the water, then you can address them. I mean, there's all kinds of th whether it's a water softener, a carbon filter, um, you know, something to address specifically arsenic, um, You know, there's, there are definitely treatment options out there for just about anything.

[00:35:29] Marianne Metzger: Um, I mean, there are limitations of course, but you know, the best thing to do is find out what, what you're dealing with first. And then, and then from there you can kind of say, okay, well, this is the, this is the treatment options available to me. This is what they cost. And then you can make your, your decision based on that.

[00:35:48] Eric Goranson: Cool. Okay. I got a question that is probably the most controversial water. In the world fluoride in the drinking water.

[00:35:58] Marianne Metzger: Oh, I was just talking [00:36:00] about this the other day. um,

[00:36:03] Eric Goranson: this is how we make yeah. Everyone mad in our listening audience all at once.

[00:36:09] Marianne Metzger: Yeah. Um, I mean, technically fluoride is considered a poison mm-hmm so, I mean, we are adding it to our water.

[00:36:19] Marianne Metzger: Um, they're not, they should not be adding it in an amount to where, you know, it would cause significant damage, but here's the thing. Um, the way that they add it, they have a hard time controlling the levels. So you could, you could end up with a slug of fluoride in the water that's higher than you would like.

[00:36:38] Marianne Metzger: Um, to me. I'm not a big fluoride advocate. I don't believe in it. I, you know, me too, you want fluoride? Same, you know, use some, use a toothpaste.

[00:36:48] Eric Goranson: Yeah. It's a great toothpaste that you can control how much you put in your body. Right?

[00:36:52] Marianne Metzger: Exactly. You don't ingest it. Yep. You know? Um, so that, that's kind of my thought and there's, there are a lot of people out [00:37:00] there that do not like fluoride in the water.

[00:37:02] Marianne Metzger: Exactly. Um, so

[00:37:05] Eric Goranson: I'm happy my system doesn't add it. It's uh, and there's no natural. In the water. So there's zero in it, which I'm cool with, but yeah, there's still plenty of, uh, people that I talk to that the city water system or the municipalities dropping it in there, you know, and, um, it gets to be pretty, pretty controversial.

[00:37:23] Eric Goranson: Is there still, can you filter that out pretty easily? If you wanted to put a filtration system in your home, if they are providing that.

[00:37:31] Marianne Metzger: Fluoride is one of those, um, one of those compounds that's a little bit more difficult to, to reduce. Um, but there are, there are options out there. There's something called bone char, which is like a, like a type of carbon mm-hmm um, that will reduce.

[00:37:47] Marianne Metzger: Uh, fluoride, I feel like that's probably one of the best options out there for reduction. Um, so yeah, there's options. If you have it in your water, you can reduce it and remove it. Cool. [00:38:00] Okay. And then R RO will also take it out. Reverse osmosis pretty much takes everything out. So , yeah,

[00:38:05] Eric Goranson: that's always been my, my battle.

[00:38:07] Eric Goranson: And, and I wanna get you both of your guys' take on RO. I think if you got really low quality water coming, an RO might be a great option, but I don't like the taste or lack of, I don't like the minerals. It takes out what's your guys' take on.

[00:38:22] Marianne Metzger: Well, my personal take is that I don't, I don't like, uh, RO water to drink unless you, unless you, uh, like remineralize it.

[00:38:31] Marianne Metzger: So a lot of, a lot of these guys out there are now finding like, okay, yeah, we're using reverse osmosis to remove some of these dangerous things like arsenic or fluoride, or what have you. But we do like a little bit of calcium and potassium in our water. Cause you know, there is a, there is a little bit of taste difference.

[00:38:48] Marianne Metzger: So a lot of these. That are installing ROS now are actually adding what they call a re mineralize in cartridge, John. So it's gonna slowly add in some mineral content, but you [00:39:00] know, not anything significant. So you'll, you'll notice that it's gonna taste a little better than. You know, plain arrow water, right?

[00:39:07] Caroline Blazovsky: The, the other issue too is whole house system versus under the sink Mount. And so when we're talking about certain chemicals, our body, our skin, we often forget is our largest bodily organ. And so when you go in to take a shower, you may say, and this is like the quote from every client I've ever had. I don't drink my water.

[00:39:25] Caroline Blazovsky: Why do I care? And I'm like, because some of these things go right through your skin and you're showering in it three times a. So, and I've seen this in radar on other things, you know, you've got radioactive materials that come up through the water can come up through the pipe. So radar on is a perfect example.

[00:39:41] Caroline Blazovsky: I had a client who she was showering and she was getting really high levels of radar on coming out of the shower, head. And so what was interesting yeah. Is she had these very peculiar symptoms and nobody could trace it to anything. And then she ended up being one of my clients. And when I tested her rate on, I uncovered it and I think [00:40:00] I did it with you Maryanne.

[00:40:00] Caroline Blazovsky: I think we actually found her rate on level to be extremely high. And what was interesting is we corrected the problem and her symptoms went away. So as much as rayon is this odorless, colorless gas, I guess in some people it could create symptoms if your body sensitive to it. So it's kinda interesting.

[00:40:17] Caroline Blazovsky: Oh, for sure.

[00:40:19] Eric Goranson: interesting. Yeah. It's, it's funny that that showering experience is something that can, that can be just as dangerous. If you have low quality water than if you're drinking it yourself.

[00:40:32] Marianne Metzger: Right. Mm-hmm it's about, well, I mean, just think about it. When you take, take a hot shower, all the pores in your skin open up, and you can absorb those chemicals or whatever it is directly into your body.

[00:40:45] Eric Goranson: Yeah.

[00:40:45] Marianne Metzger: All right. That sounds the thick one. I saw a study.

[00:40:48] Caroline Blazovsky: Maryanne could probably clarify this, but I saw a study it years ago and they said that you absorbed like 80% of the chemicals in the water from showering and like 20%, it was a very smaller number through drinking because your body actually can [00:41:00] filter out.

[00:41:00] Caroline Blazovsky: And it's, I guess, a filtration mechanism to get rid of them when you drink it versus through your skin. Have you ever heard anything?

[00:41:07] Marianne Metzger: um, I don't think it's quite that high and I mean, it all depends on what the, what it is. Um, cuz they are like right now, especially like with P a S you know, they're claiming that, you know, you can't absorb it through your skin and I.

[00:41:24] Marianne Metzger: Personally don't believe that for a minute. Um, like I said, I mean, you take a hot shower. You, your POS open up mm-hmm where else is this stuff gonna go? um, is it, you know, is it, is it as bad as directly ingesting it? I don't, I don't know the answer. And, and unfortunately there's not a lot of answers cuz this isn't studied data, data.

[00:41:44] Marianne Metzger: Yeah. You know? Yeah.

[00:41:46] Eric Goranson: So I got a question, like for instance, um, you know, I don't drink a lot of bottled water cuz we've got really great tasting water around here. So, and my day to day thing, I'm not blasting bottled water all the time. I have my stainless steel containers I drink out of and, [00:42:00] and keep 'em clean.

[00:42:01] Eric Goranson: But. If I travel down to like, let's say Las Vegas and I try to get water outta the tap of the hotel there to me, it tastes awful now. Yep. There's a lot of things you don't wanna touch in Las Vegas. And I, I love our Las Vegas radio listeners. Thank you for tuning in. I'm not trying to be harsh on you guys, but you don't have the best tasting public water.

[00:42:24] Eric Goranson: What is that? Are we tasting minerals or what's typically the issue with stuff like that where you. Fairly low quality tasting water versus testing.

[00:42:35] Marianne Metzger: Yeah, I would say it's probably like a lot of it is mineral content. I mean, sort of the same thing down in Florida, you don't wanna really drink the water down there.

[00:42:44] Marianne Metzger: There there's a lot of got that sulf taste. So yeah, a lot of it, a lot of it is mineral content. Um, and then of course you add on the chlorine, um, especially in areas where it's that warm year round mm-hmm Vegas, Florida, you [00:43:00] know, they're adding lots of chlorine. And then just think about that, that chlorine's reacting with the whatever else is in the water.

[00:43:06] Marianne Metzger: Um,

[00:43:06] Eric Goranson: gotcha. So it's reacting to the minerals. It's reacting to yeah, the metals, all the different stuff. It's it's doing its own little. Tear apart, everything trick. Yep.

[00:43:22] Eric Goranson: oh, that makes sense. That makes sense because yeah, I get down there. I'm like who? Wow, Florida, same thing. I was at the hotel down there and I'm like, dad, it looks like it's a bottle of water thing down here. So, and that's what everybody does. And I, and I. .

[00:43:36] Marianne Metzger: Yeah, I drink a lot of bottled water when I'm on the road.

[00:43:40] Eric Goranson: I bet you do. I bet you do. What do you see? You know, what do you think of some of the filtration systems out there? I mean, ever, there's so many people out there that go down to target and buy their pure system in the pitcher and are, do those help sometimes. And I'm not trying to go after pure, but you know, there's all those little simple, inexpensive retail solutions that you see out.[00:44:00]

[00:44:01] Marianne Metzger: so a lot of those actually do exactly what they say they do. So like pure Brita, um, there's zero water technologies out there. Mm-hmm those, those guys have all gone through extensive testing. I believe all of those products are NSF listed. Okay. So, so they've been tested. To, to whatever claims that they're making.

[00:44:24] Marianne Metzger: I think a lot of them are a lead reduction claim, a chlorine taste and odor, um, you know, there's, there's lots of different technologies in each one of those. So in fact, those do exactly what they say they do. Now, if you apply them improperly, like let's just say, you're gonna put that on a, you know, a well water, you know, application where you might have a lot of iron is.

[00:44:48] Marianne Metzger: Filter gonna perform properly. Probably not. No. Um, so there are limitations depending on what the water quality is going in.

[00:44:57] Eric Goranson: So if it's built for it, it's gonna do pretty decent. [00:45:00] Right. But if it's, if it's hitting something at way higher than you'd normally see in the water, like a well water where you've got, you know, maybe it says it takes care of iron, but you're throwing so much iron in it.

[00:45:10] Eric Goranson: You might overwhelm that system.

[00:45:13] Marianne Metzger: Yeah. I mean, if you're on a, well, you should definitely be talking to a professional water treatment professional, cuz you know, there's a lot of unknowns when it comes to well water

[00:45:23] Eric Goranson: and I, I was on a, well, one time in a farm community, it was out in the middle of nowhere, you know, 25 minutes outside the Metro area where I was living and we would see our water quality tests come back.

[00:45:33] Eric Goranson: Cuz we would have droughts. We'd have rains and. You know, we had a lot of farmland and cows and things like that, and we'd get all these different things with runoff that would show up in the Wells. If we had a very wet season, we would go, Ooh, okay. We'd see things like a coal line numbers start to come up or something like that.

[00:45:51] Eric Goranson: It was fascinating to see just how the weather would change depending on when we took those well sample. .

[00:45:58] Marianne Metzger: Oh yeah, yeah, [00:46:00] absolutely. If you collect your samples, like in the spring, when it's, you know, extra wet out, your levels can go up. Um, even, even when you collect in drought situations, depending on the contaminant, um, those levels could go up or down.

[00:46:14] Marianne Metzger: So yeah, it definitely will impact what your water quality is. And even with municipal

[00:46:20] Caroline Blazovsky: Wells, they treat and chlorinate depending on the heat. Right. So if it's warmer, they're gonna have to chlorinate a lot more. So you'll see your chlorination numbers go up, your chlorination byproduct go up, which are carcinogenic,

[00:46:33] Marianne Metzger: just FYI.

[00:46:35] Marianne Metzger: Ah, yeah, I mean that, that's why they, um, when they're regulating disinfection byproducts in the water, it's based on an annual average because you know, at least up here, I'm in Ohio and, you know, we don't coordinate heavily in the winter time because we don't need to, but then just think about those, those systems like Florida and, you know, Houston, Texas, they tend to [00:47:00] coordinate pretty heavily year round.

[00:47:02] Marianne Metzger: So, you know, that's, that's part of the reason that they, they regulate those disinfection byproducts on a, like a annual basis. That makes

[00:47:13] Eric Goranson: sense. That makes sense. What are you seeing with technology these days? Is, is there new stuff that's been coming out, that's making this easier or in testing where they're being able to do more testing with it?

[00:47:24] Eric Goranson: What are you seeing with technology over the last few?

[00:47:28] Marianne Metzger: Well, I'm, I'm gonna say in testing, we're like, especially with the P a S we're looking to get lower and lower on detection levels. Um, there's some technology, newer technologies coming out, um, being tested against like P F a S um, But for the most part, I mean, it's your typical treatment technologies that are being relied on for most contamination.

[00:47:53] Marianne Metzger: So like your carbon filters, reverse osmosis eye in exchange. I mean, those are your, [00:48:00] your big ones. Uh, To rely on. I mean, there's been some improvements, but I mean, technology's pretty much the same. Cool,

[00:48:09] Caroline Blazovsky: cool. Maryanne. Are they doing anything now with it's it's desalination? Is that correct? Like taking water, I guess, what is that salt water and then removing it and making it into drinking water.

[00:48:18] Caroline Blazovsky: I, I see occasionally a friend of mine that we worked with, um, We went to high school together. He is big into water treatment out at UCLA as a professor. And I see they're always constantly doing, I think Kevin Costner was behind his company trying to, I guess, clean water, right. From whether it be oil, oil spills, or using, I guess, salt water to be able to use it as drinking water.

[00:48:40] Caroline Blazovsky: That type of thing. Is that like still pretty innovative stuff going on?

[00:48:45] Marianne Metzger: Well, I mean, the technology is like reverse osmosis basically is what they're using for desalinate. Decemination right. Um, yep. Yep. Membrane technology. So, I mean, it, it's, it's pretty common. Um, especially [00:49:00] like if you go down to the Caribbean, um, my favorite place to go is Aruba.

[00:49:05] Marianne Metzger: Nice. Nice. So. I've done. I've done some work with them in the past. Uh, cuz they do a lot of desal down there as well. So, so yeah, I mean they, they supply that whole island is all desal water. Cool. So, I mean it's, it's like, it's like getting the RO water directly out of your tap. Yeah. Down there.

[00:49:25] Eric Goranson: The problem that you see though, is, is it it's fairly expensive to operate, right?

[00:49:30] Eric Goranson: Yep. So it that's why you don't see in California, them trying to fill the lakes up there with the. Because yeah, you think they would, it would just, it would cost so much money to sit there and take, you know, water outta the Pacific and pump it all the way out there after they've done.

[00:49:46] Marianne Metzger: yeah, 100%. And that's like, like some of the things that I would talk to, like the, the people of Aruba, like my taxi cab driver, who would be like, yeah, but the, the cost of water out here is ridiculous.

[00:49:58] Marianne Metzger: So I [00:50:00] mean, it is expensive to do so you're absolutely right. It'll never, it'll never catch on in California.

[00:50:06] Eric Goranson: It's hardly too expensive to live there anyway. right.

[00:50:09] Marianne Metzger: Right. So, I mean, who wants to live there at this point? , you

[00:50:14] Eric Goranson: know, I, I tell you what I say that, and I joke about it, but then I've got our friends, like David Applebaum that, uh, architect of the stars that would like to be no other place.

[00:50:23] Eric Goranson: He's just living the life down there. So there's people down there that just absolutely love it. It's not for me, but, uh, you know, there's people out there. Yeah. That just, that it's their jam.

[00:50:36] Marianne Metzger: I mean, it's nice. And I like to visit, but not for me to live there for sure. Yeah.

[00:50:41] Eric Goranson: Hey, we, we started talking about this before we got on the radio and podcast here talking about this, but uh, you got a concert coming up, don't you?

[00:50:52] Marianne Metzger: Oh yeah. I got a couple coming up this summer. I can't

[00:50:54] Eric Goranson: wait. Sam here. We were starting to talk about Metallica, which is of course, one of my favorite old school [00:51:00] band. And then I brought up something that really mine. Yeah. Then I brought up a source subject with Mariana about me going to the monsters of rock festival when I was 16 years old, I think in, in 19 what, 86

[00:51:14] Eric Goranson: And, uh, to date myself there and when they were the opening act and, uh, right. And you weren't able to go, it sounds like.

[00:51:22] Marianne Metzger: No, I didn't make it little. Cause I, I was, I was a little too young, um, to go with my older friends. Um, so yeah, I remember, I remember that night very clearly. Me and my, my best friend, we both weren't able to go.

[00:51:38] Marianne Metzger: And you know, we sat around talking about what song would be playing right now if you were there.

[00:51:46] Eric Goranson: Oh my, my parents were good sports. I, how they let me and a bunch of friends at 16. drive two hours away. A friend's mom booked the hotel for us and paid it. We stayed in the hotel [00:52:00] and it was at 16 and went to the show and it was a wild show.

[00:52:07] Eric Goranson: It was a hundred degrees outside. So they had the fire department there with a ladder truck spring. Yep. Water over the top of people, cuz it was just packed with fire hoses to keep us.

[00:52:18] Marianne Metzger: Yeah, my, my sister and you know, her friends all got to go cuz they were older. And she said the same thing. It was like over a hundred degrees.

[00:52:26] Marianne Metzger: And like people were just dropping like flies cuz it was so hot out. Um, yeah. And they had the fire department there as well. You know, this was, uh, I think down in, uh, Akron rubber bowl. Okay. Is where they had it. On this in the Midwest. Nice back in the day.

[00:52:42] Eric Goranson: So I saw it up in Spokane Washington. So I saw it up there at their outdoor, you know, um, football stadium there that they had there for the college.

[00:52:51] Eric Goranson: So it was, it was a lot of fun, but woo, great show. You're gonna see a good show with them. I can't wait to catch them the next time around. I've caught 'em a few times and, uh, they never [00:53:00] disappoint.

[00:53:01] Marianne Metzger: Mm, never, never. And it's been years since I've seen him and it feels like forever because of this whole COVID thing that I've been able to see live music.

[00:53:09] Marianne Metzger: So, I mean, I am pumped and ready to go and, and I do ha I do have to drive all the way to Pittsburgh to go see them. So. Okay.

[00:53:18] Caroline Blazovsky: That city likes to party concerts in Pittsburgh are pretty good.

[00:53:23] Marianne Metzger: yeah. I, I have seen some good ones out there, so nice. But yeah, Metallica not coming close enough to Cleveland.

[00:53:31] Eric Goranson: oh, and I heard Cleveland rocks.

[00:53:33] Eric Goranson: So why not? Well,

[00:53:35] Marianne Metzger: exactly.

[00:53:36] Caroline Blazovsky: Why, why

[00:53:36] Eric Goranson: aren't they here? That's awesome. Caroline. I see you had a question over there. You were popping up before I took us off into left. Leveland

[00:53:42] Caroline Blazovsky: music. I'm gonna, yeah, I'm gonna go bopping back to water for a second. We have this massive issue in our reservoir reservoirs here, um, with.

[00:53:51] Caroline Blazovsky: Algae bloom. Now we just had one shut down. So no swimming, no. Um, taking kayaks out that kind of thing. And now it's [00:54:00] spreading to other local, uh, water, um, sources. So what is with algae blooms? How do they affect us? And is it something that we have to worry about moving forward, I guess, because of climate change?

[00:54:11] Caroline Blazovsky: I mean, know, we've obviously been seeing a lot.

[00:54:15] Marianne Metzger: So, so this is kind of interesting because like, when I first started in this industry some 20 years ago, occasionally you would hear about these algae blooms and it would show up like in like some random lake, you know, off the beaten path where, and, and you'd find out about it because like usually some animal.

[00:54:35] Marianne Metzger: Got into the water and, um, it's, you know, exposed to toxic chemicals. And unfortunately like either they died or they got really sick mm-hmm um, so, so yeah, LG blooms are happening a lot because of runoff into the lakes. Um, we see this here in Cleveland and, and more so to the west of us, like out near Toledo, because there's a lot more farmlands out there.

[00:54:59] Marianne Metzger: Um, and [00:55:00] basically it's a lot of like phosphorus that's making itself into the lake. Giving more food to the LG. The LG grows. And unfortunately, a lot of these like blue, green, LG is what they call it. Um, will release some sort of toxin into the water, which is scary, where it gets scary. Scary. Yeah. People get very

[00:55:21] Caroline Blazovsky: sick or what are the symptoms, if you are exposed?

[00:55:25] Marianne Metzger: I don't know exactly what the symptoms are. I don't remember off the top of my head, like what, what symptoms were, but I know they made people ill. I'm gonna say probably vomiting. Mm-hmm is, is a, a symptom. Um, You know, dizziness, that sort of thing. Cause it, it is like a neurotoxin neurotoxin. Yeah. Yeah. So, man, that is something

[00:55:46] Eric Goranson: to watch out

[00:55:47] Marianne Metzger: for.

[00:55:47] Caroline Blazovsky: You have that Eric out where you are in

[00:55:49] Eric Goranson: the lake, have you ever heard of it? A hundred percent? We have lakes and stuff around here that I can't even take the dogs walking around the outside usually in late summer, because they're like, Hey, you could kill your dog by drinking outta the [00:56:00] water there in that lake because of the, because of the blue, green algae.

[00:56:02] Eric Goranson: So it's something you gotta be really, really careful of. And we'll have one or two lakes every single year. It's gone on that way for a while here because our winters are very wet. And our summers are really dry. So we don't get much rain between, you know, mid, early to mid-June at the latest 4th of July.

[00:56:23] Eric Goranson: And now it doesn't rain measurably typically a couple days till late September, early October, so that there's nothing there to, to mix that water up. There's nothing to cool it down. It's just sitting out there, baking in the sun with not a lot of water movement. So there's not much of a chance to do anything, but grow that alga.

[00:56:43] Caroline Blazovsky: And that's important, cuz if you're camping or you're going out for the summer, cause all of our listeners do right. You take a trip, you get in your RV, you get in your car, you go out and you just pick a, oh look, this is a beautiful lake. I'm gonna take a dip and here you go. Cause you, you know, how can you really keep track of it?

[00:56:58] Caroline Blazovsky: People in the area might know that [00:57:00] there's a problem with it. But you know, as just an innocent bystander passing through the state or on vacation, you might not know there's a

[00:57:05] Marianne Metzger: problem. . Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy. I, I think they do probably put signs up mm-hmm in certain areas where they see where it's real prevalent, but yeah, I'm very weary about, you know, swimming in unknown waters.

[00:57:22] Marianne Metzger: Mm-hmm

[00:57:23] Eric Goranson: yeah. Our lakes are pretty well tested for that. I mean, if it's a little pond someplace, that's off the side of the road, that might not be it. So you gotta be careful. Generally are they'll, you'll see the caution tape across the parking lot and that kind of stuff where they're like, you're, you're, it's pretty obvious you're going into a place you're not supposed to be going to

[00:57:41] Eric Goranson: Yeah. So great. Well, Maryanne we're running outta time. What else have we not talked about today with water quality?

[00:57:50] Marianne Metzger: Gosh, I think we've, we've covered so much today. Um, I it's a lot, like I said, I kind of think, I mean, it's important to test and then figure out, [00:58:00] you know, what it is that you need and then, you know, apply the appropriate treatment.

[00:58:04] Marianne Metzger: And I, I think the one thing that. I'm also a little bit passionate about in the water treatment industry is, is that, you know, it's silly for us to expect like a municipality to produce like a high quality water and have it piped to our homes only for us to wash our cars with it. You know, so much of the water that comes to the home is not being, we're not drinking it.

[00:58:30] Marianne Metzger: So you. At some point in time, I feel like, you know, every household is gonna have some sort of water treatment device and, you know, that's the way it should be. Perfect.

[00:58:41] Eric Goranson: Fantastic. One of the little Metallica comment, did you guys see that stranger things show moved? Metallica's master of puppets to the iTunes rock chart.

[00:58:50] Eric Goranson: Number one, this last week. Oh, no, they were on stranger things. Yeah. So all of a sudden master of puppets, which came out when I was in middle school is now [00:59:00] number one on the rock charts. And I'm like funny how TV can get us old school rock back up in the charts.

[00:59:08] Marianne Metzger: That's awesome. Oh, it's always been in the top of my charts.

[00:59:11] Eric Goranson: Me too. Oh, absolutely. Master. We'll get outta here. I'm Eric G and I'm Caroline B and you've been listening to around the house