You need water to sustain life. But, the quality of that water is just as important as the quantity. Whether your family relies on a municipal water system, a private well or even bottled water, you cannot be sure it is safe and free of toxins. Filtering your drinking and cooking water is critical to safeguarding your family’s health.

With the so many aesthetic, organic, inorganic and microbiological contaminants threatening your water supply, filtering it before use makes eminent sense. If you don’t, you cannot be sure that the water you and your family consume on a daily basis is safe, clean and life sustaining.

If you are on a city water system, you might trust your tap to deliver all the safe, potable water your household needs. Public water suppliers must abide by specific safety standards set by the EPA, which limit the levels of impurities in public water. Even if your city supplier is in compliance with EPA, the water is likely to contain sanitizing additives such as chlorine and low levels of impurities you don’t know about. Many of these sanitizers make your water taste and smell unpleasant. “More than 20% of the nation’s water treatment systems have violated key provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act over the last 5 years” says the New York Times. “And water provided to more than 49 million people has contained illegal concentrations of chemicals, like arsenic or radioactive substances like uranium, as well as dangerous bacterial often found in sewage.”

If the city pipes are old or in disrepair, the water traveling to your home can pick up contaminants along the way. Your city water may absorb heavy metals from natural deposits underground or it may pick up lead particulates from old piping. Even so-called lead-free pipes contain as much as 8 percent lead.

During an emergency, municipal water is at a greater risk for contamination than at any other time. The breakdown of standard sanitation procedures heightens the potential threat contaminated water possesses to your family. The best way to protect your loved ones is by filtering your water before drinking it or cooking with it.

If you are part of the 14 percent of Americans who source their drinking water from private wells, you may believe your supply is naturally pure. The fact is, however, that unless you test your well water regularly, you could be drinking more than you bargained for. Unlike community water supplies, government does not regulate well water quality. Because you source your water from underground, it may contain heavy metals like lead and mercury, or other toxic minerals from natural deposits. It could also be contaminated with pesticide residue, nitrates from fertilizer runoff or even bacteria from organic waste.

It is simply good sense to filter your well water before drinking it to remove impurities.

Bottled water is not subject to EPA Safe Drinking Water Act. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) treats bottled water the same as any other food product. It monitors handling and packaging safety but allows minimum chemical, microbial and radiological contents