From Legal Limits to Living Well: Rethinking What “Safe” Water Means at Home

Brown, sulfur-smelling water stamped “healthy” by the lab was the wake-up call: legal doesn’t always mean safe. We sit down with water treatment expert Sidian Kaufman to unpack the gulf between regulatory limits and what’s best for long-term health, and we map out practical, affordable steps to turn your tap into a trusted source—no plastic bottles required.

Sidian explains the EPA’s MCL (Maximum Contaminant Level) versus MCLG (health-based goal) and why the “feasible” standard can leave you drinking water that technically passes while still carrying avoidable risk. We share gripping real-world stories, including a shallow-well household dealing with cryptosporidium that standard tests missed, and a city water case where a spike in chlorine byproducts—like dibromochloromethane—coincided with serious concerns. These moments reveal how chronic, low-level exposures often fly under the radar and why targeted testing and tailored filtration change outcomes.

We also tackle microplastics and nanoplastics—the everywhere problem that turns bottled water into a Trojan horse. With studies estimating tens of thousands of particles per liter in bottled water, we focus on practical defense: reverse osmosis under the sink for drinking and cooking; nanofiltration or ultrafiltration for whole-home protection; and simple behavior shifts like using stainless steel or glass bottles and avoiding heat-cycled plastics. Along the way, we dig into skin and hair issues tied to hardness, how to prioritize a real test panel (metals, VOCs, chlorine byproducts, PFAS), and why builders are starting to make filtration standard in new homes and remodels.

If you’ve wondered whether your water is truly serving your health, this conversation gives you a clear roadmap: test smarter, filter where it counts, and carry clean water without plastic. Subscribe, share this with a friend who still buys bottled, and leave a review with your biggest water question—we’ll answer it in a future episode.

Chapters

• 0:00 Meet Sidian and His Mission
• 3:18 Legal vs Healthy: EPA Limits Explained
• 7:03 What “Pure” Really Means at Home
• 10:53 Bottled Water Paradox and Plastics
• 14:03 Nationwide Solutions and Remote Installs
• 17:03 Surprising Case: Cryptosporidium on a Well
• 22:43 City Water, Chlorine Byproducts, and Risk

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:24

Hi, how are you? This is Demaris Grossman, and thank you for joining in on the Mindfully Integrative Show. So today we have an amazing guest, Sidian Kaufman, and he will tell you all about his obsession with water, but not really obsession, but his passion in water and you know what is in our water and why he has made it more pure in the northwest area, I believe. And he'll tell you more about it. So nice to meet you. How's it going, Sidon?

SPEAKER_00: 0:49

It's great. Thank you for having me on, Demaris. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02: 0:52

Of course. I appreciate you taking the time. So tell us a little bit. One, tell us a little fun fact about yourself, something people don't know.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00

Something people don't know. I don't know. I've been on so many podcasts recently. I've I've said way more about myself than I ever thought I would. Okay. All right. Well, maybe just a fun little okay. Wait, I have something. I am actually I'm making a I've been working on like a comic, a comic book.

SPEAKER_02: 1:19

Cool.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20

As random as that is.

SPEAKER_02: 1:21

Yeah, I'm trying to write a little screen, screen film play, like a little you were doing, yeah. Yeah, but it's more of just like, oh, that's fun, but I'm like, oh, what am I what am I doing?

SPEAKER_00: 1:33

When you're when it's not your only thing, it takes like decades, right? Right.

SPEAKER_02: 1:37

That's just like my more of like, oh, that sounds nice.

SPEAKER_00: 1:41

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02: 1:42

But that might work out. What's the what's the comic book about? Like or the gist.

SPEAKER_00: 1:46

I mean, it's called it's called Prism Prison. I actually even have a website for it. It's it's kind of a very futuristic kind of world-building thing. I think I have six comics made already. I'm not the artist, I'm only the writer. So I have to like save up money, pay an artist to develop it, that kind of thing. So I've been that makes sense. Doing it, I've been doing it for 15 years now.

SPEAKER_02: 2:10

Oh, that's so neat. Yeah, I did a children's book, and I remember when I was picking my artist to do the children's book. And yeah, and then to to grow the children's series, it's like, oh wait, that's right. I have to put that. Yeah, like you said, you have to pit the money together and really have a good, a good script and stuff. So I I get you there. And we just do that part is just because, right?

SPEAKER_00: 2:29

Yep, exactly. Just because it's fun.

SPEAKER_02: 2:32

Yeah, I I I get you. That's what happens. We're creatives, you know. So talk to me a little bit about, you know, your passion in water, but also kind of why what brought you on the show.

SPEAKER_00: 2:45

Well, I I like talking about water, and I I like that your show is is really focused on health. And those are really related. I I got into water treatment because of a funny little incident when I was a property manager where there was some brown, rotten egg, smelly water that I took to a lab, and the lab said, This water is healthy. After they did the test, they they gave it back to me and said, This water's healthy. And I'm like, What? They didn't give me the water back because that would have been too weird. They just got gave me a report saying the water's healthy. And I was like, How is that healthy? Did you see the water? And then they they corrected themselves and they said that it's within the legal limits. And that brought me down a rabbit hole. I mean, I re had to research. I I the original owner of Pure Water Northwest, the company I own now, the original owner is the first person I reached out to to talk about that. And he explained what was going on with the legal level versus the health level set by the EPA. And the the EPA has two levels. They they actually have more than two, but they have two primary levels, the MCL and the MCLG. So the MCL being the legal level, uh arsenic, for example, has 0.01 parts per million allowed in water. And arsenic being on the periodic table, it's everywhere. If you look at a Department of Ecology map for arsenic, the entire United States is covered in red. So arsenic's going to be in water, but removing it down to zero is incredibly difficult. So the EPA sets these standards because, well, they even say right on the website, the MCLG is the is set as, I'll see if I can directly quote it, is set as close to the MCL as feasible, taking cost and other factors into consideration. The MCLG being the health level. So the upshot of that is the water you're drinking is going to legally be allowed to be above the health level set by the EPA. That got me into water treatment.

SPEAKER_02: 5:07

There's so many things there, right? So many things that are there's so many parts of that. So what when you say pure, you're pretty much trying to take out of all the impurities of the water or just all of these like things. Like what tell me more about that.

SPEAKER_00: 5:25

Yeah. So in water, what we want is we want it to be low enough that if you drank it for a hundred years, it wouldn't be that big a deal. That's that's like the goal with water. Getting it down to zero is basically not possible. It costs millions of dollars in a laboratory to get water down to pure H2O. And then as soon as it's exposed to air, it's instantly not pure H2O anymore.

SPEAKER_01: 5:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 5:59

So you uh you can't get pure, pure, pure, pure, pure H2O, really. And if you did, it actually wouldn't be that healthy to drink because it's a solvent and it will immediately start pulling. If you were to drink it, it would immediately start pulling stuff out of your body into it. So that is yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 6:21

See, we need minerals. We still need minerals in the bottom.

SPEAKER_00: 6:24

So that's true. You don't get a ton of minerals from water, but you need a water to have a balance, yes. Um, you just you want it lower than is generally available. The the water you get from bottled water is usually tap water that's been run through one or more kinds of filters. And what what those filters are really determine that whether the water's good or not. And then there's an there's an ironic balance with bottled water. I know we're we're on a new topic now, but we're there's an ironic balance with bottled water where if you get it too pure, it will start leaching the plastic off the bottle.

SPEAKER_02: 7:05

So you've just like you've defeated the purpose of having a quality water because now you're just in place in a in a plastic bottle for manufacturing purposes.

SPEAKER_00: 7:18

That's right. And because of that, that's why we're in business. That's why that's why I got into water treatment, because it is best for people to get their water from their house and put it in a glass or metal bottle. That's what's best.

SPEAKER_02: 7:33

Because most of the time it is being distributed in plastic bottles or plastic containers.

SPEAKER_00: 7:40

Yeah. So if you can get ultra pure water right out of your faucet, and by ultra pure, I don't mean like actually ultra ultra pure. I mean that's very more pure than is delivered by the municipalities, and then put it in a glass or metal bottle, then you're gonna have very good water. Your water will be better than you can get from a store. And that's that's our goal. That's basically that's my mission is for people to have that at their house.

SPEAKER_02: 8:07

Are you able to do this nationwide or just in the north, northeast, northwest?

SPEAKER_00: 8:11

Northwest. I I can do it nationwide, actually. I have a lot of since I've been podcasting, I have a lot of clients reaching out to me from elsewhere.

SPEAKER_02: 8:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 8:21

And when that happens, I can just mail them a system.

SPEAKER_02: 8:24

So oh, that's good. Oh, that's good to know. So when we have those that online and you know, I'm on the East Coast, you're on the West Coast, like, you know, reach out to people that, you know, we'd love to have that, you know, these amount of things that are available, I feel like it's it should be added. So, what have you found that has been the most, you know, byproducts or harm for patient for people, for clients that you're like, all right, I have to change this? Or what have you seen health-wise that has come up? That's good. I guess there are two questions. First, what have you seen the high probability of in in the water? And then second, what kind of health conditions or things have come up because of it?

SPEAKER_00: 9:03

Yeah, I've seen a lot of surprising stuff. I've had a I ran into a family who was losing their mind because they were they had cryptosporidium in their water.

SPEAKER_02: 9:17

Oh my goodness. And explain to people what cryptosporidian is.

SPEAKER_00: 9:21

It's just very, it's a very rugged and very dangerous bacteria. So it is, it's it's not a it's not a bacteria you want to be drinking consistently. It and it was surprising. I the levels must have been low because it wasn't really killing them, it was making them mentally unstable.

SPEAKER_02: 9:42

Unstable. Wow. And how did one how did you detect it in this scenario? And then did they were they able to get treated antibiotics and all that or whatever?

SPEAKER_00: 9:51

Yeah, they they were, they were able to get it treated, and we detected it honestly because the they thought it was they came to us and they were a little manic, actually, right? So they were somewhat not trusting anyone they talked to. So I had to handle them with very gentle care. It was a very unusual situation, actually, because most of my clients, I can just get straight to the point, but I had to be very, very cautious with what I said with them. And then they they thought it was metals, I thought it was metals, so we we searched for that first. The metals were not bad enough to really be causing that. Where I was like, Oh, are we gonna find mercury?

SPEAKER_02: 10:34

Like, yeah, yeah, I could see that lead, mercury, something like that. Very, oh hey, that might be it.

SPEAKER_00: 10:40

Yeah, exactly. And like they they did not think that they were going like downhill mentally. They did not think that, obviously. So I I couldn't say anything like that to them. I just was looking for it. And then I researched other possible causes, and cryptosporidium actually came up, and so I was like, okay, that doesn't actually normally get tested on a bacterial bacterial test. So what I did was I did a heterotrophic plate count to identify that whether or not bacteria was present in the water at all, and that did identify that. And then I did a broad spectrum panel of different types of bacteria, and Cryptosporidium popped. And I was like, wow. And so it was just like where was it coming from?

SPEAKER_02: 11:27

Do you know the source? I have no idea.

SPEAKER_00: 11:29

They well, they were on a well, and so the source of the well water was a river nearby. Oh so it was a shallow well, yeah. Yep, it's not a common. I've I've been doing this seven years myself now, and it's the only time I've ever run into cryptos for a dame, actually.

SPEAKER_02: 11:48

But I've only heard of it like in the textbooks and like one in the hospital. So, like for me personally, no. Have I ever seen no, but I've you know, um heard of it, you know. Yeah, and there's so many different, you know, organisms that can really do a number like legionnaires and you know what I mean, like the whole nine.

SPEAKER_00: 12:07

Yeah. So and then another client, this person was actually on city water, they were on a mean, they weren't on a well, they were on a municipality, and the municipality was just known for solving their what so every municipality has to consistently test, like do monthly tests on the water. And they they had a problem where they would this particular municipality, when they ran into anything, they would just overdo it with chlorine. And so what what this this lady had a miscarriage and she was pregnant again, and she just did not want to risk that the water was the cause. And normally, normally we don't think the water is going to be the cause of a miscarriage, but you know, we that that would be a rare cause, right? And proving a proving a causal link is nearly impossible, but we did a test anyhow, and the dibromo chloromethane, which is a chlorine byproduct, was just off the charts. And dibromochloromethane can cause that kind of problem in some cases. So she she's pretty convinced that that was the cause of her miscarriage. Obviously, you cannot in any way say that because a miscarriage can be caused naturally and it can be caused by external factors. There's just so many possible causes. But the the water, it smelled like fish because of an amine off-gassing. And so it was just very yeah, it was very difficult to because it didn't smell like fish until later.

SPEAKER_01: 13:51

Like oh, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00: 13:53

Yeah. When I got there, it smelled like fish. So she hadn't been drinking it by that point, but she was before. So when I when we finally did a solution for them, it was it was I I actually had to uh I had to build something kind of unusual, but the uh the solution worked, and they're they have great water now. And she was in school at the time and she's developing a whole like school. She she changed her entire like thesis to this situation she went through, and she's now like it uh developing something around it. But that was another very unusual one.

SPEAKER_02: 14:34

That's what I'm saying. Where we talked briefly about your passion, like when your own stuff becomes your passion. Yeah, you just you you you realize that hey, I I gotta gotta get some of this information out into the world, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 14:46

Exactly. Yep.

SPEAKER_02: 14:48

Yeah. Um that that sounds very interesting. And I and I don't discount her feelings of it being a possibility, you know. I mean, lead paint causes, you know, a lot of mental debilitating for children and people, you know, so things are there's a lot of environmental and micro things. And we were briefly talking about microplastics before. There's so many environmental things that can cause issues. And the water is something that you would like on a daily, that's like we need to live and use instead of having these sugary junk drinks. It's like you just want to come and have a glass of water, you know, and we need it and hope it to be healthy.

SPEAKER_00: 15:31

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 15:37

What and then you were talking about the microplastics. What has that been like a big thing now? Is it new in the like I feel like it's a big thing in the news, or have you just seen it a lot in in your in your work?

SPEAKER_00: 15:49

Yeah. So we we have a lot of our clients calling us and asking us about microplastics. And how they are found in wastewater treatment plants, which means they are they are getting through our body into the wastewater treatment plants to some degree. But there is they the problem with microplastics is they attract pollutants like a sponge. So if it was just plastic, that could cause some potential inflammation in your body. Just literally by sitting in your body, right? Doing just being plastic, it could cause inflammation. But the the known problems with microplastics are like the the jury's still out, basically. It's all still under study, how much oxidative stress, how much DNA damage is caused. But because they attract pollutants like a sponge, microplastics existing in the environment create this random factor for humans where anything could be caused by them. Like it could be that they they're they kind of remind me of Forever Chems in the sense that it is completely unknown what the result of this existing in our environment will be. And studying it is incredibly difficult because it's so like you have to have longitudinal data in order to actually know, right?

SPEAKER_02: 17:30

Yeah, yeah, and that takes that takes time.

SPEAKER_00: 17:33

Exactly. That takes time. So, I mean, every major water source on earth has microplastics now. That's that's without a doubt. Every river, every ocean, rainwater, groundwater, all of it all has microplastics at some level. And so bottled water, what was that?

SPEAKER_02: 17:57

I said how sad.

SPEAKER_00: 17:58

Yeah, it is sad. Bottled water, of course, has much, much, much more. The NIH did a recent study on it, found roughly 20,000 particles of microplastics per liter of bottled water, which is just nuts. And then there's there's also the consideration of microplastics versus nanoplastics, nanoplastics just being way a thousand times smaller, right? And then there's every range in between. So most wastewater treatment plants remove 90 to 95 percent of microplastics, and so despite that, billions of particles still reach our environment daily, and then we we drink them, if that makes sense. So to avoid microplastics, one should not drink from bottled waters, they should avoid bottle. I mean, and by bottled I mean plastic bottles, they should avoid to some degree plastic containers, but if the container's been kept cold and not like if it's the type of food that's cold from start to finish and refrigerated the whole way, there's going to be less of it in that, if that makes sense. So refrigerated or frozen stuff that's in plastic is not going to be quite as bad as stuff that's allowed to heat up and cool down and heat up and cool down, which happens with bottled water pretty much every time. So that's the those are the concerns about microplastics and um getting rid of it in your own kitchen is pretty easy. A reverse osmosis system will do it. If you want it for your whole house, you have to get nanofiltration or ultrafiltration, which is like a 0.02 micron filter that you can get for your whole house. And yeah, that's basically the way to go.

SPEAKER_02: 20:09

But no, I mean, it sounds also pretty important. It would be great if like all the houses or the newer builds kind of had this as its normal, you know, as the norm, but I guess there's probably has to be policies and changes.

SPEAKER_00: 20:22

I'm working on that too. I I'm I'm talking to builders all the time. I I've I've got my uh my partnership going with at least a dozen different builders in Washington, and they're trying to offer some sort of water treatment to every new builder remodel. Because yeah, it's it's important.

SPEAKER_02: 20:44

No, that's amazing. I I think it's very important. Before we leave today on the show, what would you like to share with the audience? One last uh tidbit of information, and then of course we'll put all of your information on the your bio and and how to reach you.

SPEAKER_00: 21:01

Yeah, what I would suggest to everyone is that with their own water, they test or they find testing for their water. And when I say test, I don't mean like five or six different contaminants. I mean a 50, certainly above 20. You want to have a panel of metals, volatile organic compounds, chlorine or chlorine byproducts, and and PFOS. You want to know whether there's forever chemicals, PFAs, forever chems in your water. They're not testing for microplastics yet. So you're not gonna be able to know that. And then the other thing that I'd like people to do is treat their water. So minimally get an undercounter reverse osmosis and otherwise test your water so that you can identify what you might need for your whole house. And if you're having skin issues, do not discount the water you're showering in. My daughter had eczema from our water, and I fixed it, and she does not have eczema anymore until she showers somewhere else.

SPEAKER_02: 22:04

So I I have heard that before. Is it is it because was it metal plastics? Do you remember remember what it was or just the just the irritants in it?

SPEAKER_00: 22:14

It was actually just hardness for her. Just hardness. It was just calcium and magnesium.

SPEAKER_02: 22:21

It just dried her out. Dried her out.

SPEAKER_00: 22:22

Yeah, yeah. That's what and obviously I've talked to dermatologists about this and they and why they don't recommend this more often. They say that it's very person specific. So this isn't like a panacea, it's it's not gonna save everyone from that, but it is something people should look into if they haven't.

SPEAKER_02: 22:40

But you know, so I agree with that in not being it's very patient specific, but I'm also thinking of it as like if you just had the filter head, right? At least at that minimum, that in itself could save the the the hair issues, the eczema on the hair, the the dryness. I mean, it can just maybe even if you ended up like drinking like one when you're like it it's just a little bit of a help. So it's like even if that conversation can be made, I don't think it's necessarily that it has to be considered just one person, but I think as a collective, if we can just we're talking about trying to, you know, decrease all this junk, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 23:19

Yeah, no, it's true. Yeah, I mean, there's no downside to treating the water in your house for sure. So I absolutely agree with you.

SPEAKER_02: 23:28

I really appreciate you being on. And obviously, this is a passion of yours, water and you know, just being, you know, preventing more health issues for others. Thank you. And if you like to be reached, how can people reach you?

SPEAKER_00: 23:40

Well, my name is unique. So if you just type Insidian into Google, you'll find me. My company's name is Pure Water Northwest. Very easy to reach that way. I think my cell phone number is published online, ironically.

SPEAKER_02: 23:56

And no, oh no, don't tell everyone now. But how about your Instagram? Is it Pure Water Northwest?

SPEAKER_00: 24:02

Yeah, it is. I also yeah, we can um share that for sure. But yeah, the uh the Pure Water Northwest is how to find us pretty easily. Our socials are are pretty decent on that.

SPEAKER_02: 24:14

So great. Okay, that's awesome. I really appreciate the time you being on with us. And is there anything else you'd like to add in right before we finish?

SPEAKER_00: 24:23

I just I appreciate you having us on, me on Demaris.

SPEAKER_02: 24:26

I really of course, of course. I think it's so important in all aspects of health, understanding that like environmental factors are are there and they're huge. And water in general and itself is how essential it is for our body to be thriving. And then if we can't even have quality water, which is such a necessity, it's like, man, the simple things need to be made simple and healthy. So I appreciate it being on.

SPEAKER_00: 24:53

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02: 24:55

So thanks again, guys, for joining in on the show and make sure you make it a mindful way each and every day. And today it's being mindful about the water that you drink. So thanks, guys, and have a wonderful day.