"Legally Clean" Water: How Modern Water Treatment Actually Works

Aurmina End-of-Year Sale
 As we close out Aurmina’s first year, really, its first few months, we wanted to mark the moment with something simple: gratitude.
 Lisa, Scott, and I built Aurmina because we believed there was a missing piece in modern water treatment, and we’ve been genuinely moved by how many people immediately understood what we were trying to do. Watching this small company help real people has been deeply satisfying, and we wanted to say thank you.
 Through the end of the year, we’re offering 25% off single bottles , with no limit on quantity. For those who already know they’ll be using Aurmina long-term, the 6-pack remains the best value at 34% off , so don’t outsmart yourself by buying six singles.
 Discount Code: HOLIDAY
 If you’ve been following my water series, you already know why this exists. Aurmina isn’t about stripping water down to nothing. It’s about restoring order, clarity, and purity after modern treatment has done its job.
 And in the spirit of transparency (and a little humor), the first draft of the post below was written before Aurmina even existed. If that makes this post a marketing scheme, it’s the most accidental one I’ve ever been part of.
 Either way, this is our thank-you. The sale runs through the end of the year.

 Drinking Water Treatment Plants vs. Wastewater Treatment Plants
 This post originally focused on just one half of our environmental water cycle, i.e. the journey of your drinking water from a surface or groundwater source to the water treatment plant and then to your home. Only later did it occur to me that I was ignoring the other half, how the water that comes out of your home, office building, school, or factory goes back to the environment.
 Neither part is pretty, but the wastewater part of the cycle is obviously more challenging to contemplate.
 Let’s get through this quick, because I think we all agree that we are way more concerned with the water that comes into our home for drinking and cooking than we are with what happens after it leaves (although it is disingenuous to ignore that half because, as you will learn below, the two are, and have to be, directly connected).
 For brevity, I took all I had written and had AI build me a table. The most uncomfortable to read is the “constituents” column:

 Now, in terms of understanding the differences between drinking and wastewater treatment plants, lets start at a high level; one prepares water for ingestion into the body, the other prepares water for discharge into the environment .
 In other words, drinking water treatment takes raw water from a natural source and make it safe, stable, and distributable as drinking water. Their core treatment philosophy is to control what is visible, filterable, and immediately dangerous, then chemically stabilize the water so it behaves predictably in infrastructure. Water that leaves a drinking-water plant is considered successful if it is clear, noninfectious, chemically compliant, and pipe-safe. In essence, they try to prevent immediate harm and protect infrastructure.
 Wastewater treatment plants take sewage and industrial effluent and make it environmentally acceptable for release back into rivers, lakes, or the ocean. Their core treatment philosophy is to use biology itself to break down organic matter, then remove or neutralize what remains. Treated wastewater is considered successful if it does not damage downstream ecosystems. They do not focus on making it drinkable . Not so fun fact: In many places, treated wastewater is intentionally returned to the same waters that supply drinking water.
 Ultimately, drinking water treatment manages chemistry, while wastewater treatment processes biology
 That inversion explains why modern drinking water, although legally “safe” is biologically thin, while treated wastewater is often released in a state that supports microbial and aquatic life more readily than the water we drink.
 Now, although the below study found that Themarox (the mother solution of Aurmina ) could successfully treat Mexico City wastewater, I’m a drinking water guy now, not a wastewater guy, so let’s move on with the original focus of this post.
 Mexico City Study
 760KB ∙ PDF file

 Download
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 The Realities Of Modern Drinking Water Treatment
 Contemporary water treatment is designed to meet regulatory thresholds by stabilizing chemistry and suppressing visibility, not by restoring biological or mineral integrity.
 Modern municipal water treatment is often assumed to be a process that “cleans” water in a comprehensive sense. In practice, it is a system designed to make water compliant with regulatory standards and safe from acute infectious disease, not to restore water to a biologically intact or mineral-complete state.
 The primary goals of conventional drinking-water treatment are to remove visible particulates, reduce microbial pathogens, and ensure that finished water meets maximum contaminant levels established by regulation.
 These goals emerged historically in response to cholera, typhoid, and other waterborne epidemics, and they remain the foundation of treatment design today.
 Treatment trains are therefore built to “manage turbidity” (water treatment language for keeping the water clear looking), disinfect against bacteria and viruses, and stabilize water chemistry so that it can be distributed safely through pipes without excessive corrosion or scale formation.
 Thus, modern drinking water systems are engineered to meet concentration-based regulatory thresholds, not to resolve the total chemical burden that modern water now carries.
 Modern water treatment is literally designed to keep water’s content invisible, dissolved, dispersed, and diluted below perception. It is almost like saying, “let’s employ methods so that they can’t see what is in their water.” If you think I am being alarmist or don’t understand water treatment, unfortunately you would be wrong.
 If you think that delivering water of the highest purity possible is the main goal of municipal water treatment, that would be as ridiculous as thinking the pharmaceutical industry’s main goal is to keep you healthy (sorry not sorry).
 Here I will argue that their main goals are twofold: keep the water clear, and keep it from messing up the pipes (Ok, fine, they also want it free of microbes too).
 Chemical Stabilization Over Removal
 One of the least appreciated aspects of modern water treatment is that many contaminants are not removed and are instead managed chemically . pH adjustment, corrosion inhibitors, and blending are routinely used to keep contaminants in solution or prevent them from leaching from pipes.
 If you think that sounds bad, let’s look into “how the sausage gets made” so to speak; meaning the methods they employ to get your water to arrive looking clear (and it’s not from piping it from a pristine mountain spring).
 Compliance with regulatory and clarity standards entails:
 keeping foreign substances from having to be removed or from aggregating by keeping them dissolved, dispersed, and chemically stable below action limits

 intentionally conditioning water with sequestrants (polyphosphates), corrosion inhibitors, and disinfectants that favor solubility and suppress precipitation to prevent scaling, corrosion, turbidity, and distribution failures

 avoiding even trying to eliminate the low-level dissolved metals, small organics, chelated compounds, and persistent industrial residues by overly focusing on removing particles and pathogens

 What They Focus On Removing
 OK, let’s go back to the water treatment industry, and it’s main goal, which is to remove largely physically discrete, filterable matter like;
 Suspended solids (sand, silt, rust, clay)

 Colloidal matter large enough to scatter light (turbidity-causing material)

 Biological particulates (bacteria, protozoa, algae)

 Flocculated aggregates formed during treatment

 Corrosion debris (pipe scale fragments, iron oxide particles)

 Problem: they don’t focus on removing the dissolved and/or chemically complexed substances.
 They don’t do this because, once water enters the distribution system, any tendency for material to settle or drop out is treated as a failure mode, further reinforcing chemical stabilization over resolution.
 What Water Treatment Removes, and What It Doesn’t
 Conventional municipal water plants typically remove 85% or more of solids, most pathogens, some heavy metals, nitrates, and disinfect most bacteria. Advanced treatments, such as carbon filtration, ozonation, reverse osmosis, or advanced oxidation, can reduce certain “contaminants of emerging concern” (CECs) and micropollutants (like pharmaceuticals, PFAS, and some pesticides).
 Still, removal rates vary from <50% to ~99%. Thus, removal rates vary widely, depending on the substance and plant technology.
 Many toxins, including endocrine disruptors, pharmaceuticals, antimicrobial-resistant bacteria, microplastics, and some industrial chemicals, are only partially removed or pass through most plants.
 Pollutants / Toxins Not Routinely Tested For
 Despite water safety laws, thousands of chemicals found in the water supply are not routinely monitored or regulated. These include:
 Pharmaceuticals (antibiotics, hormones, antidepressants)

 Endocrine disruptors (phthalates, bisphenol A)

 Industrial byproducts (PCBs, volatile organics)

 Microplastics and nanoplastics

 PFAS and related fluorinated compounds (many remain unregulated)

 Newly identified “contaminants of emerging concern” (e.g., flame retardants, illicit drugs, new pesticides)

 Natural toxins (algal toxins, mycotoxins)

 Resistant pathogens and genetic material (viruses, antimicrobial gene fragments)

 Uncharacterized Organic/Chemical Pollutants from Agriculture/Fracking/Mining

 Disinfection byproducts (THMs, HAAs) — currently discussed elsewhere

 Cyanotoxins (microcystins) — partially covered under algal toxins

 Transformation products (chlorinated pesticide metabolites)

 Surface Water Treatment: Clarification and Disinfection
 For surface water systems, treatment typically begins with coagulation and flocculation. Chemical coagulants such as aluminum sulfate or ferric salts are added to destabilize suspended particles, allowing them to aggregate into larger flocs. These flocs settle out in sedimentation basins or are removed by filtration.
 Filtration commonly uses sand, anthracite, or granular media to remove remaining particulates. The final and most critical step is disinfection, usually accomplished with chlorine, chloramine, ozone, or ultraviolet light.
 Chlorine Dioxide Exposes U.S Regulatory Posture
 Note: My other book being published right now is The War on Chlorine Dioxide , the main focus of which is on the decades long war suppressing the knowledge of, use of, and research into its efficacy as an orally ingested therapeutic.
 One of the main arguments supporting its safety is that many have been ingesting chlorine dioxide in our drinking water for over 75 years. Note that, although it has chlorine in its name, no free chlorine is liberated when used, thus it is not a chlorinating agent.
 However, in the United States, chlorine dioxide is used only in a minority of water systems, whereas in parts of Europe it is used far more commonly as a primary disinfectant or an oxidant in municipal water treatment.
 Now, the reason why it is not used in the U.S is particularly revealing about our water treatment industry. Chlorine dioxide was not displaced here because it posed a uniquely unacceptable risk, but because, in case of a screw up with it, its risks would be immediate, quantifiable, and resistant to regulatory dilution .
 “Resistant to regulatory dilution.” What the hell does that mean? I looked it up: it is when a hazard is made administratively tolerable by employing a few tricks like averaging exposure over time, spreading risk across large populations, and redefining “acceptable limits.”
 Thus, “we” prefer to use compounds which rest on long-term rather than immediate harm, because when levels are accidentally exceeded, the harms are buried long term, and thus, “temporary exceedance” does not force immediate action .
 You see, the principal byproducts of chlorine dioxide (chlorite and chlorate), if in excess, could produce acute, oxidative injury to red blood cells in a subset of people like infants, individuals with G6PD deficiency, and dialysis patients. A chlorine dioxide miscalculation shows up fast, affects vulnerable populations first, and creates immediate legal and regulatory exposure.
 That is the reason why most facilities prefer chlorine. Although it too produces toxic byproducts (trihalomethanes), those are associated with long-term risks (cancer). When limits are exceeded, they rarely require immediate shutdowns. A small increase in lifetime cancer risk is considered administratively preferable to the risk of acute microbial outbreaks, so they can risk “exceeding” more easily than with CLO2.
 Oddly, that is not the case in Europe where they encourages alternatives to the use of free chlorine when possible. The practical outcome is a regulatory system that disfavors disinfectants whose harms are prompt and visible, while accommodating those whose harms emerge slowly, disperse across populations, and remain statistically manageable.
 This reflects a preference for risks that are administratively easier to absorb than it reflects relative toxicity. What a world.
 Groundwater Treatment: Simpler, But Not Cleaner
 Groundwater systems are often treated less aggressively than surface water because groundwater is assumed to be naturally filtered. In many cases, groundwater treatment consists primarily of disinfection and, where necessary, iron or manganese removal.
 This assumption of inherent cleanliness overlooks the fact that groundwater chemistry can be profoundly altered by pumping, redox changes, and long-term exposure to agricultural, industrial, and urban contaminants. Treatment addresses compliance, not restoration.
 Orthophosphate is commonly added to municipal water supplies to coat pipes and reduce lead and copper release. This does not remove metals from the system; it alters their chemical behavior to reduce immediate exposure.
 Similarly, contaminants present below regulatory thresholds are rarely addressed at all. Treatment systems are not designed to remove dozens of trace organic compounds, pharmaceuticals, or endocrine disruptors unless specifically required to do so.
 Disinfection Byproducts: A Known Tradeoff
 Disinfection itself creates new chemicals. When chlorine or chloramine reacts with organic matter in water, it forms disinfection byproducts such as trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids. These compounds are regulated, but only within limits considered acceptable based on population-level risk models.
 Treatment plants adjust chemistry to balance microbial safety against byproduct formation. This balancing act reflects regulatory optimization, not biological ideality.
 What Treatment Does Not Address
 Standard treatment does not restore mineral balance, trace element diversity, or natural redox structure. Calcium, magnesium, bicarbonate, sulfate, and trace minerals are not replenished unless required for corrosion control or aesthetic reasons.
 Reverse osmosis, ion exchange, and advanced membrane technologies can remove a wide range of contaminants, but they also remove minerals indiscriminately. When used at scale, they require post-treatment stabilization to prevent aggressive, corrosive water from damaging infrastructure.
 Compliance as the End Point
 Ultimately, modern water treatment defines success as regulatory compliance. If water meets maximum contaminant levels, maintains disinfectant residuals, and flows safely through pipes, it is considered treated.
 The system is not designed to ask whether water is biologically coherent, mineral-complete, or physiologically supportive. Those questions fall outside the regulatory framework.
 A System Built for Visibility Control
 What emerges from this framework is a system optimized to control what is visible, measurable, and enforceable. Acute toxicity is addressed. Chronic, low-level, multi-chemical exposure is normalized. Mineral depletion is unmeasured.
 Water leaves the treatment plant stable, disinfected, and “legally clean,” yet often chemically oversimplified and biologically incomplete.
 Is There Anything That Can Be Done?
 All the above leaves a practical question for anyone paying attention: what do you do about the water you actually drink (note that I love asking a question which allows me to literally “sell” you the answer).
 Aurmina was developed for the part of the problem modern treatment never attempts to solve. It operates downstream, at the point where water meets biology. It is a “last line of defense” against the byproducts of human and industrial activity that our modern water supply carries.
 Aurmina removes disordered mineral load, collapses colloids, binds reactive contaminants, and restores mineral coordination and redox balance in the remaining water.
 The result is water that behaves differently: less aggressive, more electrically coherent, and more physiologically compatible, without first stripping it through reverse osmosis or distillation, or forcing it to be hardened or softened, and then attempting to bolt life back onto it afterward.
 Aurmina does not ask you to change how your city treats water or how your house is plumbed. It optimizes the water you ingest.

 If you value the late nights and deep dives into all the “rabbit holes” I then write about (or the Op-Eds and lectures I try to get out to the public), supporting my work is greatly appreciated.
 Subscribe now
 More Stuff (Aurmina and Book Publications)
 If you want to learn more about the water purifier we made from Shimanishi’s volcanic-mineral complex, go to Aurmina.com where we are running a 25% off end-of year sale.

 Upcoming Book Publications
 Yup — not one, but two books are dropping from yours truly (at the same time? What?)

 If, instead of (or in addition to) these Substack posted chapters, you prefer the feel of a real book, or the smell of paper, or like to give holiday gifts, pre-order From Volcanoes to Vitality , my grand mineral saga, shipping end of January.

 And if you want to read (or gift) another chronicle of suppression, science, and survival, grab The War on Chlorine Dioxide —the sequel you didn’t see coming—shipping early to mid-January. On this one, I say: “Buy it before they ban it.” Hah!

Summary: Safety defined by threshold is safety defined by tolerance, not by health. What we measure determines what we protect. What we ignore determines what we live with. Also - End Of Year Aurmina sale :)


The Myth of Clean Water: Passing Tests, Failing Physiology

Much of today’s water contamination causes harm without acute toxicity, accumulating quietly through regulatory normalization, chemical dilution, and delayed recognition. Plumes of contaminants in aquifers often last from decades… to centuries. The reason is that groundwater moves too slowly for natural flushing to clear contaminants on human time scales.
 How Polluted Drinking Water Sources Have Become
 Globally, over 1.7 billion people rely on drinking water sources contaminated by feces and other pathogens. In the U.S., millions depend on sources tainted with excessive heavy metals and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a large family of man-made chemicals used since the 1950s for their nonstick, water- and grease-repellent properties (think nonstick cookware, stain-resistant fabrics, food packaging, and firefighting foams). They’re nicknamed “forever chemicals” because the carbon-fluorine bond makes them extremely persistent in the environment and in our bodies.
 Other major contributors include untreated wastewater, industrial discharges, agricultural runoff (nutrient pollution), and deteriorating infrastructure. Up to 80% of the world’s wastewater returns to the environment without proper treatment.
 Commonly detected contaminants include arsenic, lead, uranium, PFAS, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, nitrates, fracking fluids, disinfectant byproducts, microplastics, pathogens (bacteria, protozoa, viruses), and more.
 What Is Contaminating U.S. Aquifers?
 If there is a single contaminant that defines the chemical degradation of U.S. aquifers, it is nitrate. Nitrate pollution comes from synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, manure from concentrated animal feeding operations, and septic systems. It is highly soluble, weakly retained by soils, and perfectly designed, chemically speaking, to infiltrate groundwater.
 USGS monitoring shows that nitrates are detected in a substantial fraction of shallow aquifers nationwide. Agricultural regions routinely exceed EPA limits in private wells. Many municipal wells hover just below the regulatory threshold.
 The regulatory limit for nitrate was set decades ago to prevent acute infant methemoglobinemia. It was not set to address cancer risk, thyroid disruption, microbiome effects, or interactions with other contaminants. What is more worrisome about nitrate is that when it is found, it means that the aquifer is open, permeable, and receiving other surface-derived chemicals.
 Modern pesticides are designed to degrade faster than their predecessors, but “faster” still means years to decades. Atrazine and its metabolites are widely detected in agricultural aquifers, persistent at low concentrations, and hormonally active at levels below drinking-water standards . Many pesticide breakdown products are less regulated and less studied than the parent compounds, yet often more mobile.
 PFAS: A Late-Arriving Catastrophe
 PFAS contamination deserves special treatment because it represents a regulatory failure of historic proportions. For decades, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances were discharged into soil and water without restriction. They were used in firefighting foams, military bases, airports, industrial processes, and consumer goods manufacturing.
 PFAS molecules are extremely persistent, weakly adsorbed by soils, and capable of traveling long distances underground. They now contaminate aquifers serving tens of millions of Americans, often without visible warning signs. Unlike nitrate, PFAS contamination is frequently point-source driven, creating sharp plumes that intersect wells unpredictably.
 The most disturbing fact relates to how “background” levels were determined. For arsenic or uranium, background can be geologic. For nitrate, there is a natural soil-derived baseline. For PFAS, there is no natural background. These molecules did not exist on Earth before the mid-20th century. During the decades that PFAS were entering groundwater, no analytical methods could detect them at parts-per-trillion levels. Aquifers were therefore declared clean.
 Regulatory Normalization
 Once PFAS became widespread, regulators faced an impossible problem. If zero is the goal, most water systems fail. If standards are strict, remediation costs explode. If standards are loosened, exposure continues.
 The compromise solution was to define acceptable limits, acknowledge “background presence,” and focus enforcement on hotspots. Today, “normal” levels are considered 1–5 ppt, and the absence of PFAS is the exception. This may be politically pragmatic, but it embeds a dangerous idea: that pervasive contamination is acceptable contamination.
 Metals: Natural, but Not Benign
 One of the most misunderstood aspects of groundwater contamination is metals. Arsenic, uranium, manganese, chromium, and others are often described as “naturally occurring,” which is true in a narrow geological sense and misleading in every practical one.
 Human activity alters groundwater chemistry in ways that mobilize metals. Pumping changes redox conditions. Oxygen introduction oxidizes sulfide-bound metals. Chlorination alters speciation. pH shifts increase solubility. Metals that were once locked into mineral matrices become bioavailable. Arsenic contamination in parts of the Southwest and Midwest is not merely a geological curiosity; it is a hydrochemical consequence of aquifer disturbance.
 Industrial Solvents: Legacy Plumes That Never Die
 Chlorinated solvents like TCE and PCE exemplify groundwater’s inability to heal itself. These dense non-aqueous phase liquids sink below the water table, pool in fractures, and dissolve slowly over decades. Even aggressive remediation often fails to eliminate the source.
 Instead, utilities manage risk through well abandonment, plume avoidance, blending, and treatment at the point of extraction. The contamination remains in place, quietly leaching.
 Pharmaceuticals and Wastewater Fingerprints
 Where aquifers are hydraulically connected to surface recharge influenced by wastewater, whether treated or not, trace pharmaceuticals and endocrine disruptors are increasingly detected. These compounds are biologically active at extremely low concentrations, are rarely regulated in drinking water, and reflect the chemical signature of modern human life.
 Municipal wells are tested for a defined list of regulated substances. Private wells, serving over 40 million Americans, are often tested rarely or never . Water that passes regulatory muster can still be chemically incoherent, stripped of buffering minerals, altered in ionic ratios, and carrying dozens of trace contaminants below reporting thresholds.
 Yes, this is the part where the author admits he treats his own water. Aurmina exists because, after writing all of this, I couldn’t unsee the problem. It’s a mineral-based water purifier. I use it. That’s the endorsement. Aurmina doesn’t fix aquifers (although they still need fixing). It just makes my hypocrisy slightly harder to accuse.
 The Deeper Problem: Chemical Simplification
 Beyond contamination lies a subtler degradation. Many aquifers have undergone mineral depletion due to ion exchange, altered calcium–magnesium balance, loss of trace element diversity, and disrupted redox equilibrium. This does not trigger regulatory alarms, but it changes how water interacts with pipes, soils, microbes, plants, animals, and human physiology.
 The issue is not only what has been added to groundwater, but what has been lost or distorted.
 The Honest Bottom Line
 Some U.S. aquifers remain relatively clean, especially deep, confined systems with limited recharge and minimal pumping. Many do not. This is not a failure of treatment plants alone. It is a systemic consequence of assuming that dilution, depth, and time would protect us.
 They didn’t. More Stuff (Aurmina and Book Publications)
 If you value the late nights and deep dives into all the “rabbit holes” I write about (or the Op-Eds and lectures I try to get out to the public), supporting my work is greatly appreciated.
 Subscribe now

 If you’re curious about the volcanic-mineral water purification product described above, you can find it at Aurmina.com . Think of it as a quiet act of restoration — starting with your water.

 Know that not one, but two books are dropping from yours truly (at the same time?) What?

 If, instead of (or in addition to) this Substack version, you prefer the feel of a real book—or the smell of paper—or like to give holiday gifts, pre-order From Volcanoes to Vitality , my grand mineral saga, shipping before Christmas.

 And if you want to read (or gift) another chronicle of suppression, science, and survival, grab The War on Chlorine Dioxide —the sequel you didn’t see coming—shipping mid-January. On this one, I say: “Buy it before they ban it.” Hah!

 This chapter is original material and protected under international copyright law. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author.
 © 2025 Pierre Kory. All rights reserved.

Summary: Dilution, delay, and detection limits built modern water policy. Most drinking water is declared safe because it meets a checklist. Human physiology was never part of the checklist.


Where Our Drinking Water Comes From

Sources of Drinking Water
 There are essentially two sources; “surface” and “ground.” Surface water refers to water from lakes, rivers, and reservoirs. Groundwater refers to a porous, chemically active, slowly moving system composed of fractured rock, sand, gravel, and clays which occur at various depths underground (see below):

 As of 10 years ago, approximately 61% of municipal water was surface water , and the rest was groundwater . Public water is relied upon by 87% of Americans, with the rest drinking from private wells (i.e., private groundwater). Unfortunately (or fortunately as you will read about in a later posr), in either case, a very small number of public water utilities employ Reverse Osmosis systems.

 So, which is better, the river above or the well below?

 The answer, my friends, is neither.
 The U.S. faces two overlapping water quality challenges:
 Surface water pollution is widespread, complex, and traditionally managed through treatment systems that are literally designed to not fully remove all possible contaminants. This affects many major drinking water sources. The problem with groundwater contamination is that it is pervasive in certain regions and difficult to detect and even more difficult to remediate.
 Let’s go deeper, starting in the ground (obviously) and then come up to the surface.
 Groundwater — The Myth of the Pristine Aquifer
 Most Americans apparently have a perception that groundwater from aquifers is somehow protected by depth, rock, and time, making it seem like aquifers are natural vaults, sealed off from the mess we make at the surface.
 An aquifer is not a lake. It is a porous, chemically active, slowly moving system composed of fractured rock, sand, gravel, and clays through which water migrates at rates measured not in feet per second, but often in feet per year. Whatever enters that system does not flush out. It accumulates, stratifies, reacts, and lingers.
 About three months ago, after deploying sulfated biotite mineral complexes in my practice, I feel like I changed my specialty from “pulmonary and critical care” to “mineralogy and hydrology,” because the way in which I perform history-taking has drastically changed, “What is the source of your household drinking water, do you remineralize, what kind of filter do you use etc.”
 The patients with private wells really do tend to answer both proudly and confidently. I am now learning that they shouldn’t be, because the story of private well is not a good one.
 What The Heck Is A Plume?
 I found this aspect of groundwater contamination somewhat fascinating. My thought was that when an aquifer gets contaminated, the contaminants diffuse uniformly, but instead, they form “plumes,” like smoke plumes in air, or an ink dye in water. Further, they elongate in the direction of flow and given how slow the water moves down there (feet per year), they result in long, tapering bodies of contamination - a plume.

 Shockingly, plumes can often last decades… to centuries. Reason being is that groundwater moves too slowly for natural flushing to clear them on human time scales ( insert “bug eye” emoji).
 Plume Avoidance
 Plume avoidance is a quiet but revealing admission built into modern water management. It recognizes that once contamination enters an aquifer, it often cannot be fully removed in any meaningful timeframe . Groundwater moves slowly, contaminants move with it, and many industrial chemicals persist for decades.
 Rather than attempting to restore a polluted aquifer, plume avoidance focuses on preventing exposure by staying out of the plume’s path altogether. Wells are relocated, drilled deeper, or positioned up-gradient from known contamination. Water systems switch sources, alter pumping patterns, or legally restrict new wells from tapping compromised zones. The goal is not to clean the water, but to avoid intersecting contamination in the first place.
 What makes plume avoidance so important is that most groundwater contamination does not cause dramatic poisoning events. Instead, it produces low-dose, chronic exposure that unfolds silently over years. By the time a plume is detected at a wellhead, the exposure has already occurred. Plume avoidance accepts this reality and shifts strategy upstream, away from treatment at the tap and toward source protection through distance, depth, and geology. In doing so, it quietly acknowledges a hard truth modern water systems rarely state plainly: some water sources are no longer salvageable, and the safest response is not to fix them, but to stop using them.
 The deeper I went into groundwater contamination, plume behavior, delayed exposure, and the “quiet” inadequacy of existing treatment strategies, the harder it became to pretend that pointing out the problem was enough.
 Enter Aurmina
 I can understand why some readers may see these water posts, excerpted from my 35 chapter book, “ From Volcanoes To Vitality, ” as self-serving, given that I recently started a company that sells a mineral-based water purification product called Aurmina . I won’t argue with that reaction. All I can say is that my entry into this space came after the research, not before it, and after realizing that the water my patients were drinking was subject to the same structural failures I was documenting.
 When institutions quietly accept that some water sources are no longer fixable, responsibility shifts to the individual. At that point, each person has to decide how seriously they take the integrity of the water they drink. Aurmina exists as one way to act on that responsibility.
 Depth Is Destiny: The Hidden Gradient of Water Contamination
 The quality of groundwater is not uniform. It changes dramatically with depth, and that vertical gradient largely determines how vulnerable a water source is to contamination. In general, the deeper the water, the older it is, the slower it moves, and the more insulated it is from modern surface pollution. The problem is that most drinking water sources never reach truly protective depths.
 Shallow Aquifers
 typically between 10 and 150 feet, are the most vulnerable by far. These are the aquifers that supply the majority of private wells and many rural households . They are directly connected to the surface through permeable soils, fractured rock, and agricultural land.

 Rainfall, fertilizer runoff, pesticides, septic effluent, fuel residues, PFAS, and industrial solvents can migrate into these aquifers with relative ease. Because recharge happens quickly, contaminants do not need decades to arrive—they can reach shallow groundwater within months or years.

 This is why shallow wells are disproportionately affected by nitrate contamination, bacterial intrusion, and newer synthetic chemicals. They are not “failed” systems; they are simply too close to the surface to be protected.

 Intermediate-depth aquifers
 roughly 150 to 600 feet deep, supply many municipal and suburban water systems. These sources are often assumed to be safe simply because they are deeper and regulated, but depth alone does not confer immunity. While these aquifers are less exposed to direct surface infiltration, they are still vulnerable to slow-moving contamination plumes, historical industrial releases, and long-lived chemicals that migrate laterally through groundwater over decades.

 Many of today’s PFAS detections, chlorinated solvent findings, and arsenic exceedances occur at these depths. The contamination may be dilute, intermittent, or just below regulatory thresholds, which allows it to persist unnoticed for years while still contributing to chronic exposure.

 Deep, confined aquifers
 extend from roughly 600 to 3,000 feet, and tend to be the cleanest in terms of modern industrial pollutants. These waters are often thousands to tens of thousands of years old and are geologically isolated by impermeable layers of clay or rock. Large municipal systems and drought reserves increasingly rely on them as surface and shallow groundwater quality declines. However, depth introduces a different class of problems.

 Deep aquifers frequently contain elevated levels of naturally occurring metals such as arsenic, manganese, iron, and uranium, as well as higher salinity and dissolved solids. These are not signs of pollution in the conventional sense; they are the geochemical fingerprint of long water–rock interaction. Treating these waters requires aggressive chemical adjustment, blending, or desalination, which alters the water’s mineral balance even further.

 The uncomfortable reality is that most Americans are drinking from shallow or intermediate aquifers because deep groundwater is expensive to access, slow to recharge, and legally constrained. Depth offers protection, but it is a scarce resource. Modern water systems operate largely within this constraint, drawing from sources that are close enough to the surface to be practical—and close enough to contamination to require constant monitoring, mitigation, and, increasingly, avoidance.
 The Temporal Trap: Why Groundwater Pollution Is Delayed
 What groundwater drinkers are drinking today is water that first encountered modern agriculture, industry, or waste streams decades ago. Nitrates applied to cornfields in the 1970s are still migrating down in parts of the Midwest. Chlorinated solvents dumped in the 1950s still form plumes beneath industrial sites today. PFAS released during Cold War firefighting exercises are now appearing in municipal wells for the first time.
 One good thing about surface water is that problems there can respond quickly, in that if you spill something into a river, it moves downstream. Treat the source, and improvements can be measured in months or years.
 The problem with groundwater is that aquifers respond slowly. This delay creates a dangerous illusion: by the time contamination is detected, the causative behavior often stopped years earlier, and the plume is already entrenched.
 Well Water
 When I talk to my patients about their water sources now, those with well water typically answer with what seems a quiet confidence, because on the assumption that if it comes from the earth it must be clean, stable, and protected.
 In reality, that confidence is rarely earned. Private wells sit outside the regulatory net, are generally the shallowest depth, are often tested once and then forgotten, and draw from groundwater that faithfully dissolves whatever geology, agriculture, industry, or waste history it passes through.
 The water may look clear and taste fine while carrying arsenic, nitrates, manganese, pesticides, PFAS, or microbial contaminants at levels that don’t cause acute illness but quietly shape biology over years and decades. Well water can be exceptional, but it can just as easily be a slow, unmonitored chemical experiment. Trusting it without regular, broad testing isn’t scientific; it’s hopeful.
 Testing With Aurmina
 I can happily report that I am currently in the mountains of Montana, at a house whose well is 1,200 feet deep! Unsurprisingly, given that it is mountain water, from Montana, and the well is one of the deepest you can find with a private house, I tested it with Aurmina … and it stayed clear! Check it out:

 More Stuff (Aurmina and Book Publications)
 If you value the late nights and deep dives into all the “rabbit holes” I write about (or the Op-Eds and lectures I try to get out to the public), supporting my work is greatly appreciated.
 Subscribe now

 If you’re curious about the volcanic-mineral water purification product described above, you can find it at Aurmina.com . Think of it as a quiet act of restoration — starting with your water.

 Know that not one, but two books are dropping from yours truly (at the same time?) What?

 If, instead of (or in addition to) this Substack version, you prefer the feel of a real book—or the smell of paper—or like to give holiday gifts, pre-order From Volcanoes to Vitality , my grand mineral saga, shipping before Christmas.

 And if you want to read (or gift) another chronicle of suppression, science, and survival, grab The War on Chlorine Dioxide —the sequel you didn’t see coming—shipping mid-January. On this one, I say: “Buy it before they ban it.” Hah!

 This chapter is original material and protected under international copyright law. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author.
 © 2025 Pierre Kory. All rights reserved.

Summary: Modern drinking water originates from surface and groundwater sources that are presumed clean but are increasingly shaped by legacy contamination, delayed exposure, and system design.


The Day A Water Toxicologist Tried To Break Aurmina (And Didn’t)

In a recent post, “ The Water We Thought Was Safe: Why Purity Isn’t Enough ” we took an uncomfortable tour through modern drinking water. We walked through the numbers on municipal systems and bottled brands, the alphabet soup of contaminants, the “forever chemicals” that refuse to leave, the pharmaceuticals, endocrine disruptors, microplastics, PFAS, heavy metals, and pathogenic leftovers that slip through even well-intentioned treatment plants.
 I shared the Kory family “sparkling water experiment” from Maui, where Lisa and I added Aurmina to different commercial brands and watched, with varying degrees of horror, what precipitated out of them overnight. Only one bottle stayed clear. Nine did not.
 We are living in an industrialized world, drinking from a pre-industrial water model.
 Although we didn’t test the precipitants (some could be benign excess salts), we for sure know what they could have been - over 250 known contaminants known to exist in our water supply. You guys wanted data then here you go: check out these test reports showing how well Aurmina removes the below list of contaminants:

 The issue is that, although municipal systems focus on and remove a significant subset of the above contaminants, they fall way short of the total. For bottled water fans, know they are even worse because it is often just filtered tap water, but with worse transparency and oversight (e.g., EPA vs. FDA).
 Reverse osmosis and distillation remove nearly everything, but they also “overshoot,” in that they remove the minerals your body and tissues actually need, leaving you with water that is clean but metabolically “dead.” Another little-known fact about R.O. systems is how wasteful they are; they waste several gallons for every gallon produced unless they are paired with a “reclamation” system. Hardly a scalable solution for the world.
 Anyway, that prior post ended with a simple point: Aurmina lets you take some control. Add it. Let it flocculate. Filter. Drink water that at least looks and tastes like it belongs in a mountain spring instead of an industrial park.
 In the wake of that post though, as always, the best readers in the world wrote back with the right question:
 “Okay, Pierre. Stories are nice. Anecdotes are cute. But show me the data. Has any independent 3rd party actually tested this stuff?”
 Oh, I thought you would never ask!
 In the answer to your question, one of the world’s top water toxicologists took a hard, dispassionate look at a Themarox-derived solution identical in composition to Aurmina and tried to “break it with science.” Fun fact: He did this on his own, out of interest and was not paid by the company who owned the product at the time!
 Who Is Paul Rosenfeld—and Why Should You Care What He Thinks?
 If you wanted to commission a glowing marketing report, Paul Rosenfeld is not the man you’d call.
 He’s an environmental chemist and toxicologist, co-founder of a firm with a very unsexy, severe name (although a kind of cool acronym): Soil Water Air Protection Enterprise (SWAPE). His daily work is not wellness branding; it’s remedial investigations, risk assessments, and cleanup programs for sites contaminated by the worst things humans have invented. He is also one of the top expert witnesses called upon in litigation involving industrial contamination of water sources.
 If something nasty has leached into soil, groundwater, or air, people like Rosenfeld are the ones quietly doing the analytical trench work to figure out where it went, how bad it is, and what—if anything—can be done about it.
 He is, in other words, professionally trained not to be impressed.
 In 2014, Rosenfeld took it upon himself to evaluate a liquid mineral formulation derived from Themarox, a product called Purinize, which had the same concentration of volcanic, ionic, sulfated trace-minerals that Aurmina has (same product, different label).
 The question on the table was straightforward: Does this stuff actually purify water, or is it just glossy marketing over a bottle of fancy minerals? He approached it the way a toxicologist should: with skepticism, high-end equipment, and no interest in making anyone feel good.
 How Aurmina Was Tested
 Rosenfeld used EPA Method 6020 with ICP-MS (Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry) to analyze the treated water. ICP-MS is a machine that vaporizes samples in plasma and separates ions by their mass-to-charge ratios. If an element is present above the detection limit, it will squeal.
 Before I forget, the 269 page report is here for those interested in confirming the below.
 He added the mineral solution to three liquid samples at the recommended dose (1 tsp per gallon or 1ml/L), measured total recoverable metals, and then did something significant:
 He looked not only at what was in the solution but also at what remained after it was used as a flocculant and the water was filtered.
 First Question: What Was Measured In The Water?
 When Rosenfeld looked at the mineral composition of the water after adding the Aurmina-like solution, he found what you would expect from something extracted from volcanic black mica:
 A solid macro-mineral foundation:
 Calcium in the ~30–32 mg/L range

 Magnesium around 12–13 mg/L

 Sodium roughly 36–37 mg/L

 Smaller but meaningful potassium levels

 Then he looked at the trace and rare elements and found: b oron, strontium, barium, molybdenum, zinc, tin, copper, manganese, vanadium, titanium.
 All present in micro-concentrations, consistent across samples, forming a complex multi-element matrix rather than a one-note salt solution. That mineral profile, on its own, looks very much like a naturally mineralized, volcanic-influenced spring or aquifer.
 Most importantly:
 Toxic heavy metals like lead, cadmium, arsenic, thallium, and mercury were not detected above reporting limits.
 In plain language:
 The solution was a clean ionic mineral complex, not a Trojan horse for hidden toxicity. So far, so good. But that only answers question one.
 Second Question: What Does It Do to Dirty Water?
 This is the part that matters to anyone living downstream of modern civilization (which is all of us).
 Again, in separate work by a separate lab, the same Themarox-derived solution as Arumina was tested against over 250 contaminants across multiple categories—things you’ve seen in my previous post’s “disturbing possibility” list:
 phthalates, BPA, heavy metals, pesticides (including glyphosate), industrial solvents, PAHs, PCBs, PFAS relatives, pharmaceutical residues, and more.
 Time after time, the pattern held: Add the solution at low concentration. Let the ionic minerals do their flocculation dance—neutralizing charges, aggregating suspended pollutants into larger clumps. Allow those clumps to settle or be filtered.
 The results weren’t subtle. those independent lab analyses showed marked reductions in contaminant levels across those categories , often to below reporting thresholds.
 This is why, when you add Aurmina to certain bottled waters, you see that dark ring or cloudy sediment settle to the bottom over hours: that is the visual endpoint of an electrochemical story.
 But still, a fair reader might ask:
 “ Fine, it pulls out contaminants. But are we just trading one problem for another? Are we dumping unnecessary aluminum and iron into our water in the process?”
 That is precisely where Rosenfeld’s report gets really interesting.
 Third Question: What’s Left After Flocculation and Filtration?
 After using the mineral solution as a flocculant/coagulant and then filtering the water, Rosenfeld measured the residual aluminum and iron—two of the main workhorse ions in the formula.
 Here is what he found:
 Sample 1: Aluminum – Not Detected; Iron – Not Detected

 Sample 2: Aluminum – 0.30 mg/L; Iron – 0.30 mg/L

 Sample 3: Aluminum – 0.039 mg/L (below reporting limit); Iron – Not Detected

 For context, the method reporting limit for both metals was 0.05 mg/L.
 In two of the three samples, aluminum and iron were below detection. In the third, they were present only at low, drinking-water-safe levels, entirely consistent with what you’d expect after effective coagulation/filtration.
 In other words, the minerals go in, do their job, and mostly leave with the trash. The solution doesn’t just clean the water; it essentially cleans itself out of the water as part of the same process.
 When Rosenfeld summarized his conclusions, he described the product as:
 a robust electrolyte base (a healthy Ca–Mg–Na framework)

 diverse trace minerals similar to high-quality natural mineral waters

 no detectable toxic metals

 excellent batch consistency

 “One Of The Best Defenses Against Water Contamination”
 Rosenfeld recommended the mineral application as one of the best defenses against water contamination , explicitly noting that it can be superior to distillation and reverse osmosis because it neutralizes contaminants while leaving beneficial minerals in the water , rather than stripping everything out.
 What About If you Add It to R.O or Distilled Water and Don’t Flocculate Before Drinking?
 Now let’s deal with the question that always comes up when someone gets clever and asks, “Okay Pierre, but what if I put it into RO or distilled water? There’s nothing to flocculate, so the minerals in Aurmina can’t be filtered.”
 Author’s note: Although I quickly tire of countering aluminum concerns, it’s also fun. Remember that I am an educator at heart (and by former profession), so I like imparting information people need to make good decisions.
 So, for those who did not read my previous post entitled “ Aluminum—From Feared Toxin to Forgotten Ally, ” let’s do a quick run-down of the non-issue of aluminum in water:
 Drinking Aurmina-treated RO water without flocculation does not create an aluminum risk.
 You’re drinking the same trace, complexed, tightly-bound aluminum that nature has fed humans forever — the kind that passes straight through you (like someone you tried to date in college :). Dose matters. Form matters. Context matters. Your cup of spinach carries more aluminum than a week of Aurmina. One cup of green tea? More than a month. If Aurmina’s aluminum triggers anxiety, you should have a panic attack next time you eat a salad at Whole Foods.
 And here’s the part everyone misses — nobody is putting “free aluminum” in your water. It’s locked up, sulfate-bound, low-bioavailability, the same geological form found in the spring water that hikers rave about like it’s liquid salvation. Human beings have been drinking that water forever. Mountain villages didn’t crumble from dementia. Our ancestors hauled buckets uphill with better bone density than most CrossFit gyms today (OK, maybe that is an overstatement, fine).
 Why is this?
 total aluminum content is in the same range as natural spring water

 complexed, sulfated form → poorly absorbed

 exposure tiny compared to food intake

 kidneys excrete the trace that enters circulation

 Humans have been drinking aluminum-bearing water as long as we’ve been human — aluminum is the third most abundant element in Earth’s crust and present in virtually every mountain spring. Aurmina adds only tiny amounts (one teaspoon per gallon — parts per billion), and almost none is absorbed; what little does is efficiently excreted. And again — it isn’t “free aluminum.” It’s complexed, natively blocked from absorption.
 Aluminum Content of Natural Spring Water
 Spring water flows through soil → rock → aquifer → spring. Soil and rock are silicates and aluminates — unless you’re tapping pure quartz (rare), you’re getting aluminum. Spring analyses routinely show 5–200+ µg/L depending on region, rainfall, pH, volcanic geology. People have been drinking that forever, long before bottled-water marketing invented “alkaline” and “glacial.”
 Check it out:

 The irony is almost comedic — people fear aluminum in purified water while blissfully sipping mountain spring brands containing the same thing. All it does in RO water is remind us that water is what it used to be — mineral-bearing, structured, alive. Not magic. Not medicine. Just returning something essential that modern purification has stripped away. You feel it, taste it — water suddenly looks and tastes like it came from a glacial stream rather than a pipe.
 Aurmina-treated RO water is compositionally indistinguishable from “pure natural spring water” that people pay $6 a bottle for — same aluminum form, same negligible bioavailability, same biological irrelevance — except Aurmina purifies and structures the water first.
 Aurmina Testimonials
 And here I go — exactly what I promised myself I’d avoid — drifting toward that slippery place where education and marketing start eyeing each other across the room (purely for illustration, of course).
 Still, I can’t resist sharing a few of the messages that have come in since we launched. They delighted us, humbled us, and honestly, they make all of this worth it. We’ve removed any health claims for regulatory sanity, so what remains is simply people talking about their water — “just the water, ma’am.” To wit:
 11/27/2025 - Marian Neevel
 “ An N of 1 but already think/feel some difference. Maybe a placebo, but after years of following the water/mineral crowd, I have finally arrived. So many thanks to the Korys and Scott for this gold.”
 Another, anonymous:
 It is only few days, but I feel great. Every morning I add it to my new overnight gallon of distilled water. It tastes great. I don’t filter anything, since there is nothing to filter. Only slight yellowness when you look from a distance at the glass container. Just the fact that for the first time in my life I’m very close to know what is in my drinking water - makes me feel better. Thank you a lot
 Greatly improves the taste of RO water
 Ronald Baznik:
 Wonderful product. You can see all the contaminants taken out of water. After it’s filtered it tastes very refreshing
 Amy Loesch:
 The more we drink the more we learn the more excited we become. It is water that satisfies
 Anonymous:
 I can’t believe the amount of orange sediment it is taking from my city water!
 Anonymous:
 I just received my Aurmina shipment today here in France, and I’m honestly amazed: it tastes exactly like pure, surprisingly fresh, pristine water! I drink a lot while I work, and it quenched my thirst instantly—every single time (without the usual urge to run to the bathroom). Feels like a game-changer so I’m looking forward to more knowledge from your book and more personal experience. Thank you, Dr. Kory ! 🌟💧
 Renee Clark:
 We’re very pleased with our Aurmina purchase. Even though we use distilled water the Aurmina minerals seem to make the water come even more alive with thirst-quenching satisfaction. We like it so much we’ve already purchased more. Highly recommend
 Giselle Horton:
 After reading Dr. Pierre Kory’s fascinating chapters on minerals, I HAD to buy this product. I triple-filter my water before adding this product. Last week, one of my water filters was not working, so I was only double-filtering and using
Aurmina. I could see the fallout/residue on that water. I quite frankly like the confidence of knowing I’m doing all I can to make the water I drink safe and healthy. I’m looking forward to his launching his Aurviva product.
 Anonymous:
 Well aware of the shortage of minerals in our soil, I’m very pleased to now be drinking Aurmina water. As a student of natural health I know the importance of minerals (including rare earths) for many enzymes and metabolism in general. I love that Aurmina water is ionic and thus increases the electric potential in my body. While I don’t feel an particular results, I know that this water will help my body to be strong and resilient in today’s world. I have much to learn from Dr. Kory. Thank you!
 What Aurmina Is (And What It Is Not)
 Aurmina is a modern, carefully standardized water purification product , identical to the one that Rosenfeld tested and which is regulated by the EPA. It is not a drug. It is not a supplement. It is not labeled or sold for diagnosing, treating, or curing any disease.
 What it does do—when used as directed—is bind and flocculate a broad spectrum of contaminants, help them settle out or become filterable, and leave behind water that retains its naturally beneficial minerals instead of being stripped down to a biologically empty solvent.
 In an industrial world, you cannot control everything that enters the reservoir, the river, or the municipal pipe system. You cannot force the bottled water company to run ICP-MS on every batch or report PFAS levels that no law requires them to test. But you can, quite literally, control the last six inches between the pitcher on your counter and the glass in your hand.
 For me, Aurmina is how I do that. I use it on our tap water. I would use it on certain bottled waters. I would use it to “wake up” reverse-osmosis or distilled water that would otherwise be too bland for long-term drinking, not as a magic wand, but as a chemically validated tool that has already undergone the kind of scrutiny most wellness products never see.
 Rosenfeld was not trying to exalt a miracle. He was doing what toxicologists do: measuring, comparing, checking for hidden dangers, and seeing whether the claims held up. In this case, they did.
 Why This Matters for You
 Most of us know, on some level, that our environment has become saturated with compounds our bodies never evolved to handle in such constant, low-dose mixtures. We don’t get to choose what’s in the rain, or the runoff, or the municipal wells. But we do get to choose how seriously we take what we put in our bodies every single day, sip after sip. I can’t promise you that cleaner, mineral-intelligent water will fix your health, reverse your disease, or suddenly make life easy. Those would be claims, and I’m not making them (because, knowing my late-career trajectory, I would likely be thrown in jail if I did).
 But, what I can say is this: when one of the world’s leading water toxicologists describes a Themarox-derived solution identical in composition to Aurmina as clean, stable, and remarkably effective at pulling out a wide array of contaminants while leaving beneficial minerals behind, I get to feel something I hadn’t felt about water in a long time—Not fear. Not paranoia. Just… peace of mind.
 In a world that keeps adding new chemicals faster than it regulates the old ones, that peace of mind is not nothing. If you’re one of the readers who wrote and said, “Show me the data,” this post is for you. If you want your glass of water to feel less like a chemistry experiment and more like something the Earth meant you to drink, Aurmina is one way—not the only way, but a powerful one—to begin reclaiming that.
 One bottle treats many months’ worth of drinking water (one bottle supports a household of two for over 6 months, and a single person for a year (i.e., $12 a month per person).
 One small ritual—add, wait, filter, pour—can quietly redraw the boundary between your body and the world’s exhaust. For now, if you want to see what Rosenfeld saw—if only in your own kitchen—Aurmina is there.
 And once you’ve tried it, you may find, as I did, that going back to “regular” water feels a bit like flying coach after you’ve once, just once, sat in the front of the plane.

 More Stuff (Aurmina and Book Publications)
 If you value the late nights and deep dives into all the “rabbit holes” I write about (or the Op-Eds and lectures I try to get out to the public), supporting my work is greatly appreciated.

 Subscribe now
 If you’re curious about the volcanic-mineral water purification product described above, you can find it at Aurmina.com . Think of it as a quiet act of restoration — starting with your water.

 Know that not one, but two books are dropping from yours truly (at the same time?) What?

 If, instead of (or in addition to) this Substack version, you prefer the feel of a real book—or the smell of paper—or like to give holiday gifts, pre-order From Volcanoes to Vitality , my grand mineral saga, shipping before Christmas.

 And if you want to read (or gift) another chronicle of suppression, science, and survival, grab The War on Chlorine Dioxide —the sequel you didn’t see coming—shipping mid-January. On this one, I say: “Buy it before they ban it.” Hah!

 This chapter is original material and protected under international copyright law. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author.
 © 2025 Pierre Kory. All rights reserved.

Summary: By popular demand: no stories, no theory, just the hard data on what a volcanic mineral solution does to filthy water. How laboratory evidence confirmed what nature and Shimanishi already knew.


Pre-Written Narratives and Premature Outrage: ProPublica's Plan to Review Our Upcoming Book, “The War on Chlorine Dioxide"

Well, friends, we’re still more than a month out from The War on Chlorine Dioxide’s official debut, and already the media sharks are circling. Dr. Kory and I have reporters emailing, texting, calling our cells, reaching out to colleagues, tracking down my husband’s mobile number (?!), leaving voicemails, and generally behaving like they heard we’re going to drop photographic proof that Elvis is alive in Chapter Seven. I’ve actually started checking my bushes for journalists when I leave the house. (That was a joke. This is Texas. Don’t even think about it.)
 Media [salivating]: “Stalked Author Threatens Second Amendment Retaliation!”
 Since one particularly persistent reporter (Megan O’Matz of ProPublica) has now contacted us sixteen times —about a book she hasn’t read for a story she’s essentially confessed she’s already written—I figured I’d just respond here so there’s zero chance she can spin my words to suit her purposes.
 Below, you’ll find excerpts from some of the increasingly aggressive emails Ms. O’Matz has sent to Pierre and me—each followed by my response. If she wants to badger us privately, fine. We are choosing to respond openly, where context can’t be edited out.

 Dear Megan,
 Thank you for your eighth email—plus the texts, the voicemails to both my phone and my husband’s, and the outreach to my co-author—offering us the opportunity to “clarify anything” in the article you’ve already written. At this point you’ve been more persistent than my dentist, the neighborhood solar-panel salesman, and my distant Cuban cousin who sells Bibles for a living. (True story.) For a book you haven’t even read and clearly know very little about, your enthusiasm is… impressive.
 We have no interest in being willing participants in your hit job, but since you’re moving forward with your preordained story either way, here are a few things you might at least pretend to consider before hitting ‘publish.’

 I swear I am not making that up. That is a direct quote from her email.
 Wow. Kudos to you for picking up on the similarities between my name and one of the other 8 billion people on the planet. Obviously nothing slips past you (well, except the parts where I haven’t lived in California for over seven years and the fact that your “discredited assertion” is anything but ). I’m not sure what you’re implying by even mentioning the likeness, but I sure hope you include it in your story. “Her name sounds like someone else I don’t like” could be a Pulitzer-winning angle these days. And since you went there, I’ll point out that your name is oddly similar to the actress Megan Mullally, who played a delightfully unhinged lushbag for 11 seasons on Will & Grace . Would you care to comment?

 You open your diatribe by asking how Dr. Kory came to know Senator Johnson, and then proceed to cite several interactions that literally are how they know each other.
 You reference two Senate hearings, a Fox News op-ed they co-authored, and a conference they both attended. These are the interactions. This is the answer. Demanding a complete relationship history after outlining the exact timeline is like asking, “But how do you know your hairdresser?” while she’s cutting your hair .

 Regarding ivermectin, you claim clinical trials found “no benefit” for Covid, which would be surprising to the dozens of positive randomized trials , preprints, epidemiological analyses, and real-world datasets—including the 2021 Bryant et al. meta-analysis which identified significant reductions in hospitalization and mortality.
 You might also want to mention that the 2022 TOGETHER trial—one of the headline studies used to claim ivermectin “doesn’t work”—was later re-analyzed and found to be riddled with major methodological failures (mid-trial rule changes, missing data, dosing errors, and a non-inert placebo, to name a few). Also worth including would be a review of the regions where ivermectin distribution campaigns corresponded with dramatic reductions in severe illness and deaths in 2020 and 2021, and the FDA’s infamous “You are not a horse” messaging being quietly walked back in federal court when government lawyers admitted, under oath, that the FDA had no authority to police off-label prescribing and that its viral warnings were merely “recommendations .” Those are some solid, interesting facts I bet your readers would enjoy!

 You cite the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM)’s sanctions as though they represent a neutral and deeply respected Council of Elders and not a private board that has functioned for years as a medical protection racket —one that bullies physicians, enforces ideological conformity, and financially gorges itself under the guise of “patient safety.”
 And here’s the part you definitely won’t mention: despite its long, embarrassing track record of scandalous behavior and conflicts of interest , ABIM keeps its power because hospitals and insurers require their certification for admitting privileges and reimbursement. Not because ABIM is uniquely brilliant or ethical—but because the system is built so that doctors can’t work without them. It’s structural coercion dressed up as standards, a monopoly that forces even the doctors who despise the certifying board to keep paying them just to stay employed.
 You also highlighted the fact that Dr. Kory no longer holds licenses in Wisconsin and California. Correct—he elected not to renew them after relocating his practice. That’s standard procedure, not a disciplinary event. A critical detail, unless one prefers innuendo over accuracy.

 In your many emails, you repeatedly describe chlorine dioxide in fear-based terms (“bleach,” “toxic,” “warnings, injury, death,” etc.) at the same time admitting that it is frequently used safely in a variety of applications. You mention water purification and mouthwash, but you left out food sanitation, medical contexts , and the fact that it has been widely studied in peer-reviewed journals for its antimicrobial and antiviral properties .
 If you’re going to quote safety thresholds, you might also want to include the context: everything has a toxic dose—including nutmeg, spinach, and tap water.

 The autism question is framed like a courtroom trick—“There is no cure,” “it’s nothing but snake oil”—as if simply invoking an unnamed EXPERT™ ends the discussion. Oh! Well if an expert told you, then by all means, shut down every research program on Earth. Pack it up, scientists. Kimberly From The Panel has spoken.
 The reality is, chlorine dioxide is being used to treat (nobody said “cure”) autism with life-changing results. Snake oil, by definition, wouldn’t do that. Funny how the lazy pejorative is only slapped on substances that can’t be patented or turned into a $38 billion market. SSRIs? Statins? GLP-1s? Mixed evidence, huge side-effect profiles, kids growing breasts on antidepressants , patients losing muscle mass ( and teeth !) after taking weight-loss injections—yet not even a suspicious side-eye. Apparently “snake oil” is just industry-speak for “we don’t own the rights.”
 Meanwhile, back in the real world, chlorine dioxide compounds are being studied in controlled settings by researchers in the U.S. and Latin America. The molecule’s biological activity is not in dispute ( NASA actually dubbed it the “universal antidote ”); the real debate is how it should be used, at what dose, and in which clinical contexts. The War on Chlorine Dioxide is a comprehensive examination of the existing evidence and a plea for open-minded inquiry and rigorous research.

 You point to various online guides that offer what could be considered dangerous dosing instructions. We agree, the internet is a terrifying wasteland of misinformation and disinformation. We’ve both spent the last several years writing about exactly that, in fact.
 Suppose you grow apples. No, you don’t even grow apples, you wrote a book about the history of the popular fruit. And then some guy goes on Reddit and starts telling people that the secret to robust health and spiritual enlightenment is to stick Honeycrisps up their noses. Kindly explain to me what this has to do with your archival deep-dive.

 Your email mentions FDA warnings about chlorine dioxide and trips over itself to point out that chlorine dioxide is not FDA approved. It’s sweet—wholesome, even—to know how concerned the FDA is about our health and well-being! I mean, sure, they don’t care if we chain smoke or guzzle tequila when we’re pregnant or exist on a diet of Krispy Kremes and McDonald’s fries. That’s between us and DoorDash. But swallow the same molecule used to purify municipal drinking water and suddenly they’re our overprotective nana. No red flags there whatsoever. Really.

 From a paper by Dr. Mitchell Liester (and so much for FDA approval!)
 Chlorine dioxide isn’t an FDA-approved drug because FDA approval requires a sponsor willing to spend tens—sometimes hundreds—of millions of dollars on clinical trials, patents, and regulatory filings. No company is going to bankroll that process for a simple, unpatentable molecule that anyone can make for pennies. FDA approval is not a measure of scientific potential; it’s a measure of who can afford the regulatory toll booth.
 But while we’re on the subject, do you know what was FDA approved? Vioxx. Fen-Phen. Thalidomide. Some COVID-19 vaccines (and have you seen the VAERS numbers lately?). To be clear, “FDA approved” has never, ever meant “safe.” It only means “profitable.”

 A full half of the book we’ve written (and I realize you haven’t read it yet) is about the pioneers and proponents of chlorine dioxide who have been discredited, destroyed, or flat-out murdered. Would we care to elaborate? We already did—over about 150 pages. Pierre has also covered many of the persecutions extensively on his Substack , along with the rather impressive evidence base for chlorine dioxide as a therapeutic.
 If you’re going to write about a book, the baseline professional standard is to actually read it. We understand you’ve asked for an advance copy several times; we’ve ignored these requests because your questions made it clear you were committed to framing the story before engaging with the material. That’s your choice—as was ours to decline.

 Some experts say we’re lunatics , you say? I bet if you polled some other experts, like a few of the ones publishing research on chlorine dioxide’s mechanisms, redox activity, and therapeutic potential, you’d get a very different answer. If I told you that some journalists say your email logic is embarrassing, would that meet your editorial standards too? If so, you’re welcome to quote me.

 Also, we don’t have a lot of faith in your employer , TBH.
 When the book is publicly available in January, we genuinely look forward to seeing your review—ideally written in the traditional order of operations: read first, analyze second, publish third. Now you even have some added context. It’ll be interesting to see what you do with it.
 Best,
Jenna (& Pierre)

 As always, kindly drop your thoughts in the comments—and please like and share!
 Your support helps fund truth, humor, and possibly a new home security system.

 You can pre-order the book they definitely don’t want you to read right here .

Summary: When journalists pretend to chase a story they wrote before doing any reporting, all that’s left is to correct the record—publicly.


Update On A Landmark Scientific Meeting on Chlorine Dioxide: Streaming Worldwide Dec 6–7

Yesterday, I posted about the symposium, which starts at 8 a.m. EST on Saturday. Register at this link .

 However, I failed to mention that the registration fee is $100 (I was not aware; sorry). The organizers had to commit a significant amount of funds to pay for translators and A/V support, so I ask that anyone who can support please do so.

 For those who register, this will allow you the opportunity to watch the recorded talks a single time after the conference.

 Announcing the 2nd Intercontinental Symposium on Biooxidative Applications
 A Global Scientific Forum on the Evidence, Mechanisms, and Future of Chlorine Dioxide Research
 December 6–7, 2025 — Beginning at 7:00 a.m. EST
 Virtual Event (Zoom) — Hosted from Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia
 Every so often, a scientific meeting comes along that gathers a group of researchers and clinicians who have spent years—sometimes decades—working on a subject the rest of the world has barely begun to understand.
 This December, such a gathering is happening again.
 The 2nd Intercontinental Symposium on Biooxidative Applications will bring together leading biomedical researchers, chemists, clinicians, and public health experts from across five continents, each specializing in the study of chlorine dioxide (CD) , sodium chlorite , and related oxidative compounds in biological systems.
 This is not a theoretical or political gathering. It is a meeting of scientists—many of whom have generated the very data, chemical analyses, and clinical observations that form the modern understanding of chlorine dioxide’s biological behavior.
 And for the first time, the entire conference will be open to the public via Zoom.
 Why This Symposium Matters
 Despite the controversy surrounding chlorine dioxide in the media and regulatory spaces, the scientific story has continued to evolve quietly in laboratories, chemistry departments, and clinical settings around the world.
 The scientists presenting at this conference are the ones who have been doing that work.
 Collectively, they represent:
 Decades of chemical, biochemical, and pharmacologic study

 Multiple lines of lab-based, biochemical, and clinical inquiry

 Cross-national collaboration from the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Bolivia, Brazil, the UK, South Africa, Costa Rica, India, Colombia, Argentina, and more

 The only international cohort of researchers actively mapping the mechanistic pathways of chlorine dioxide

 If you want to understand what the science actually says—beyond talking points, headlines, and noise—this is the place to hear it.

 Featured Speakers
 The speaker list reads like a “who’s who” of scientists and physicians who have actually studied chlorine dioxide firsthand.
 Among them:
 Thomas Henshaw (USA)
 Chemical synthesis of chlorine dioxide by various methods
 One of the foremost experts in the laboratory chemistry behind CD generation and stability.

 Raúl Pineda Aquino (Mexico)
 Biochemical properties and mitochondrial redox mechanisms of CD & SC
 A leading researcher on redox biology and cellular energetics.

 Richard Chiara (Bolivia)
 Phase 3 clinical trial in humans
 Documented one of the only large-scale clinical datasets involving CD derivatives.

 Alastair Jessel (United Kingdom)
 The practical use of chlorine dioxide
 Longtime analytical chemist and investigator of biooxidative reactions.

 Mitchell Liester, MD (USA)
 Endocrinology and clinical use of CD in metabolic conditions
 Known for precise mechanistic mapping of redox effects.

 Carlos Orozco (Costa Rica)
 Experience with CD & SC in pediatrics

 Susan Raj (India)
 Our cellular capacity for detoxification

 Freddy Torres (Colombia)
 Integrating CD with nutrition and orthomolecular practice

 Charl du Randt (South Africa)
 Thirty years of experience using CD

 And yes—
 I’ll be presenting as well.
 My talk explores my own medical and scientific journey into the chlorine dioxide literature , what I found, what I learned, and how that research shaped my perspective on oxidative biochemistry. Oh yeah, and I will probably mention my book (s), can be bought for pre-sale here

 Pre-order From Volcanoes to Vitality , my grand mineral saga, shipping before Christmas.

 Conference Details
 📅 Dates: December 6–7, 2025
 ⏰ Time: Begins at 7:00 a.m. EST each day
 🌍 Location: Santa Cruz, Bolivia (virtual Zoom broadcast worldwide)
 🎧 Language: Presentations in English and Spanish
 This event is hosted by:
 Doctors Federation for the World (DFW)

 Sociedad Científica de Investigación Biomédica (SCIB)
 with support from participating scientific organizations across multiple nations.

 Why You May Want to Attend
 If you are a scientist, clinician, researcher, or simply someone who wants to understand the real scientific work behind chlorine dioxide—its chemistry, redox behavior, mitochondrial interactions, clinical observations, and potential diagnostic implications—this is the only global forum where experts in the field present their data without censorship or political filtering.
 This conference does not make treatment recommendations.
 It does not promote medical use.
 It does not offer medical advice.
 It is a scientific meeting.
 Full stop.
 But if you care about the underlying science—if you want access to the researchers themselves, their methods, their findings, their biochemical models, and their unanswered questions—there is nowhere else in the world where these conversations are happening openly.

 How to Attend
 Registration link is here
 Because this is a scientific symposium, attendance is free and open to the public, though seating in the Zoom room may be limited.
 If you want to understand the real science—not the talking points—you will not want to miss this.
 More updates soon.
 — Pierre

 If you value the late nights and deep dives into all the other “rabbit holes” I write about (or the Op-Eds and lectures I try to get out to the public), supporting my work is greatly appreciated.
 Subscribe now
 See below for program and description of talks:

 \

 P.S. If you’re curious about the volcanic-mineral water purification product that I helped develop, you can find it at Aurmina.com . See below for the number of contaminants it can remove from your water.

 Contaminants : If you’ve read Chapter 19, “ What’s Really in Your Water, ” you already know how critical purification and remineralization are in an increasingly industrial world. Based on extensive testing, below is a list of some of the 250 pollutants and toxins that Aurmina removes (a sight to behold):

Summary: The fee for the Chlorine Dioxide Symposium is $100, which covers the organizers’ costs for professional translators and the audio–visual infrastructure required to stream the event worldwide.


A Landmark Scientific Meeting on Chlorine Dioxide: Streaming Worldwide Dec 6–7

Before I forget, symposium starts at 8 a.m. EST on Saturday - Register at this link .
 My new book, “ The War On Chlorine Dioxide , ” is available for pre-sale here (shipping after Christmas).

 Announcing the 2nd Intercontinental Symposium on Biooxidative Applications
 A Global Scientific Forum on the Evidence, Mechanisms, and Future of Chlorine Dioxide Research
 December 6–7, 2025 — Beginning at 7:00 a.m. EST
 Virtual Event (Zoom) — Hosted from Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia
 Every so often, a scientific meeting comes along that gathers a group of researchers and clinicians who have spent years—sometimes decades—working on a subject the rest of the world has barely begun to understand.
 This December, such a gathering is happening again.
 The 2nd Intercontinental Symposium on Biooxidative Applications will bring together leading biomedical researchers, chemists, clinicians, and public health experts from across five continents, each specializing in the study of chlorine dioxide (CD) , sodium chlorite , and related oxidative compounds in biological systems.
 This is not a theoretical or political gathering. It is a meeting of scientists—many of whom have generated the very data, chemical analyses, and clinical observations that form the modern understanding of chlorine dioxide’s biological behavior.
 And for the first time, the entire conference will be open to the public via Zoom.
 Why This Symposium Matters
 Despite the controversy surrounding chlorine dioxide in the media and regulatory spaces, the scientific story has continued to evolve quietly in laboratories, chemistry departments, and clinical settings around the world.
 The scientists presenting at this conference are the ones who have been doing that work.
 Collectively, they represent:
 Decades of chemical, biochemical, and pharmacologic study

 Multiple lines of lab-based, biochemical, and clinical inquiry

 Cross-national collaboration from the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Bolivia, Brazil, the UK, South Africa, Costa Rica, India, Colombia, Argentina, and more

 The only international cohort of researchers actively mapping the mechanistic pathways of chlorine dioxide

 If you want to understand what the science actually says—beyond talking points, headlines, and noise—this is the place to hear it.

 Featured Speakers
 The speaker list reads like a “who’s who” of scientists and physicians who have actually studied chlorine dioxide firsthand.
 Among them:
 Thomas Henshaw (USA)
 Chemical synthesis of chlorine dioxide by various methods
 One of the foremost experts in the laboratory chemistry behind CD generation and stability.

 Raúl Pineda Aquino (Mexico)
 Biochemical properties and mitochondrial redox mechanisms of CD & SC
 A leading researcher on redox biology and cellular energetics.

 Richard Chiara (Bolivia)
 Phase 3 clinical trial in humans
 Documented one of the only large-scale clinical datasets involving CD derivatives.

 Alastair Jessel (United Kingdom)
 The practical use of chlorine dioxide
 Longtime analytical chemist and investigator of biooxidative reactions.

 Mitchell Liester, MD (USA)
 Endocrinology and clinical use of CD in metabolic conditions
 Known for precise mechanistic mapping of redox effects.

 Carlos Orozco (Costa Rica)
 Experience with CD & SC in pediatrics

 Susan Raj (India)
 Our cellular capacity for detoxification

 Freddy Torres (Colombia)
 Integrating CD with nutrition and orthomolecular practice

 Charl du Randt (South Africa)
 Thirty years of experience using CD

 And yes—
 I’ll be presenting as well.
 My talk explores my own medical and scientific journey into the chlorine dioxide literature , what I found, what I learned, and how that research shaped my perspective on oxidative biochemistry. Oh yeah, and I will probably mention my book (s), can be bought for pre-sale here

 Pre-order From Volcanoes to Vitality , my grand mineral saga, shipping before Christmas.

 Conference Details
 📅 Dates: December 6–7, 2025
 ⏰ Time: Begins at 7:00 a.m. EST each day
 🌍 Location: Santa Cruz, Bolivia (virtual Zoom broadcast worldwide)
 🎧 Language: Presentations in English and Spanish
 This event is hosted by:
 Doctors Federation for the World (DFW)

 Sociedad Científica de Investigación Biomédica (SCIB)
 with support from participating scientific organizations across multiple nations.

 Why You May Want to Attend
 If you are a scientist, clinician, researcher, or simply someone who wants to understand the real scientific work behind chlorine dioxide—its chemistry, redox behavior, mitochondrial interactions, clinical observations, and potential diagnostic implications—this is the only global forum where experts in the field present their data without censorship or political filtering.
 This conference does not make treatment recommendations.
 It does not promote medical use.
 It does not offer medical advice.
 It is a scientific meeting.
 Full stop.
 But if you care about the underlying science—if you want access to the researchers themselves, their methods, their findings, their biochemical models, and their unanswered questions—there is nowhere else in the world where these conversations are happening openly.

 How to Attend
 Registration link is here
 Because this is a scientific symposium, attendance is free and open to the public, though seating in the Zoom room may be limited.
 If you want to understand the real science—not the talking points—you will not want to miss this.
 More updates soon.
 — Pierre

 If you value the late nights and deep dives into all the other “rabbit holes” I write about (or the Op-Eds and lectures I try to get out to the public), supporting my work is greatly appreciated.
 Subscribe now
 See below for program and description of talks:

 \\\

 P.S. If you’re curious about the volcanic-mineral water purification product that I helped develop, you can find it at Aurmina.com . See below for the number of contaminants it can remove from your water.

 Contaminants : If you’ve read Chapter 19, “ What’s Really in Your Water, ” you already know how critical purification and remineralization are in an increasingly industrial world. Based on extensive testing, below is a list of some of the 250 pollutants and toxins that Aurmina removes (a sight to behold):

Summary: Two days. Multiple continents. Real scientists presenting real data on redox biology and chlorine dioxide. A rare, uncensored scientific forum featuring global experts in chlorine dioxide research.