This question is obviously intended for those that live in places where tap water is “safe to drink.”
I live in Southern California, where I’m at the end of a long chain of cities. Occasionally, the tap smells of sulfur, hardness changes, or it tastes… odd. I’m curious about the perspective of people that are directly involved and their reasoning.
I trust the city government with my water much much more than companies trying to save every penny bottling water.
And I’m more likely able to get the people responsible for poor quality water or death in result of this in jail over the likelihood of sending billionaire CEOs with their golden parachutes to a minimum security vacation “prison”.
whoopsie daisy, we shipped 500 million bottles of tainted water, “we’re sorry”. Meanwhile if a city did that it’d be national news for years.
While I’m a huge fan of municipal water (I live in the city that invented it), lots of cities have horribly mismanaged their water supply, often from privatization, but not exclusively. See Jackson Mississippi.
https://www.npr.org/2022/08/31/1120166328/jackson-mississippi-water-crisis
Oh not saying it doesn’t happen at all, but it’s blown out of proportion for the most of the US. Main point is exactly that, when a city fucks up it becomes national news, if Pepsi fucked up it’s bottling (which comes from city sources anyway), they say “Oh no, we’re sorry”
I manage utility services - among other things - for a group of properties - and have had the mains water analysed for chemical and biological contamination at various times. The results have always been absolutely fine. Not just with EU limits, but far, far, far within them for almost everything and definitely well within them for all measures.
I’ve got no issues at all with drinking tap water in the UK, even given the state of the rivers etc.
had the mains water analysed for chemical and biological contamination
Can I ask how you go about doing that? I may want to test some water soon.
I am sure G! will find local water testing for you.
But, before you do that, check your municipal water web site. Mine publishes their testing results. Monthly, iirc.
Of course, this is only part of the puzzle. Your exact tap may have very different results.
In my case, I approached our usual plumbing contractor who have a couple of labs that they usually used. I now go directly to those labs.
I work in food manufacturing and get the local water test results emailed to me monthly - they are alway well within limits
If you have any reason to suspect the quality of your water, get it tested! It’s not that expensive, you just ship a sample to a lab and they email you a report. Because so many people depend on well water there’s a bunch of labs all over the country that do water quality testing, it’s a relatively cheap and accessible service.
Unless you need a full pathogen panel, you can just buy the tests for pretty much anything at hardware stores. There are kits that include several.
The fda tests bottle water. The epa tests tap water. The standards for the fda are lower than the epa. You’re being bambozzled.
How exactly? /s
I never said what I thought in any direction. I simply stated some leading observations without conclusions about their meaning.
Once upon a time I worked for an asphalt company as an operator at the plants and rock quarry. When the test inspector showed up, so did the test and inspection mix running through the plant.
That is why I asked in the way this post was worded. I am looking for someone(s) like myself that are experienced and perhaps smart enough to read between the lines of corruption. It is an unlikely person(s) to find here.
Discovering the various perspectives, along with the spectrum of Lemmy that engages with this post are also interesting from a couple of angles.
I love in NZ, most places in the country have good tap water, sometimes slightly over chlorinated.
most places in the country have good tap water
Except when it doesn’t.
https://www.dia.govt.nz/Government-Inquiry-into-Havelock-North-Drinking-Water
But it’s rare. This example comes from 8 years ago.
I live in SE Michigan, so… … …yeah, I want to trust my city water, but I can’t. Not since Flint, Michigan.
I’m in mid Michigan, and you’re fine. The circumstances that lead (ba-dum) to the issues in Flint are unlikely to occur elsewhere, particularly if you’re closer to Detroit.
I live in Monroe County.
why trust or not? Just get it tested if you’re worried. Mentioned elsewhere in this thread, you can take a sample and send it out to find if everything is in safe levels. (Just remember all water is going to have impurity, the key words are safe levels)
How much does it generally cost to get it tested? I make very little money.
Probably less than you’d spend on bottled water over two or three months, worthwhile investment if tests show it’s drinkable.
depending on how much want to do, I have seen kits for ~$30. Pretty sure I’ve seen some small kits taken for camping, so they can’t be too pricy. And if you can’t afford it, just start bringing it up around town! Maybe somebody will get excited and do it for you.
Not expensive but it depends on what you want to test. Most of the available tests can be gotten from aquarium supply stores. Got to keep fish healthy after all. Others can be gotten from pool supply companies.
Municipal drinking water is tested multiple times per day in Toronto, as it should be. Testing once and assuming the complex machinery and chemical levels are the same a week later is pure folly.
Note that this is different from testing well water, which shouldn’t change much. Testing well water once a year is a good idea though.
Oh for sure, I’m not worried at all, but if other people are I don’t see why they don’t just get it tested rather than buying hundreds of dollars in bottled water
Yes. At one point I “designed” chlorination buildings/ rooms. At least where I live, probably due to the historical happenings with the water, everything is very heavily monitored and systems are redundant. Everyone in the city got this big notice about a failure in the water system. I actually read through it and it was because one station didn’t get one of their scheduled samples. My parents have well water which I grew up on, and think it tastes easy better. But they need a water softener and filters. There’s also a guaranteed amount of heavy metals, even if it’s in a “safe” range.
I was in the industry for a decent amount of years. I know the operators of the water plants around me. I never hesitate to drink the tap water in my area. At home it goes through the filter in my fridge, which manages the runoff taste in the spring, and keeps the water cold.
North East, US here. probably fine but I don’t trust it. we use a water filter for drinking
Same. I can take tap water fine but my wife hates it. But even so, we both can tell by taste when the filter is toast. We can also tell from the way our bathroom counters get white buildup just by incidental water droplets during handwashing that we have excessively hard water. Not dangerous but not pleasant.
As mentioned already you can get it tested for safety. Plenty of water that has the features you described is indeed safe for consumption. But do you really want to? Most of us don’t drink enough water, and if it’s unpleasant you’ll end up drinking a bare minimum. I can’t say enough good things about installing an RO system. It makes water really enjoyable and you’ll know it’s also being cleaned as well. There are plenty of naysayers about these filters, but they are pretty affordable and work incredibly well. Gamechanger for coffee too.
RO = reverse osmosis? I’m planning to figure out what system I should get soon. Look for a whole house option. Would be interested in any info or review you have. Thanks
I live in Minnesota. Close to Minneapolis. My brother does testing for swimming pools. He tested the city water for contaminates. He says do not drink it. If the level of chlorine in the city water was in pool water the pool would be shut down. It would not be safe to even swim in it. Yet the city claims it’s safe to drink.
Not that I don’t trust your brother who… works for the pools, but is there any data to back up this claim? The claim that, if I read right, that there’s more chlorine in tap water than in the pools? Sounds like something we could easily have tested.
I’m going to message my brother to get a better answer of what I just replied with. My answer still needs more clarification
Good, because as for my anecdotal evidence, I have family and friends who have lived in MSP for decades without any health issues and they all drink tap water.
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Chlorine levels so easy to test for, I’d be curious to see such a measurement… This sounds like a class action waiting to happen.
