Can you drink the water that comes out of your tap, or does it scare you?

[Flaxbee]

I won't drink our water here - for a variety of reasons. But when I lived on a mountain in northern Virginia, the water from our own well was incredible and we used it for drinking, cooking, etc.

What parts of this country have good, safe drinking water? Anywhere? :shrug:

[BikeWriter]

1. Water? You drink water?

:shrug:

[Flaxbee]

7. that, or vodka

same color :D

[BikeWriter]

19. Oh, I drink vodka but not water.

[Swede]

2. Of course. Who knows where bottled water comes from?

:shrug:

[Dramarama]

3. Still, the stigma has damaged me

Bottled water> Tap. Its a mental thing

[Flaxbee]

5. true, that

we buy some that has been filtered via reverse osmosis, probably better than the cheesecloth filters for Aquafina water or whatever....

[supernova]

4. Pure, fresh, sweet well water

:9 :9 :9

And ice cold usually. :scared: :-)

[Flaxbee]

6. really?

where you are it's that clean? I'm in western NC, and the water here is a bit funky. You're lucky.

[supernova]

51. Why would your water be funky tasting?

Unless there are other things in the underground reservoir it shouldn't taste like anything at all.

Have you had your water tested to see what might be the cause of the odd flavor?

[Richardo]

48. Us too.

:9

[XemaSab]

8. Most of California

LA's water tastes odd, Santa Barbara's water tastes like a lake, and Oakhurst's water has uranium in it, but aside from that...

[Flaxbee]

11. Didn't drink tap when I lived in California

Used a Brita filter ...

It's sad, because I live in the mountains now, but near a lake that is of dubious cleanliness. Wish there was such a think as clean tap water, but I doubt it.

[begin_within]

33. Yikes

I am staying 2 nights in Oakhurst in June. Now I'm afraid to even take a shower there. San Diego's tap water tastes terrible, especially in the summer - kind of like a swimming pool combined with seawater.

[XemaSab]

37. Don't worry about taking a shower

Just don't drink the water. :P

[XemaSab]

40. Oh, and I meant California has GOOD water

Oakland, Marin, Sacramento, Humboldt, Redding... the water tastes fine. :shrug:

[CaliforniaPeggy]

9. My dear Flaxbee!

I drink the water right out of the tap!

It tastes good to me, and it's safe.

I do keep bottled water here in my study, next to my computer, and in my car, because that's convenient.

Otherwise, it's tap.

Don't drink the water in Hong Kong, OK?

:hi:

[Flaxbee]

10. Hong Kong?

Hmm. Aside from general wariness, why should I avoid HK water?

When I lived in San Juan Capistrano, the tap water had teeny tiny little wee shrimpy creatures in it. Extra protein, I guess :D

[CaliforniaPeggy]

12. Yup, Hong Kong!

We travelled there once, and were strongly advised not to drink the water...It was cloudy and looked awful. I don't remember if there was any smell...

We used bottled water for any oral use!

Shrimpy creatures? Ummm....no thanks!

:P

[AlCzervik]

21. when was that Peg?

My husband spends over 200 days a year in China and is in Hong Kong a lot and has drank the water many times.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

30. It was a while ago!

IIRC, 1995. So maybe things are much better now!

And I'm glad to hear that!

:hi:

[Tuesday Afternoon]

13. Private Well from Underground Springs. Delicious!

:thumbsup:

[midnight armadillo]

14. Tastes great to me.

Thanks to the Massachusetts Water Resource Authority, our tap water is just great, actually.

Occasionally I wish for a Brita filter to remove some chlorine and metallic overtones, but not enough to do anything about it. My in-laws bring bottled water when they visit, they consider tap water to be disgusting for some reason. Now, I do of course point out that if they get a soda in a restaurant they're drinking tap water, but they don't seem to really believe me.

[Naturyl]

15. I'd drink it even if it was purple

I don't buy water. Water is not a salable commodity and I refuse to acknowledge that idea.

There's some things you just don't do.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

23. But you are buying it...

Unless you have your own private well, anyway.

Anyone in a city or town is buying the water...

:shrug:

[Naturyl]

26. I don't see it that way.

We have municipal water. The water bill pays for the infrastructure needed to deliver it.

There's no profit motive involved.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

28. Buying doesn't imply a profit motive...

The city delivers the water; you pay for it; you're buying it.

[Naturyl]

29. Whatever. It's semantics.

Profit motive makes *all* the difference to me.

[Neoma]

16. I have a filter.

[ThomCat]

17. New York City supposedly has among the best water in the world.

But you can't prove that to me when sometimes it runs dark brown out of the tap. :puke:

I will not drink it unless it's filtered.

[fizzgig]

34. it actually is very good

but the brown part would probably put me off too :puke:

[tekisui]

18. Water's for bathing.

[Silver Swan]

20. Here in my NE Illinois village

our water is from Lake Michigan, and it is pretty good.

[jeff30997]

22. I can't drink the water that comes out of my tap.

I can't bend enough to reach it and besides the water is yellow and smells bad. :P

[LSdemocrat]

24. St. Louis won a municipal water taste test at a Mayor's convention a little while back

And yes we do drink straight up tap water here.

Here's the press release on our city's win:
http://waterwebster.org/documents/USConferenceMayorsWaterTaste.pdf

[CreekDog]

25. yes and i'm pretty sure it's much higher quality than bottled water

since it comes from Yosemite National Park

[billyoc]

27. NYC tap water is cleaner than bottled water.

[Jamastiene]

31. Well, in my hometown, it's like this:

The City water for my hometown is green, smells like pure bleach, and feels slimy.

The county water is drinkable and fine.

The well water is cold and really tastes good, but it's polluted with too much hog farm waste runoff. So, if you know what's good for you, you won't drink it.

The City next to us: Their water is a delight to drink and comes from the less polluted lakes they have over there. It tastes great and it's always nice and cold. I'm jealous of them. Sometimes, I visit somewhere over there that has a water fountain, just to get a decent drink of water. I'm thinking of taking a gallon jug and filling it sometime. I wonder if I could get by with that?

[Alexander]

32. In the Phoenix area, it's pretty scary. There's no real water here.

Heck, there's no real anything.

Every drop of water is loaded with minerals that will leave a white film on dishes, sinks, etc. It's pretty gross.

Not to mention there was a contamination scare here 4 years ago and they advised people to boil water first.

[hibbing]

35. tap

Hi,
I drink almost exclusively tap water here. I have been fortunate to travel a lot and only in a few places did the tap water bother me. My taste buds must be fried. Interesting thread, thanks!


Hi Peggy!

Peace

[fizzgig]

36. my little n. colorado city has amazinng water

it boggles my mind that people here spend so much on bottled water.

[TreasonousBastard]

38. It scares me when it comes out green.

[TK421]

39. Tap water is not bad at all here in Philly ( and surrounding burbs )

though it tastes a bit heavier if you're used to drinking the bottled stuff...not bad at all

[leftyclimber]

41. I've quit drinking the local water.

It's never tasted good to me (especially being from western Oregon, where the water is freakin' spectacular), but some of the stuff I've found out about it recently has me, my SO, and the cats declaring a moratorium on tap water.

WV has very lax environmental laws and doesn't test for things like total dissolved solids and heavy metals. Last October the TDS in our city water were above scientifically acceptable safe levels but we were never notified because the state doesn't require that water treatment plants test for it. Not mandated to test for bad stuff? Oh, the water MUST be safe. :eyes:

There is a bunch of independent testing going on with the whole county's water right now for fun things like arsenic and selenium, but even if levels are high that's no guarantee that water safety laws will change. You know, because mining is more important than things like, say, people's health. x(

I don't particularly like the idea of it being considered acceptable for there to be mine runoff in my water. That's some nasty-ass stuff. :puke:

[BreweryYardRat]

42. It's drinkable, but not particularly pleasant.

Tampa Bay, FL. Being chilled or iced improves it. But you really have to run it through a filter to make it taste good.

I know the area around Bentley College up in Massachusetts doesn't have drinkable tap water. Went to a conference up there back in high school, and they bunked us in empty dorm rooms. Sediment in the damn water.

Not coincidentally, that's also where I learned what a bad idea it is to dry-swallow powerful antibiotics.

[RebelOne]

43. The water out of my tap is awful.

I won't even give it to my dogs. I use filter pitchers. Pur and Britta.

[pnutbutr]

44. Mountains of Virginia

My water used to come from a natural spring on my property in the mountains here but I finally had a well dug a few years ago cause the spring would dry up during droughts. Absolutely fantastic water!

[PassingFair]

45. We have GREAT water here. The Best.

[BlueJazz]

46. I live in the Tampa Bay area and the water is fine. I tested it once with a kit that..

...my friend has and it passed with flying colors.

[Bertha Venation]

47. I would if it didn't smell and taste of chlorine.

:puke:

[SacredCow]

49. Baton Rouge has some of the best tap-water, EVAH...

In fact, there are at least 3 bottling companies that use the same source. Of course, the Baton Rouge Public Works puts chlorine and fluorine in it, but one pass through a Brita or other charcoal filter and it's every bit as good as the bottled stuff.

[lazyriver]

50. I could bottle and sell our well water. Honestly, it is the best

water I've ever had and pretty much everyone who has visited and tried it agrees.

[lizziegrace]

52. Mine scares me

I've never lived in a house with well water. The house was built in 1846 and has been surrounded by flat farmland until recently. I'm sure the well is full of fertilizers and all sorts of other nasty chemicals. It smells a bit like rotten eggs too.

I buy bottled water for drinking, cooking and to give the cats. There's a R/O filter system in the house, but all the filters need since the house sat empty for a year. Who knows what's growing in there... :wow:

[sammythecat]

53. I live in a rural area

and the water that comes from my 340ft deep well is utterly undrinkable without filtration and a water softener. Without treatment it stinks and turns everything brown.

[MorningGlow]

54. SCARED of it

I don't trust our village's water supply--they keep sending out official notices that the water isn't safe ("nothing's wrong! but there is some slight, minor, infinitesimal chance that it MIGHT make you sick" etc.)--and that they're still "looking into" switching to the nearby county's water supply. But we've been here three years and they haven't done it yet, as far as I know. Add in the metal plant just outside of town and the chemical plant at the edge of our neighborhood, and Dasani is my friend, thank you very much. (Yes, I know it's filtered tap water, but I am willing to pay someone to filter the water because I'm not sure even an under-sink filter will help our water.)

I sure do miss our well at our last house. That was EXCELLENT water. Ran out too quickly sometimes, though. :(

[JitterbugPerfume]

55. I have a well

and I don't drink the water unfiltered

[geardaddy]

56. You can drink the tap water here in Minneapolis

but we use a filter, just because we live in an old building and the pipes are probably galvanized.

[ogneopasno]

57. Yes, our well is more than 200 feet deep through bedrock. I love our water.

[redqueen]

58. No, it tastes horrible. I use a Pur filter. (nt)

[amyrose2712]

59. Well water can be just as polluted as any.

We have municipal wells. We use filters on the tap.

[Rabrrrrrr]

60. I filter mine because it has a metallic taste. It's safe, but the taste is not inviting.

It's fine for boiling pasta and whatnot, but not so much for eating/drinking.

[Bake]

61. I *can*, but choose not to (it gives me the screaming shits)

Central MS water. Nothing like that chlorine taste!

Bake