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People with experience working in and around municipal water infrastructure: Do you drink tap water? Are there times when you do not?

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.

pineapplelover ,

The water is pretty solid in a lot of developed countries. If it tastes bad then it might have to do with the pipes and tubing.

Ibaudia ,
@Ibaudia@lemmy.world avatar

I live in Grand Rapids, MI where the tap water is 2.4 ppt PFAS. I buy reverse osmosis purified from the store for $0.50 a gallon for drinking, and will continue to do so until I get my own place where I’ll install an under-sink one

DestroyerOfWorlds ,

Get an undersink reverse osmosis and uv filter kit. Some come with a remineralizer so it doesn’t taste flat. Don’t go for a cheap one or it will leak. SoCal isn’t known for its water purity or consistancy.

ColeSloth ,

Not a water person, but it might be the fire departments fault. If they use a hydrant upstream of you it flows so much water so fast that it can stir up some older stuff that’s been sitting in there a while.

mojo_raisin ,

Ah interesting, could def see that happening.

my_hat_stinks ,

Where I am most people are happy to drink the tap water, and we’re all oddly proud of it. Which is fair, it’s great water. Very soft too, I remember seeing ads on TV for products to remove limescale but that doesn’t really happen here much. I find it a little odd that some places’ tap water is so full of impurities that it leaves mineral deposits on their appliances.

Come to Scotland, try our tap water!

rmuk ,

Scotland and North-West England have excellent tap water. The water in the Midlands and London is perfectly safe to drink, but it certainly has a taste to it.

Dasus ,

If you wish to taste some Finnish ones, I’m sure I can bottle and ship some of our tapwater for you guys to taste.

mediconnection.fi/en/water-finland-purest-world/

Devi ,

Severn Trent (the midlands) is often voted the best tap water in the UK.

amio ,

Those aren't necessarily impurities in the nasty sense, just mineral content.

Cysioland ,
@Cysioland@lemmygrad.ml avatar

youtu.be/GceNsojnMf0

synae ,
@synae@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

I live in San Francisco, give me hetch hetchy

(that’s where our tap comes from)

wild ,

I just wonder about PEX tubing. Occasionally, the water has a strong plasticky taste/smell like hose water and I feel like that just can’t be good for you.

BowtiesAreCool ,

Gotta get those excess micro plastics somehow

Omega_Haxors ,

[people drinking out of lead pipes] 🗿

jaschen ,

I used to live in Los Angeles and lived in Charlie Chaplin’s house that was on the old lot(the current Broadway shoes).

The water coming into the house was probably clean, but the home’s pipes were all lead. I did one of those lead tests and it failed.

So your sulfur taste could be from the home and not from the municipal water.

Slatlun ,

Just generally, you can get a report of your municipal water testing. The biggest safety variable that I would be worried about testing at home for is lead in the pipes between me and the treatment plant. That includes my house/building and the municipal pipes.

Now taste, that’s a to each their own situation. Sulfury water is my limit for sure. No thanks!

phoenixz ,

If you’re living in the US, I feel like it’s almost cheating to complain. A certain political party had worked for decades to lower safety, standards and oversight to the point that I would really feel nervous living in the States.

Tab981 ,

Water and Wastewater operator here. In Texas, where I work and live water is sampled, tested, and reported to TCEQ the Texas specific extension of the EPA. If a water system continually fails to meet water quality standards set out by TCEQ, that system will be taken over by TCEQ and brought back into compliance. All this to say, yes, I drink it because I help make it.

peasinspace ,

w/ww op in canada. ditto

philpo ,

I work as a disaster/contingency planning consultant in Central Europe,not only in terms of water but for everything,but of course water is always an issue. Good friend of mine is the head of the regional government agency controlling the municipal water works around here. While we could do much much more in terms of disaster preparedness there is literally nothing wrong with the water itself - we don’t even have any Chlorine in it, it’s simply not necessary around here. Only when something goes wrong (e.g. main-line breaks) Chlorine will be added for a few weeks.

thesmokingman ,

I used to work in a municipal city water department. Part of its job was to deal with some chemical blooms from bad waste disposal. While I am not a water science person, I trusted the water science people who told me it was safe and got to tour some of the cool filtration things.

I didn’t drink the water because water in that area has a “green” taste that’s hard to describe unless you’ve had it. Totally fine to drink, just personal preference. Most people I know gave me a lot of shit for it.

August27th ,

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.

Imgonnatrythis ,

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.

glitchedream ,
@glitchedream@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

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

Imgonnatrythis ,

I’ve had two 3m systems and have had no problems. I installed sensors in both for monitoring particles in input and output lines. You don’t need to do this, but I think it’s reassuring to see that your tap input is relatively stable and nothing has gone haywire with system contamination or a bad filter etc. My 3m systems were both quite small and maintance has been simple (once a year). I imagine the different systems are all relatively similar. My first home came with the 3m system and I liked it so installed I next home. Afraid I’m not a good comparative source.

ryannathans ,

I use RO too but low key bit concerned about amide nanoplastics released by the RO membrane

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