Water: who drinks water from the tap? I do; am I doomed?

[babylonsister]

I drink a lot of water. Am I wrong to not invest in a water purifier company/bottles/all the hoopla that accompanies that?

[wli]

1. since the late 1990's it's tasted funny (and I moved)

I won't drink it because it tastes bad. I take that as a sign there's something bad in it.

[babylonsister]

6. Well, I've lived in a few places where it was bad and

I wouldn't touch it. As a kid, I and my 4 other siblings had to schlep it ( what we had was horrible - sulpher/smelled like rotten eggs).
The water in Houston is fine, I hope, because I'm imbibing; I lived in NYC and Brooklyn, NY, and the water was supreme.

[Mr_Spock]

2. You're as good as dead!

lol - I think all the botled water paranoia is crazy myself, though I do have an artesian well which is nice.

[SW FL Dem]

3. I have mixed feelings

I prefer the taste of filtered or bottled water but I want my kid to get the benefits of flouride. I think our tap water is safe, we use an extra filter rather than bottled water at home so the flouride is still there.

[1monster]

18. You can buy floridated distilled water in the baby section of most grocery

and department stores.

[ScamUSA.Com]

4. I do

yeah I'd rather drink Aquafina, but sometimes gotta do it

[City Lights]

5. I only drink RO water, or bottled when I'm not at home.

If you want to know if you're doomed, have a water analysis done.

[Pobeka]

7. All depends on the quality of your tap water.

Does it taste good?

Is it free of contaminants?

If the answers are yes, then drink it.

[Blue_In_AK]

8. If you want really great tap water

move to Anchorage. We have delicious water right out of the faucet and it's always ice cold. We could use more Democrats up here. Come for the water.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

9. Check out the EPA website for your area...

http://www.epa.gov/safewater/wot/

http://www.epa.gov/safewater/dwinfo/index.html

http://www.epa.gov/ebtpages/water.html

[babylonsister]

16. We had a company/professional come in when we

first moved here 10 years ago, and they couldn't find anything wrong. So I've maintained that assumption that it's all good. We also get yearly memos saying all is well; whether that is true or not is unknown. I've bookmarked all these links! and thanks.

[conflictgirl]

10. I don't know if you're doomed, but I don't drink tap water

I've read a lot about the water supplies in most cities and how a lot of the systems haven't been maintained all that well. I think it was in Milwaukee a couple of years ago that a lot of people got cryptosporidium and hundreds of thousands of people got sick and many died.

Oh - found a link:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1189/is_4_275/ai_103673886

It says there that according to the CDC, waterborne illnesses in the US more than doubled between 1997-2000.

I use a PUR filter on my faucet at home and keep gallon-sized jugs of it in the fridge. I've done this for many years. I do buy bottled water, but since the source is just reverse osmosis-treated water from public water supplies, I tend to be a little nervous about it. With the RO process, you need to change filters fairly frequently, and I've noticed sometimes when I bought bottled water that it tasted a little "off" (and it wasn't the type of "off" taste you get just from storing water in plastic bottles).

[SammyWinstonJack]

11. Brita filter is what I use.

I was buying Ozarka spring water which imo is the best spring water ever, but it got very expensive. So I invested in a Brita water gallon pitcher. Tap water tastes nasty, who knows what is in it?

[ConsAreLiars]

12. See this for more info

http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/qtap.asp
"In the short term, if you are an adult with no special health conditions, and you are not pregnant, then you can drink most cities' tap water without having to worry."

"In the long term, we all have reason to be concerned about pollution in tap water. The water in many cities contains pollutants that are carcinogens and that, over time, could cause cancer. That's why we all should try to get cities to clean these contaminants out of tap water as soon as possible."
...
"In 1999, NRDC conducted 1,000 separate tests of more than 100 brands of bottled water and concluded that bottled water is not necessarily any purer or any safer than city tap water."

The problem is that the corporatists want to see public water supplies contaminated, or believed to be untrustworthy, in order to make a market for "cleaner" bottled water or filters, which get sold on the basis of advertising rather than value. Unfortunately, you have to do some research to separate the propaganda from the facts, and as NRDC says, if your public water supply is not safe, kick those entrusted with this responsibility out - jail them if possible - and demand clean water as a basic human right.

[kestrel91316]

13. Our water in Los Angeles is HORRIBLE .............

very strong chlorine taste, and when that's not the problem, the onion/garlic odor is. I don't know HOW they manage to ruin Sierra Nevada stream water, but they do.

I have been using a Britta pitcher with filter for alomst 8 years and I drink more water by far than I did when I drank tap water. I don't get so dehydrated in the summer now, because I don't dread drinking it.

[firefox]

14. you are going to die anyway

Chlorine is a poison to kill everything in the water. It is a poison in your body too.

Flouride is big secret. Even if flouride were useful against tooth decay, there is no valid reason for it to be in all water. Flouride is in toothpaste and there are other flouride products for your teeth. Why does every drop of water have to have flouride, when maybe only one part in a thousand is consumed as drinking water.

I realize that things are hard to sort out with all the disinformation thrown at hiding the truth, but flouride shows a clear wrong. It is bullshit that it is in there for your benefit.

I wonder how many countries in the world add flouride to their public water supplies. I have to think not very many. If you want to do some reading, just start at the top of this list- http://tinyurl.com/9969y

I buy distilled water at Wal-Mart for 58 cents a gallon and refill them for 33 cents.

[jbnow]

15. Not to scare you but

you have 100% chance of dying, most likely within the next 100 years.

[1monster]

17. You are doomed.

And most bottled water is just as if not more impure as tap water.

That's why I drink distilled water..

[Agent Orange]

19. I used to live in Ventura County...

...And I put in a sediment/charcoal filter combo because the water was awful. In one months time the sediment filter (pure white) became totally black and filled with crud. Really nasty crud. It was literally astounding, and this was a few years ago. And it's not just the drinks of water that taste foul, it's the coffee, macaroni, and whatever else one uses water to cook for.

So, in addition to the sediment/charcoal filters, I bought a reverse osmosis system. Not as good as distilled water, but almost. Funny I should read this tonight, as i was just today investigating a new R/O system to replace the one that I bought in Ventura. You can find a good (very good, imho) R/O system on Ebay for about $115, $40 or so dollars less than an inferior unit seen at Sears or Lowes. But even those are better than any tap water anywhere. I would never drink unfiltered water again no matter where I lived, personally, after seeing what those filters took out. I currently live in a place where one would expect clean water to come out of the tap, but the charcoal filter I installed in front of the R/O system at this minute has about 1/4 inch of nasty brown crud on the bottom.

R/O is equal in quality to most, if not all of the bottled water you can buy, and you never have to lug around 5 gallon jugs of water.

[DanCa]

20. I remember in my days....

We used to get water from the garden hose and hot dogs from a street vendor. Hmmm is that the reason I got a chronic neurological movement disorder? :) :) :) Hey you gotta laugh at yourself once in a while.
(Huggles all)

[6000eliot]

21. I do

but I have a well.