I just realized I'm the only one I know that drinks tap water. My smarty-pants-kids-with-the-MBA will be more than happy to explain why my health is at risk for doing so, too. And the grandkids watch in some sort of disbelief as a grab my best "jelly-jar-glass" out of the cabinet and swill myself a good glassful. They're too young to tell Grandpa he's doing it wrong...
And my wife, bless her heart, is respectful. She doesn't say anything, but watches me as I drink with her pursed lips and a slight scowl...like I'm fixing to spit it out because of its horrible taste. Gimme a friggin' break!
None of the crews keep a water-jug in the trucks. The backroom has several of them stacked up next to the screwed up rods, tripods and dirty old Schonstedt cases. We buy cases of bottled water and the fridge in the break room is full of them. This time of year the guys grab as many bottles as they need in the morning and carry on. I do take three or four myself when I'm headed to the field, but just because there's no water jug in the truck. The other day at the office I was a little parched and in the break room I just grabbed one of the many coffee cups that populate the ever present dish drain rack next to the sink. I filled it from the tap and gulped down a good little hit. One of my lesser-ranked and youngest employee watched me and said, "There's cold water in the fridge", like if given the choice, I'd prefer the bottled. "I'm good" I told him. He told me he can't stand tap water. I can't believe he thinks he can tell the difference. I dropped the conversation. The mental shortcomings of some of my employees is a deep and dark place where you don't want to spend much time....
My tap water is from a reservoir. That's a fancy French word for 'lake' or 'pond'. And in the spring the lake 'turns' and the water has a distinct odor and flavor. Not repulsive by any means, just distinct. But I chug it anyway. We have a state-of-the-art water treatment plant that made several consulting engineers rich. We pay the operators there to daily sample our water for all sorts of junk from fecal coliform to cryptosporidium to trihalomethanes. They also juice it up with a little fluoride before sending it out for general consumptions. I feel like somebody has at least looked at it!
This bottled water deal is a rip. Their mark-up has to heavenly. I've got visions of "sweat-shops" in a crummy warehouse in Detroit full of illegal immigrants filling water bottles from the crusty pipes...screw the lid on tight and package it up with a pretty picture of a snow covered alpine peak and you're done. I'm not buying it.
I guess drinking tap water has risen to the unhealthy level like consuming sugar-substitutes, nitrate treated meat, or smoking three packs of Camels a day....I'll be a goner in no time. And at my funeral my whole family will shake their heads and whisper among themselves, "We tried to stop him..."
Yes. Our tap water is decent here. If it tasted like chlorinated city water, say like what you could draw from the tap in Milwaukee, WI; I wouldn't drink it without filtering.
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Uncle P, I'm with you on this. Like you say, somebody was paid to process and test the tap water. You don't know what was done to fill the bottles.
[curmudgeonry]
There are some people who get extreme on stuff. I was looking up a homemade veggie wash for my wife last night, and many of the sites were organic "enthusiasts" who insisted that the WASH had to be made with purified water, not just that awful tap water because of all the parts per billion of junk that might be in it. It's the mentality that can't comprehend how reducing pollution, error, or whatever below some natural level just doesn't improve things any further.
The other factor in bottled water, of course, is advertising. It's the popular thing and we're trained to do what's popular. If you can find some (il)logical reason for it, so much the better.
[/curmudgeonry]
Years ago I started filtering the tap water around here. Though I live in the county, my tap water comes from the city. I began filtering because the city water has a chlorine smell and flavor to it and I began to wonder what other chemicals I was drinking in over abundance.
Which brings to mind a story on the "news" this past week about public swimming pools. About how if chlorine is strong, it means that the chlorine is fighting things like people going poddy in the water.....
Short answer, Yes. I grew up in a town of 950 people, 949 since 1968 when I moved away. Town water came from a well and had minimal, if any, treatment. My wife grew up on a farm and drank well water, which also watered the cows. We've had our own well water since 1978 and we've loved it.
Funny thing, though. Back in the winter, we completely redid the master bathroom. To protect the new glass shower doors from the calcium deposits that have stained everything, ruined coffee-makers in a year or two, and welded faucet handles to the stems, we put in a water softening system. Removes down to 0.04% +/- 0.00021321% (95% confidence) of the salts.
The feller what (sic) sold it to us said that they could put a drinking water station on the kitchen sink. This would deliver bottled-water pure drinking water. And, for few hundred dollars more, they could add a tank that would put the minerals back in the drinking water.
From well to pure back to well in 50 feet.
John, post: 324770, member: 791 wrote: .... things like people going poddy in the water.....
My youngest son lives in a fancy gated subdivision with a private pool. And he is the strongest critic about tap water. Him and the grandsons go swimming there several times a week this time of year.
I had to ask him who tests the pool and how often? Are the results published? Being a "private" pool I'm sure the State Health Department (that's stretched thin anyway) doesn't visit the place but maybe once or twice a season. And I bet it's high-school kids that provide the maintenance. I asked him how he could be critical of me drinking tap water when he's swimming around in someone's toilet....
Yes, I drink it. We have a faucet filter which I don't think does much but improve the taste a little. If it stands in an open container for thirty minutes the chlorine (really used chlorine) smell will dissipate. I live in a water district, our water comes from a well.
I drink the city water at the office right out of the tap because it tastes really good.
I bring filtered tap water with me on field trips except when I have State bottled water in the truck. At incidents and field training they will have pallets of cases of bottled water out there so I grab several cases when I can.
Yes, our city water has always been very good. Artesian wells.
We did use a tap filter in the kitchen for awhile but it did not have any noticeable effect except when the city was purging lines or some other maintenance. State and Feds mandate that they use certain chemicals. The city mails a semiannual report to everyone about water quality including testing report info.
I do buy bottle water in bulk for local events where I end up reaping the remainders.
When I lived in New Orleans, it was all bottle water, 5 gallon dispensers in the house delivered. Local artesian well water (Kentwood) that same as my present city water source.
N O city water being Mississippi River water is highly contaminated with chemicals from A to Z including radioactive pollutants from River industry discharges. State DEQ is s sham controlled by the industries. Back a few decades ago,they had a little muscle but it was lost.
Some of subdivisions here have their own water through a private water distribution company etc. They have had big problems at times. One case where private does not work as well as government, it seems.
I have a well. The water has been tested and can stand in a clear jar for days and have no sediment, color and it is cool and tasteless. That well is the reason I live here. I still have a whole house filter on the system to guarantee that nothing can get into the pipes and water heater. It is still possible for sediment to be floating around in the wells around here because of rains and the type of soil, deep sandy loam.
My wife grew up where there was no good ground water to drink and they relied upon rainwater to bathe in. She still buys bottled water....:-S
Dave Karoly, post: 324775, member: 94 wrote: .... I live in a water district, our water comes from a well.
Most municipalities here in the prairie have either water impounded in man-made reservoirs or good sized wells. My city has both. The many wells are used to maintain and supplement supply when the reservoir level is seasonally low. A few years ago the EPA started screwing with the acceptable arsenic levels in public well water. The Garber-Wellington aquifer we drink from is in a sandstone formation. And sandstone borne water is naturally prone to have slightly higher arsenic levels.
One day our water was "acceptable", and the next day it wasn't. The flurry of 'tree-hugging-educated-millennial-idiocy' boiled forth from the university here. The mere mention of arsenic generated editorial after editorial in the local news rag. It seemed like nobody was even aware the levels of arsenic in the well water HAD NOT risen, the acceptable test levels had actually fallen. Nobody would believe that last year they thought the water was great, but this year IT'S POISON! It's the same water, dammit...One great insane witch-hunt, imho.
As my hearing worsens and my eyesight dims I'm actually kind of glad I won't be around to see what kind of bureaucratic spider's web the generation-to-come will have to endure just to survive. I hope they have plenty of bottled water.
We have good water but we still run it through a Pur pitcher for drinking purposes.
I'm lucky enough to live in an area with very good tap water. I have no reservations about drinking it at all. I still carry bottled water to the field most of the time, but it's just as a matter of convenience, nothing to do with the quality.
The custodian at a city school where I taught referred to water cooler water as "city punch."
I drink water filter through my refrigerator.
I used to use a Brita water tank filter because the water here tasted so bad.
Up until about 5 years ago our water authority used some kind of sulfide purification process, the water always smelled, and tasted like rotten eggs.
I'm sure it was safe, but I just couldn't stand that taste.
Before moving here I lived in the City of Pittsburgh and drank tap water all the time.
Yes.
My community has a private water system that chlorinates really good well water. Even so, it tastes pretty good, yet I often get funny looks from some when I'm drinking it out of the faucet instead of grabbing a bottle.
I do take Nalgene bottles with me on field days, filled with tap water, and the bottles are used over and over, so that does not count as bottled water.....
Mr. Shrock's Lewis Black clip is worth watching.
Ken
paden cash, post: 324766, member: 20 wrote:
I guess drinking tap water has risen to the unhealthy level like consuming sugar-substitutes, nitrate treated meat, or smoking three packs of Camels a day....I'll be a goner in no time. And at my funeral my whole family will shake their heads and whisper among themselves, "We tried to stop him..."
Aloha, Uncle Paden:
I was in New York City airport last winter and purchased a bottled water. I did a quick math...the bottled water was a bit more expensive then Unleaded Gasoline sold on our island! Btw, we have one the most expensive gas and electricity prices in the entire country! It was beginning of the trip. I never purchased a single bottled water since then!
I drink directly from the tap. Our water comes from the county's water well. Few years ago apparently there was mercury leak in the water (from the pump's seal or something.) We installed a central water filter from drinking at that time. County fixed the pump...shortly there after of course. Now I drink for the tap that is closes to me...filtered or otherwise. I can't tell the different anyway. 🙂
Yea Unc,
I’ve drank dihydrogen oxide from tap water for the last 60+ years from old time garden hoses, bird baths, green colored water fountains at Howard Johnsons, and turquoise water in a cone shaped paper cup from a water cooler that looked like an aquarium.
Hey, I ain’t dead yet! B-)
I drink our well water at the house- 305 ft deep- always nice and cool. We have a water softener to reduce scale- we have radiant floor heat and I don't want to have problems in the boiler or floor tubes- The kitchen faucet is off a line that bypasses the softener.
At work - it's another story- we have really funky shallow well water there that is very High in iron- all the fixtures are iron stained and they iron stain overnight after cleaning...
We have Culligan water coolers/ with weekly bottle delivery- I'm sure that that stuff is pretty much glorified city water but it's not bad - can't taste the chlorine/ don't have to hold your nose to drink it, so I'm good=
One of the fairer sex (yuppie chick) in a different office trailer in the pit- was on-hand when the repair man came to service the water cooler and was appalled by the various biological specimens in their unit and refuses to use that water anymore- so she brings water from her house...
I think most of the issues that existed there were due to human contamination of the outlet that flowed back into the reservoir area of the unit.
I'm a tad bit biased. I have served for a total of more than 19 years on one rural water district board of directors or another. Plus I served about 9 of those years as that board's representative to serve on the board of directors for the wholesale water supply district which produced the water for that district and about ten others. I have absolutely no fear of drinking what is coming out of my tap. In fact, I have a large plastic container that fits neatly on a shelf in the refrigerator that holds 2-2.5 gallons of water for my routine consumption. I prefer to drink it cold. No need for ice.
Bottled water is just that....bottled water. Much of it is standard municipally produced water put in a bottle and marketed for an outrageous markup. It is not purified. It is not distilled. It's identical to what thousands (tens of thousands?) of households find coming from their tap in that city. The key is to purchase this from common water plants that have extremely bland-tasting water. Water has no taste. Impurities are what give it a taste. Some impurities, however, have no taste.
Read the label very, very closely on your next purchase of bottled water. Consider what, if any, qualifications are provided to distinguish it from common tap water. Explore what the word "filtered" really means as applied to water treatment. Running it through common cheesecloth might qualify as "filtered" but be completely meaningless in the big picture.
As an example, the following quote from Wikipedia about Aquafina bottled water explains that it comes from a municipal water plant. The reverse osmosis, etc. treatments mentioned are common place at the municipal plant. Note that there is no claim that Aquafina performs that treatment.
"Aquafina Pure Water, the primary unflavored product produced under the Aquafina brand, is derived from local municipal tap water sources and goes through a purification process that incorporates reverse osmosis, ultraviolet and ozone sterilization.[3] Beginning on July 27, 2007, a disclaimer was added to each bottle of Aquafina, stating the water comes from a "public source".[4] Aquafina uses the term "Purified Drinking Water" in reference to the product on its labeling in the United States.[5] In Canada, the current 1.5 litres (51 US fl oz) bottle of water displays "Demineralized Treated Water". In response to concerns amongst environmental advocates who raised question over the disclosure of water sources, a PepsiCo spokeswoman stated, "if this helps clarify the fact that the water originates from public sources, then it's a reasonable thing to do."[4]
