Do You Drink Your Tap Water?
By M. K. Albus
@MKAlubs (455)
United States
February 2, 2018 12:45pm CST
If you were to fill a glass with tap water in the town where I live you would not be able to see through the water. It's very cloudy and it has little particles of stuff floating in it. It also smells really bad.
The town I live in is surrounded by agriculture and the groundwater is very polluted with pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and chemical fertilizers. The tap water leaves horrible mineral deposits on what ever it comes in contact with. Sinks and faucets are very hard to keep clean.
I don't know anyone around here who would dare drink the tap water. Most people just drink carbonated soft drinks or coffee instead. But I'm a water freak and drink a ton of water every day so I have no choice but to buy purified water by the gallon. I go through almost a gallon a day. Water is just about the only thing I drink.
It's a major expense but the only choice would be to move somewhere else and I can't afford that right now.
Do you drink your local tap water? Do you buy water? Do you never drink water? Where did you live that had the best tasting tap water you've ever had?
The best tap water I ever had was when I used to live high up in the Rocky Mountains. I miss that water.
9 people like this
12 responses
@Mike197602 (15505)
• United Kingdom
2 Feb 18
I work in a kitchen and it is very hot so I drink a lot of water.
We have a filtered machine in front of house but as I work back of house I drink multiple pints of tap water.
Here in the UK tap water is absolutely safe to drink.
2 people like this
@seaprimavera (46)
•
2 Feb 18
The tap water here is undrinkable (California water is terrible), we have big glass jugs (and a bpa 3 gallon water thing) we fill at the store: new leaf or whole foods, only 39cents per gallon. I use it to wash veggies, boil foods in, and drink tea or coffee. The only thing I use tap water for is dishes, cleaning, showers, brushing teeth and washing hands. The water here is hard and has other things in it. I have a filter on my shower because the water would smell (guessing from the chlorine).
Though when I live in Washington (Snohomish area) the water there was so clean! It tasted like spring water, so clear. I trusted that water. Some mountain areas here to have good water too, just not in the valley or coast.
1 person likes this
@MKAlubs (455)
• United States
3 Feb 18
If all the pollution in water isn't bad enough out municipality puts in all sorts of chemicals in the water such as chlorine and fluoride and fluorine and about 20-some other chemicals. A lot of bottled water has some of these same chemicals so I am very careful about the water I buy.
A couple of years ago we had an outbreak of flesh-eating bacteria here in my town. 6 different people went to the hospital for unrelated problems and came down with the flesh-eating bacteria while in the hospital. Extensive tests proved that the bacteria came from the tap water. The hospital uses the very same tap water that the rest of the town uses. So the town significantly increased all the chemicals they add to the water to try to kill the bacteria and they issued a warning to the town not to drink the tap water for at least two months. A lot of people have not drunk it since.
A lot of pundits have claimed that some day soon fresh clean drinking water may be hard to find and may some day be more expensive than gasoline. Meanwhile we continue to build oil pipelines over water aquifers and we continue to saturate the earth with toxic chemicals for agriculture. Meanwhile corporations like Nestle are buying up all the rights to fresh water sources. They know what's coming and plan to get rich off of it.
It can be scary but we must not succumb to the fear. We just need to be consciously aware of the situation in our own neighborhoods. I've been wanting to move away from where I currently live for some time now. Whenever I do searches on the internet looking for nice places to move to I always research the local water situation of those areas. I know that the situation where I currently live is not getting any better and I don't want to become a slave to corporations that sell water and I don't want to contribute to the very scary proliferation of plastic.
Nearby mountains and a temperate climate have been my main priorities when searching for a new place to live but now good water has become one of my top priorities as well.
@toniganzon (72281)
• Philippines
3 Feb 18
I couldn't even remember the last time I drank tap water in this country. Two years ago we went to Singapore and I was happy to drink tap water there.
In this country we have been buying purified water for a very long time already. My son has never experienced drinking from tap at all. And he's turning 14.
1 person likes this
@JamesHxstatic (29413)
• Eugene, Oregon
16 Jun 18
We have great water here in Eugene, but neighbors to the north in Salem have had problems all month with an algae bloom in a lake from which they get their water. The state has handed out bottled water there.
1 person likes this
@JohnRoberts (109846)
• Los Angeles, California
2 Feb 18
I have a filter for water.
1 person likes this
@Srbageldog (7716)
• United States
3 Feb 18
I buy purified bottled water. I will drink tap water occasionally, but it always tastes a bit funky to me (unless it's boiled first.) Sometimes our tap water smells like chlorine.
When I was a kid we had a well that was too close to our septic tank. We drank tap water until the city came out and said that it was contaminated with sewage. After that we started getting water from my uncle, who had non-contaminated water and would let my dad fill up huge jugs from his hose. But we still had to wash our dishes, brush our teeth, and bathe in the sewage water...until we finally got hooked up to city water a couple years later. So, yeah, as a kid I drank sewage. 
I think this is part of the reason why I will only drink bottled water now.
I think this is part of the reason why I will only drink bottled water now.
@indexer (4852)
• Leicester, England
2 Feb 18
It is very sad to learn that people living in the United States cannot drink the water. There are occasionally problems in the UK, caused by burst pipes, etc, when the water becomes unsafe to drink, but such incidents are very rare. The water is absolutely fine 99.99% of the time!
There are currently moves to wean people off buying bottled water, for the simple reason that far too many plastic bottles are being used and discarded, which causes a huge environmental problem. Outlets are now being set up in many places where you can refill your bottle for nothing.
1 person likes this
@nanette64 (20364)
• Fairfield, Texas
2 Feb 18
Coffee and taking my pills are about the usage of the tap water @MKAlubs . I refuse to buy bottled water because a lot of them are just as bad. Nebraska had pretty good water.
1 person likes this
@JudyEv (339953)
• Rockingham, Australia
4 Feb 18
I love our tap water which is really rain water. It runs off our roof into a huge tank. I think it tastes great.
@Hannihar (130218)
• Israel
5 Feb 18
I give my cat water in her bowl from the faucet. I bought bottles of water a long time ago and fill up the bottle with water from the faucet.
