December 10, 2003
NYC Tap Water Is All Right
If you just have a Brita to filter tap water, versus your own Poland Spring water cooler, don't fret: A study commissioned by the Post says that NYC tap water is great considering it's free. Now, Gothamist knows what you're thinking – "Study? By the Post? Of what, tabloid headlines' attention grabbing capability?" – but the study was conducted by the Univesity of North Carolina at Asheville, an accredited institution (ten bottled brands were tested and analyzed along the areas that the city tested NYC tap water in 2002). An advantage that bottled brands do have is less lead, but city officials say that if you let your tap run for a minute or more or boil it, the water is safer. City tap water also generally has more THMs, which can cause miscarriages, than bottled water, but the city water is still under federal action levels. Some bottled waters happened to have higher arsenic concentrations than tap, which not only sounds scary, it can lead to lung and bladder cancer. Jim Tierney, the state inspector general for the city's water supply, tells the Post, "There really is no reason to go out and buy bottled water in New York City. It doesn't make economic sense. It's 1,000 times the cost of tap water, and tap water is clean and healthful."
Alice has more helpful information on the safety of your NYC drinking water.
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i am always having this argument with my roommates who refuse to drink "new york" tap water. we really do have some of the best water in the country. and unlike some places it tastes like water, not chlorine, or rotten eggy sulfer, or anything else.
Manhattan tap water: tops. But why is Brooklyn water so milky and fizzy all the time? (And don't start about how the milkiness is just air. Explain the fizz).
But you have to wonder... NYC water is great when it leaves the source. But it has to go through each buildings' plumbing system before it comes out your tap. How clean is your building's roof tank?
Yeah - but my tap water is all murky and smells funny. And a friend who lives not far (also in Williamsburg) had to replace all the lead pipes that connected his house to the main water line in the street. Apparently it's not uncommon in some older and poorer neighborhoods. That can't be good, right?
"Let it run for a minute or boil it?" Riiight. Just get the damn Britta, so you have ice-cold H2O at all times.
I don't know where the fizz comes from, but it may be tiny gas bubbles relased by the various water treatment chemicals. The bubbles are much finer than than the carbon dioxide bubbles found in soda. For example, nitrogen bubbles are finer than carbon dioxide (think of how the fizz of Guinness beer is so much different than other beers).
But yeah; that milky water isn't really milky at all. Let it settle and the bubbles disappear and the water will look completely transparent. It's okay to drink it right away (although psychologically, drinking cloudy water might be weird).
milky water or no, i still say nyc (including my own beloved brooklyn) tap water tastes better than plasticy refridgerated britta water.
growing up (in the 412) my parents had "hard water" and my grandparents (who lived less than a mile away) had "soft water" or vice versa, i can't remember, i only know that that difference (the fact that stuff that should have tasted the same but tasted so different) really made an impression on me as a young kid. it made me a water snob. in 1987, sort of early in the bottled water craze, my parents had to SHIP those large "cows" of poland spring water to me at summer camp because i couldn't drink well water without puking.
that said, new york city (boroughs included) has GREAT water -- i mean, have you TASTED the bagels?! (i do agree however that each building's pipes has A LOT to do with taste and safety.)
NYC water is great compared to the water in most cities in the United States. The most horrible water in the United States has to be in Boston. Ick! I couldn't even brush my teeth with Boston water.
Nah, my vote for terrible water is San Diego. But NYC water is/has often the bar that water quality around the country is held to. The main reason for adding chemicals to the water is the plumbing and holding tanks in specific buildings. Running water will cleanse itself every 25 miles, when it sits around it gets skanky.
my current rants:
1) boo fucking urns to dino in montreal. i don't know if this no-h20-till-you've-had-a-drink policy is common elsewhere, but you can't have a sip from the tap 'till you've corked an $11 bottle of aqua del madonna or somesuch nonsense.
2) boo-urns to brita as well. stick your water in a normal juice jug for a few hours and all THMs and chlorine evaporate. whereas your brita just gets little activated charcoal bits everywhere and makes the water all tasteless and mineral-free.
3) and (enviously though) boo-urns to coke for taking calgary tap water, filtering it through a big fuckin' brita, then adding minerals back in and selling it for $1.50 a bottle. that's genius. why didn't i think of that?
actually, water quality in the nyc area has been a problem for quite some time, and is getting worse. the city managed to twist the arm of the epa into approval of a filtration avoidance determination. this was in response to a requirement that all cities filter their water supplies... creating a filtration plant/s capable of handling new york's water would have been very expensive, so they ducked out. in the wake of the 2001 attacks, more city dwellers have moved upstate or purchased second homes, which has increased development (and pollution) in the watersheds that feed nyc drinking water reservoirs. the city is just now moving forward, reluctantly, to site and plan for a filtration system. as for the fallout, from the years without, that remains to be seen...
more info: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/press/crotonpn.html
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/1997/April97/171enr.htm
the system is estimated to cost about $6bn. yikes.
You want heinous water, try Arizona water.
NYC Water is the best in the country. NYC's water pipes are the worst in the country. Buy a decent Commercial water filter system and you get the best water at the lowest cost. Brita is a wate of time, get an everpure system. Everpure.com. A two stage system- a coarse pre-filter and a .5 micron carbon block will give great water.
True our water is great, but like others said, the pipes are truly terrible and all kinds of stuff ends up in there. Use water filters.
Aren't we a bunch of whiny bastards, considering children in third world countries drink from the same ponds that animals take massive dumps in?
Hmm. I was buying a gallon a day of water for my wife (who drinks a LOT of watter), and it just got to be WAY too expensive. So we decided to use a Pur filter on the kitchen sink. These things are supposed to last for a couple of months -- and we're lucky if we get a couple of WEEKS! I decided to crack one open after water stopped flowing (i.e. it was spent) and found a gross orange goo all around the outside of the carbon filter. It's very similar to the orange crap we get around our sinks, tub, etc. It's not rust. So, I called the water dept., who came down here with vials and measurements and test chemicals... and they found nothing wrong. WTF?! It's got to be the tank on the roof. At this point, we just buy in bulk when we find a good deal on filters. Soon we'll move away from this crappy building. UGH!
What area in the United States has the worst water quality? The best?
NYC govt was doing the right thing to oppose the big money water filtration system. The people who are in favor of the filtration plant are the developers and the NYC workers unions. Once a filtration plant is built, the strict protection of the Croton, Catskills and Deleware watersheds can be loosened allowing all sorts of new houses and associated pollution to move on in (big $$ for developers, bad news for the environment, unhelpful urban sprawl). The Unions like the filtration plant because that's the only way they can get the money that's been earmarked for the water system. If it's not spent on the filtration plant, it'll be spent on preservation of the watershed. But, the watershed is not inside NYC, so that money would go to other workers in that area instead.
As for disease, it'll probably go up with a filtration plant because filters fail, and when they fail, they fail big. Look up the outbreak of Cryptosporidium in Detroit for an example.
freek brita!!! freek NYC tap water!!! drink North Carolina tap water!!!!! yEaH!!
All city water supplies must use chlorine to disinfect the water which is not very healthy to drink (not to mention how bad it tastes). A good water filter will take care of chlorine, lead and other chemicals for much less than bottled water. Here's a site that compares some of the leading brands www.WaterFilterComparisons.com