Americans love them some bottled water, a fact corporations have not failed to notice. The average American family spends $615 per year on the stuff, with Latinos and blacks being "three times more likely to choose bottled water over the tap for their children." And in some parts of the country where public water is, shall we say, disgusting, that makes sense. But in New York City, home of the bottled and sold champagne of municipal tap waters, the idea of buying the stuff is pretty ludicrous. And now people are doing taste tests to prove it. more ›

People have been selling packaged New York City tap water for years...but charging $8-a-pop per bottle for the champagne of municipal waters? That's a little rich for our blood. And yet that is exactly what the striking workers at the Central Park Boathouse say that operator Dean Poll has had them charge for bottles of filtered tap water for years. more ›

Despite his millions, Mayor Bloomberg drinks the heavenly-tasting NYC tap water just like everyone else, and he doesn't think there's a goshdarn thing wrong with it—and he's not afraid to give the EPA a piece of his mind. more ›

While waiting for the city to come plow his neighborhood, city Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. is taking up another crusade: the fluoridation of water! Vallone is attempting to stop the decades-old practice of putting fluoride in the drinking water, something the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called one of the 10 greatest public health achievements of the 20th century. Vallone told the Daily News, "This amounts to forced medication by the government. What's next? They decide we're depressed and add Prozac to our drinking water?" That depends, is it good for our teeth? more ›

The AP reports, "New York City officials have detected elevated lead levels in the water. They are telling New Yorkers to run their taps for 30 seconds before drinking water, cooking with it or using it to make baby formula. The Department of Environmental Protection monitors water inside homes that have lead plumbing and fixtures, typically found in buildings more than 40 years old." The EPA requires local utilities to take action if 10% or more tested building have lead levels greater than 15 parts per billion, and in NYC, 30 of 222 tested buildings (14%) had higher levels. What does this mean for bagels? more ›

While New York City may have some of the best tap water ever, it may not be kosher. When the water was tested in 2004, it set off an alarm in the Orthodox community because results showed tiny crustaceans known as copepods in it. At the time, Rabbi Abraham Zimmerman said, "We hope the city will do something to purify and filter the water to accommodate a few hundred thousand Orthodox, observant Jews." more ›

In 2008, the New York State Department of Health announced that NYC won the coveted title for best-tasting drinking water in New York, which vindicated our tap when we came in 2nd earlier that year during an unscientific blind taste testing. But while many of us don't even feel the need to filter our water through a Brita, we don't actually have The Best tasting water according to some people. No, that title has just been handed to Stevens Point, Wisconsin (pop. 25,000). more ›

Recently NYMag had a lab analyze samples of tap water from 14 locations around the city. While the water checked out (and has passed taste tests in the past), they made a list of some extra goodies that were found in it, including sodium, nitrates, trihalomethanes, iron and manganese, arsenic (!) and calcium carbonate. While the Riverkeeper folks say we can drink our city's tap water with confidence, that whole arsenic thing may have some considering the world of water filtration (the site confirms that "severe weather, the odd rusting pipe, and other conditions" may further contaminate the system). So, do you take your chances, or do you filter your tap? more ›

Environmentalists say they've come up with an unlikely way to keep the city's tap water from becoming polluted: cow manure. Amidst mounting concerns about the impact of upstate natural gas drilling on New York City's water supply, the blog CleanTechnica reports on the burgeoning cow-power movement. more ›

The Post set their fine-print gumshoes loose on the city’s restaurant menus and uncovered numerous crimes against the dining public, like restaurants charging for normally free items like bread, butter, and tap water. Times dining critic Frank Bruni thinks that charging extra for nice bread and butter is perfectly acceptable, but for the most part, everyone’s like holy crap, this is totally outrageous. Apparently there’s “A 20 percent mandatory tip on all checks at the Little Italy tourist spot Grotta Azzurra,” and bobo in Greenwich Village charges $1 per-person for filtered tap water. more ›

The debate about how wasteful it is to buy bottled water never seems to go away around the Big Apple (home of the #1 water around—at least in the state.) But this weekend, a reader writing into the Times' City section wanted to put a specific dollar amount on tap versus bottles. A spokesman for the Department of Environmental Protection was able to do just that, telling the paper that city tap water costs $5.99 per 100 cubic feet, eight ounces of New York water cost five one-hundredths of one cent, or $0.0005, including the cost of treating the wastewater. That makes the same size eight ounce bottle of Poland Spring check in at 2000 times the cost at one dollar. Of course picking up a bottle of New York City tap water in stores will cost you even more than that. more ›

Not too long ago New York's tap water hit the marketplace; bottled and labeled TAP'D NY, the company even suggested refilling the $1.50 bottle from a tap when its empty. Craig Zucker is the man behind the idea, a for-profit business that gets its product from the city's public water system "to source the world's best tasting tap water, purify it through reverse osmosis and bottle it locally, leaving out ludicrous transportation miles." Zucker told us a little bit about his idea, future "water pairings" taking place around the city, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. more ›

Just as we were patting ourselves on the backs for our top shelf tap water, a Bushwick local went and tested their own H2O after it began stinking up shower time and dish duty with chlorine fumes. BushwickBK used a water testing kit to analyze pH levels, alkalinity, chlorine, total hardness, iron, copper, and nitrites. The results? "My tap water scored a 4 out of 10 in total chlorine content, which is safe according to Pro-Lab pamphlet, but the water in the Brita pitcher recorded a 0.2 out of 10 total chlorine content." However, the test showed that it was acidic (or “soft”) which can mean there are heavy metals and/or lead present (a lead test costs $30 and wasn't performed). They report the test "recorded a pH of 5, the level of acidity in coffee...and my Brita pitcher only increased the acidity in the water, pushing it down to a 3, the level of orange juice and vinegar." Yikes! If you want to perform your own tap water test, there are kits available for $10. And if you're in the beer-making biz, note that low pH levels are good for it, "The German immigrants that dominated Bushwick in the mid-1800s got filthy rich off the water acidity." more ›

NYC tap water on sale at a local store. Now, we know that NYC tap water is pretty darn delicious (it did get first place at the state fair last week), but is it worth buying a bottle full of it? more ›

You may recall that back in July our tap water placed 2nd in a tap water taste test, coming in behind Bethpage (wherever that is). Well, we've been vindicated, because at the NY State Fair in Syracuse--we placed 1st! The New York State Department of Health has announced that NYC "won the coveted title for best-tasting drinking water in New York over 150 other municipal water systems during the final competition." However, they note it's a "nonscientific competition," and the Health Commissioner downplayed the achievement by declaring:"Considering that NYC's water comes from reservoirs in Delaware, Greene, Ulster, Putnam, Westchester, Schoharie, Sullivan and Dutchess counties, these counties are also winners." Whatever, the blue ribbon is all ours...along with the A grade Riverkeeper gave us for tap water back in May. more ›