"tap water" news and stories

When you think about moving to a new city, you might take into account the school districts, the job market, the home prices and the property taxes. But do you spend time thinking about how the tap water tastes? Probably not. However, thanks to the Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting, you can now factor in the taste of a municipality's tap water in your move decisions.

This last Saturday, the panel of independent judges tasted water samples from 120 sources and determined that the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which serves Los Angeles, and the town of Clearbrook, British Columbia tied for first place in the tap water category.

For those of you in Los Angeles, do you think your tap water is award worthy? For the rest of you, how does your tap water stack up?

[via CNN.com]

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Growing up in Portland, OR, when it came to drinking water, we were pretty lucky. The water that came out of the tap was clear and tasty. One of the hardest things to adjust to when I moved to Philadelphia was the fact that the water that came out of my kitchen sink didn't taste too great. For a while I bought bottled water, but my bank account couldn't handle that expense and I didn't like the amount of plastic I generated, especially living in an apartment building with sketchy recycling practices. It also felt wrong to me to buy bottled water, when I live in one of the few countries in the world where the tap water is pretty much universally safe for general consumption.

It appears that all across the country, upscale restaurants are making similar choices, leaving behind the bottled water and serving filtered still or carbonated water. Serious Eats has a nice round-up of recent establishments that are turning to the tap and choosing not serve bottled water, despite the financial sacrifice it entails.

photo by Marisa McClellan

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We've talked about drinking water from the tap before, mostly about pollutants But what about things that are pruposely added to the water like fluoride?

The National Academy of Sciences, commissioned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has concluded that the maximum level of fluoride in drinking water is too high, and is urging the EPA to lower the levels. However, they haven't indicated to what level.

Fluoridation of water was originally introduced in 1945 as a preventative measure for dental health. While we all know that fluoride is an ingredient in toothpaste because it helps prevent tooth decay, too much fluoride poses some serious risks. Severe enamel fluorosis actually weakens dental enamel causing cavities, but more importantly, researchers have reason to believe that fluoride may contribute to bone fractures, skeletal fluorosis and possibly bone cancer.

None of this matters if you're loyal to your Evian, but if you're concerned about the level of fluoride in your community, check with the CDC.

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Last summer, Reader's Digest published an article listing the 50 cleanest metropolitan cities in America. They scored cities based on air and water qualities, pollution by industrial toxics, and sanitation. There's no big surprise that Portland scored the highest for cleanliness overall, but what did surprise (me, at least), was that several cities that I would never have guessed, scored a perfect 50 for the quality of their tap water. Riverside? Las Vegas? The list of perfect scoring cities are below:

• Buffalo, NY 
• Columbus, OH
• Denver, CO
• Las Vegas, NV
• Portland, OR
• Riverside, CA
• Sacramento, CA
• Salt Lake City, UT 
• San Diego, CA
• San Francisco, CA
• San Jose, CA