Amusingly lurked on the bottled water thread so I thought I would throw out a different angle about tap water.

Water analysis raises safety issues

We're basically screwed either way unless a person happens to live on property with their own natural spring.

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The political system is broke and it's a joke.

I used to get letters in the mai from the cityl with a lot of fancy talk, but between the added words, I would see feces, chlorine, and lots of other stuff I don't want to drink. I know bottled water might have crap too, but they have not sent me a letter and the bottom line is....It tastes A LOT better to me so I WILL drink it and I am NOT drinking tap water. Last time I checked, I had that right.

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"When you're drowning, you don't say 'I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,' you just scream."

John Lennon

One of the fancy liberal towns locally will be putting on their town ballot that there will be no sales of bottled water in town. I guess they will still sell soda filled with sugar and chemicals, but they are decreeing that everybody can drink tap....,ya know so much better for the world. I think all the lexus suvs and the escalades will still be allowed within the town borders.

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Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.

E. Roosevelt

faucet filter or counter-top filter pitchers will purify tap water.

I'm guessing here, but I'd say 75% of bottled water is just some city's tap water run through a filter and bottled.

I don't care what kind of water people drink. I just don't understand the logic, nor do I understand being ok w/ the added expense of drinking only bottled water.

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Mental that one, I'm telling you. ---Ron Weasley, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets"

There are so many things people do that I don't understand....I could go on and on. I have come to realize that I will probably never understand most of it, and I don't really need to. lol. We are all different and have our own ways of doing things. I enjoy bottled water enough to pay the few dollars for it, just like some people enjoy their favorite snack, soda,movie, etc. enough to pay for it.

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"When you're drowning, you don't say 'I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,' you just scream."

John Lennon

Direct quote from the link above:

"Although basic water filters such as those made by Brita and PUR do not remove hexavalent chromium, several reverse-osmosis systems designed for home use can take the chemical out of water. Such systems are available for purchase online and at hardware stores. "

I buy bottled water by the gallon and specifically look for the Reverse Osmosis claim. Nestle Purelife is one that comes to mind that I will buy.

Oh, and before I am attacked, my decision to buy water does not come from my political views, crumbling foreign nation economies, or the war. I DO recycle and I always try to spell words correct and use proper punctuation. Did I cover all my bases so I won't be criticized?

That is the water I usually buy, and sometimes I get deja blue(when I can find it) because the blue bottle is cute. lol

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"When you're drowning, you don't say 'I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,' you just scream."

John Lennon

I don't trust pitcher or sink filters because if the water company can't take the bad stuff out with millions of $ of equipment how the heck is a $20 filter going to do it? If it were that easy each water company would use it.

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The political system is broke and it's a joke.

Again it is all about personal choice and we are afterall talking about drinking bottled water here, which like GG and op said they like and will continue and so will we as a family love the taste so here is to life, live and let live and enjoy.. Catherine

For me, personally, I like the taste of it much better than our tap water. Our water comes from a nearby lake, so they have to add a lot of chemicals to "purify" it. Also, I am much better about drinking water if it is "ready to go" so to speak. I try to have a 24pk on hand to drink, but, if I do go thru phases where I say to myself...."just drink the tap water....it's fine, and you'll save $$$".

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Doing the right thing isn't always the same as doing the easy thing.

Nestlé water tastes so gross. Ugh.

I can't imagine why anyone would willingly pay money for it.

I would have to assume it is because their taste is different than yours and they like the taste.....just a guess, though.

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"When you're drowning, you don't say 'I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,' you just scream."

John Lennon

Not the first time, not the last....not that I would drink it anyway, but no way am I drinking the tap water!


Boil-water advisory still in effect for east bank of Orleans Parish
Published: Sunday, November 21, 2010, 1:00 AM
Michelle Krupa, The Times-Picayune By Michelle Krupa, The Times-Picayune
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The east bank of Orleans Parish will remain under a boil-water advisory until at least 3 p.m. today as officials await the results of tests on the water's safety.

Water alert Enlarge Chris Granger, The Times-Picayune CHRIS GRANGER / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE Worried about the water quality that the mules pulling carriages in the French Quarter might have to drink on Saturday, November 20, 2010, John Hadskey, a supervisor with Royal Carriage, calls his boss who then called a veterinarian to find out if it was okay for the mules to drink city water from a water fountain on Decatur Street. New Orleans Water Advisory gallery (4 photos)

* Water alert
* Water alert
* Water alert

Meanwhile, city officials are trying to figure out what caused the Sewerage & Water Board's in-house electrical plant to fail late Friday, cutting power to critical equipment that maintains water pressure throughout the underground pipe system.

Officials on Saturday stressed that the boil-water advisory is "precautionary" as they await the results of tests that will show whether a prolonged drop in water pressure late Friday night and early Saturday morning created an environment for contaminants to invade the city's drinking water. The directive does not affect Algiers, which is served by a separate purification plant.

"From a public health perspective, it's very remote that there is going to be a problem," Mayor Mitch Landrieu said during a noon news conference on the steps of City Hall.

Nevertheless, residents are advised to boil water for one minute after a rolling boil commences, then to let it cool before using it for drinking, cooking, brushing teeth or bathing.

"We're uncertain at this point if there was a compromise to the system," said Dr. Takeisha Davis, a pediatrician who is regional medical director at the state Office of Public Health. "The major risk is from ingestion, and we think that this risk is very low."

Residents with compromised immune systems or open wounds should be particularly careful not to bathe in unboiled tap water, Davis advised.
Taking it in stride?

* How New Orleanians and tourists are reacting

City and state officials are expected to announce Sunday afternoon whether tests of tap water collected at 28 sites across the city meet state Department of Health and Hospitals standards for safe drinking water, Landrieu said. If they do, the boil-water advisory will be lifted.

Samples were collected Saturday about 7 a.m. and were expected to be processed by 3 p.m., after which they need to incubate for 18 to 24 hours, Landrieu said.

The tests measure the number of colonies of coliforms, a group of bacteria that are mostly harmless but indicate that other harmful bacteria or viruses may be in the water. Such contaminants can cause illnesses including diarrhea and nausea. They are killed only by boiling; filters in refrigerators, faucets and Brita-style pitchers do not suffice, health officials said.

If today's test results show bacteria growth, officials will repeat the tests, with the same incubation period required each time.

Though the power plant crash lasted for only 10 minutes, it caused pressure in the city's water pipes to drop quickly from a typical rate of 65 to 68 pounds per square inch to less than 10 psi, Landrieu said. Minimal pressure was restored by midnight, and by 4 a.m. Saturday, pressure had returned to 40 psi and rising, which exceeds the level state health officials say is dangerous, he said.

The effect was felt almost immediately by residents across town who used social networking websites to report faucets running dry and long lines at bars and restaurants for toilets that wouldn't flush.

With the Saints slated to host the Seattle Seahawks at the Superdome today, it was not clear how uncertainty about the city's tap water might affect the 3 p.m. kickoff.

Landrieu said Saturday that his staff had been in communication with executives at SMG, the company that manages the facility, and "we don't think there's any reason to compromise the events that are in the Superdome today or tomorrow."

The boil-water advisory, which was issued by the state health department, marked the first time since Hurricane Katrina laid waste to virtually every critical infrastructure system in New Orleans that a such a widespread boil-water directive has been issued in the city.

Meanwhile, S&WB officials were trying to figure out why the agency's in-house power plant shut down for about 10 minutes between 10:30 and 11 p.m., Friday.

The century-old power plant produces an uncommon frequency of electricity known as 25-Hertz, also called 25-cycle, that drives the motors that run about half the drinking water system -- namely giant pumps that suck raw water from the Mississippi River and smaller pumps that propel water toward homes and businesses across the city.

Much of the S&WB's oldest drainage infrastructure also requires 25-cycle power. The water board relies on Entergy New Orleans for the rest of its power.

SW&B Executive Director Marcia St. Martin called Friday night's sudden shutdown of the power plant a "catastrophic failure of all the redundant systems," and she admitted that until officials can figure out what caused it, there's a chance it could happen again.

Added Landrieu: "When you have three backup systems and all of them fail, there's a difficult problem that has to be fixed."

The power plant generates electricity by running tap water through enormous boilers, which create steam to run turbines that produce 25-cycle electricity. The boilers and turbines are operated by natural gas purchased from Entergy, though the gas must pass through a compressor at the power plant to boost its pressure before it can be used.

If the gas line or compressor fails, the SW&B has a diesel backup system than can run the turbines, though switching to diesel fuel takes time. On May 4, 2007, parts of Uptown sustained significant flooding when a compressor failure forced pumps that provide more than half of the city's drainage capacity to shut down for 25 minutes while officials switched to diesel.

In case diesel fuel runs out -- or if all four turbines fail -- a series of "frequency changers" at the South Claiborne Avenue site can convert electricity provided by Entergy, which has a frequency of 60 Hertz, directly into 25-cycle power, in effect sidestepping the turbine system altogether.

Water board officials long have insisted that their reliance on both types of electricity improves the reliability and resilience of the water and drainage systems because if one power source fails, another is ready to take over. Some experts, meanwhile, say abandoning the 25-cycle system may be impossible for the S&WB because it would require replacing the antique drainage pumps and other equipment that run only on low-frequency electricity.

Water board officials also acknowledge, however, that financing shortfalls have impeded maintenance of the power plant. Since Katrina, the S&WB has asked Congress for $125 million to rehabilitate the current facility into what would amount to a brand-new power plant. So far, the money has not been approved.

Landrieu on Saturday cast Friday's power plant failure as part of a broader challenge of aging infrastructure that New Orleans residents must confront.

"This is the consequence of having a system that doesn't work," he said. "We continue to have to have a long-term plan to fortify the infrastructure in this city, whether it's streets, water systems, pumping systems or backup generators."

Though a S&WB spokesman sent an e-mail message to area media outlets around 2:30 a.m. to announce the boil-water advisory, the city's e-mail- and text-alert system, NolaReady.info, did not blast the information to subscribers until 8:05 a.m., officials said.

Matthew Kallmyer of the city's Emergency Preparedness Office said the alert system, which is run out of City Hall, was activated "the first time we got notified."

St. Martin said the lag resulted from a need to verify the information. "This is a massive communications system," she said. "That office needed to have reconfirmation and reconfirmation in order to make sure it went out properly."

Landrieu said he has directed his staff to conduct an "after-action review" of the entire incident, including the public notification process.

"I don't know why there was a gap between 3 o'clock and 8 o'clock this morning," he said.

Related topics: new orleans, new orleans sewerage & water board, new orleans water outage

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"When you're drowning, you don't say 'I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,' you just scream."

John Lennon

GG thanks for all the information you just posted. For us it is very vital to drink alot of water it is so healthy for our bodies, personally our tap water is yuck as well and while I do have the Brita Water System and do sometimes drink the water we still prefer and love the taste of Fiji Water and also Dasani Water as well. Thanks again. Catherine

I drink a ton of water, too. I drink it all day at school because I have to talk all day and stay thirsty. I work out every day, so again, a lot of water.

Filter or not, I just can't drink it knowing what was.is there. Plus, as I said, I like the taste better and I pay for it myself....so I can drink it. Everyone has things t hey buy that make them happy and a lot of it I don;t understand....but whatever!! I never dreamed my water preference would be in question....lol. Only at mycoupons!

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"When you're drowning, you don't say 'I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,' you just scream."

John Lennon

If you drink a ton of bottled water, wouldn't it be more economical to get your own reverse osmosis system? I think they run about $250. You must spend at least that much in a year. (Reverse osmosis is the technique a lot of the bottled water companies use on the tap water they bottle for you.)

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If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition, and then admit that we just don't want to do it.

- Stephen Colbert.

No, because I like drinking the water I drink. I already said, I am not drinking this crap that comes from the tap, no matter what. Why does the city not filter it if it is so cheap an easy? No way, never gonna drink it.I do not want to.

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"When you're drowning, you don't say 'I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,' you just scream."

John Lennon

OK, but you are drinking "crap that comes from the tap."

Deja Blue and Nestle Purelife contain municipal water (aka tap water) purified via reverse osmosis. Tap water isn't filtered via reverse osmosis because there's no law mandating it. I don't know for sure, but I suspect applying reverse osmosis on tap water it isn't cheap. That's why you pay more for bottled water (in part). Furthermore, a lot of the water that comes out of the tap isn't used for drinking and it would be expensive to filter that volume of water. Taxes would go up and there would be a huge hue and cry.

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If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition, and then admit that we just don't want to do it.

- Stephen Colbert.

I am drinking the water I like and will continue to do so. This is silly, really.

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"When you're drowning, you don't say 'I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,' you just scream."

John Lennon

I'm not trying to tell you what you can and can't do! I'm just pointing out that you're kidding yourself if you think there's a difference between your bottled water and tap water filtered via reverse osmosis. Obviously, I can't demand that you cease buying and drinking whatever you want!

What was it P.T. Barnum said?

__________________
If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition, and then admit that we just don't want to do it.

- Stephen Colbert.

There is a huge difference......our water is OFTEN invaded by things I do not want to drink. It does not happen every where and the other difference (main one for me) is the taste. My sister has the filter and her water still tastes nasty to me. I like the taste of the water I buy.

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"When you're drowning, you don't say 'I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,' you just scream."

John Lennon

Is this the quote you were looking for, jujubee2:


"There's a Sucker Born Every Minute"


Yep! That one most definitely applies to the whole bottled water thing! But as a waitress told me as I was traveling this weekend: "Consider the source of the comments"

This is an article from 5 years ago talking about bottled water:

Is Bottled Water Better Than Tap? - ABC News

And an article from last year:

Consumer Reports on Safety: Is tap water safer than bottled?

"In fact, bottled water makers are not required to disclose even as much information as your local municipality. If you live in a city of 10,000 residents or more, you probably receive a copy of a water report each year. The Safe Drinking Water Act requires that public water systems test tap water for various contaminants using certified laboratories and issue a water-quality report, called the consumer-confidence report (CCR), once a year. (For particularly toxic contaminants, the SDWA requires results to be reported within 24 hours.) The CCR summarizes local drinking water quality, information about the water source, levels of detected contaminants, whether any of the detected contaminants exceed federal levels, as well as information on the potential health effects of certain contaminants. (If you live in a smaller town, consult the EPA's Web site.)"


Oh, and here is another quote that applies to a lot of the mind set behind the bottled water debate:

“A fool and his money are soon parted.”
Thomas Tusser quotes (English Farmer and Writer. 1524-1580)

Yup - that's it.

__________________
If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition, and then admit that we just don't want to do it.

- Stephen Colbert.

I don't have a problem with people buying bottled water. IMO it isn't any better/different than tap water.
I do hate that I bet about 80-90% of people buying bottled water aren't recycling! Ok I went and did a quick google search, and yes I see this is old, but it was the first one I found.
Plastic Water Bottles Not Being Recycled

Also wanted to add this about plastic water bottles and chemical leaching.
http://trusted.md/blog/vreni_gurd/20...#axzz19SCM2ZIo

Funny how it says this
"Better to use a reusable water bottle, and fill it with your own filtered water from home and keep these single-use bottles out of the landfill."

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Insanity laughs under pressure we're cracking

I can afford the water and won't ever be asking you to pay for it.....lol I don't actually need it any more than people need most of what they buy, but I want it and will buy it with my own money.

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"When you're drowning, you don't say 'I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,' you just scream."

John Lennon

I agree it truly comes down to a personal issue here , which is some people like me and my family love to drink bottled water, we are the ones paying for it and enjoying it I honestly do not see the big issue here it comes down to a personal choice. I will agree I do not like my tap water at all, yuck, we do have the brita water system and I use it for when I did the water for cooking and to give it to our pets. I also agree 100 percent with the recycle issue and sincerely hope all people are responsible and recycle the bottles. I have often thought about all the waste of newspapers and magazines, when I pass a cart full of old magazines that did not sell, the amounts are huge, again it comes down to personal choice and then doing the responsible thing with keeping our earth green... Catherine

I honestly wonder if people who say they prefer the taste could tell the difference in a blind taste-test.

I'm not being snarky. I just wonder if it's something people have built up in their mind (tapwater=bad, bottled water=good).

Maybe my palate is not refined. Maybe I have been fortunate to always have decent tap water.

I don't know.

I am trying to give up trying to figure out why people do things that they do. Trying to figure it out usually just makes my head hurt! LOL

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Mental that one, I'm telling you. ---Ron Weasley, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets"

LOL, Marilyn, I was thinking the same thing

I would be willing to bet money that MOST people would not be able to distinguish regular tap water in a Dasani bottle from a "real" bottle of Dasani. I think the taste variation is really undiscernable.

I don't doubt that some tap water tastes nasty. It might be because the homeowners plumbing is old or what have you. I just don't understand the waste and ecological damage of importing water from other countries or throwing away all that plastic.

Reverse-osmosis filters process tap water the same way that the bottlers do. It is not a Brita filter or anything like that. It is more advanced and more expensive than a Brita filter, but in the long run a lot cheaper and more environmentally friendly than bottled water.

__________________
If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition, and then admit that we just don't want to do it.

- Stephen Colbert.

Well for me personally I know when I drank coke compared to pepsi I could definitely tell the difference in the taste and I dearly loved coke way more then pepsi. However we as a family have not drank soda in so many years now, because it truly is not good for you and soooooo sweet and syrupy yuck for any soda. Now with water again for me personally I could definitely tell the difference between my tap water and fiji water and perhaps others cannot and I am sure there are plenty who can. Catherine

Me, too,...,.but even if I could not, I would still buy and drink what I want to! lol

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"When you're drowning, you don't say 'I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,' you just scream."

John Lennon

I know years ago, when we lived in Orange County, the water tasted awful. I've also noticed bad tastes in other water when we've traveled. St. Louis, and parts of New York have really good water. It seems like my brother has decent water where he lives in Hampstead, NC. I do remember it tasted different than ours, but not bad. I think you could definitely tell the difference, depending on where your water comes from. I forget where we were, it might have been Oklahoma, the water, not only tasted bad, it smelled bad. We were only passing through, but we had to hold our noses to brush our teeth. Not an easy thing to do.

Did I miss something? I still haven't heard whether all the bottled water drinkers recycle or throw away. Doing so much traveling this year for work and coming from a state where recycling is the norm I was shocked and sometimes even got a physically ill feeling when I saw how much people are throwing away in their homes.

I don't know if you guys realize this but EVERY single piece of plastic every made on Earth is still on Earth as it does not decompose.
A lot of H2O bottles end up in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (google it). It's a huge swirling mass of plastic garbage that continues to grow as it kills life in the ocean. Even some of our recycling ends up here.

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The political system is broke and it's a joke.

I don't drink bottled water, but I do recycle all the other plastic trash I create. I try to avoid plastic as much as possible. We tried bar shampoo at one point, but it was just awful, so we went back to bottled.

What drives me nuts is trying to tell clerks that I don't want a bag before they shove my items into one. If I tell them after they've started, they remove the items from the bag, and then throw the bag away, instead of using it for the next person!

The baggers at the grocery are some of the worst. I bring my own bags, but instead of fitting all the items into the bags I brought, they add more bags! I have to watch them like a hawk and tell them to fill the bags - otherwise, they put in one or two items per bag! ARGGG!

__________________
If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition, and then admit that we just don't want to do it.

- Stephen Colbert.

They don't like the reusable bags they are harder to fill as they don't stand up very easily. I do most of my grocery shopping at WinCo and Costco where I bag my own it really helps.

__________________
The political system is broke and it's a joke.

This is a super idea. (Kind of comparable to the super taxing of tobacco products).
When I was growing up, there was no such thing as bottled water and vividly remember when everyone had to pay a deposit for bottled pop. Very few states do this now, thus no motivation to return the bottles for recycling. I think this should be mandatory. How outrageous is this concept?

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I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!

Quite a few years back, the city of St. Louis, (I'm in St. Louis County), decided to put a deposit just on the very large glass bottles of beer that are sold in the poor parts of town and then thrown on the sidewalks and street to break. Good old Busch brewery campaigned mightily, and it never happened. It's such a simple solution to a big problem. The city has to clean up those pieces of broken glass, (and do a lousy job of it probably), the kids were getting hurt on it, tires were being ruined on it. It would have created some jobs, been an incentive for the bottles to have never been broken or discarded in the first place, but the political clout was stronger, (as it often is), than doing what is right.