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Bostonians: Fill up a big ol' glass of tap water and savor it
By adamg on Wed, 06/23/2021 - 12:05pm
The American Water Works Association announces that a panel of people who know from municipal drinking water rated MWRA water the "best of the best" in an annual competition.
An esteemed judging panel rated each water system on its flavor characteristics. Judges included Frank Blaha, P.E., a regional liaison at The Water Research Foundation with projects emphasizing asset management, infrastructure management, distribution systems and distribution system water quality concerns, as well as security/resilience issues; Jordan Kelly, lab manager at Odell Brewing Company's Quality Lab, where she coordinates and executes analytical, microbial, and sensory testing; and Victor Sam, a project engineer at Stantec with a background in taste and odor, focusing on algal metabolite control and treatment.
H/t Jake.
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Comments
Definitely
But it's still a good idea to use a filter.
The water is great but the pipes are ancient
It IS pretty damn good
There are plenty of places where the tap water has a TON of weird flavor. Boston's water is just great. I'll never understand why any people would still drink bottled water at home around here.
Marketing
Marketing
You can't taste lead in the
You can't taste lead in the water, for one
Which water?
You mean lead in Boston tap water? That would be from pipes in your home, not from the city supply. Or did you mean lead in bottled water, a lot of which is tap water from somewhere, and is not subject to the testing required of muni water? In either case, you're right, you can't taste lead, but drinking bottled may not protect you.
Correct
And the MWRA has been offering $$$ for towns who need help replacing it.
Even still, random tests in the MWRA service area say we're well below levels for lead in our water system.
Full Source about everything lead and the MWRA
https://www.mwra.com/04water/html/qual6leadinfo.htm
Untrue. Lead-flavored water
Untrue. Lead-flavored water tastes really good.
Is it sweet?
I've been told the reason why kids eat lead paint chips is because they taste sweet.
(Yes, I know your comment was a joke. Mine is not.)
The taste of tap water is not
The taste of tap water is not that good an indicator of purity. Hard water tastes better than soft water. Lead water is tastiest of them all. High impedance deionized water tastes terrible.
If Boston's pipes and chemistry are good, it won't taste swampy or smell like chlorine, but it will still be soft and not taste like mineral water does.
The town I grew up in south
The town I grew up in south of Boston had chlorine smelling water. You could smell it while taking a shower.
From what I've read/understand, however,
Boston, Cambridge and Somervile have hard water, but a water softener has been put in their systems. That's common in a lot of places, and a lot of the older cities here in the United States have water systems with hard water that has been treated with a water softener.
Thinking on that has evolved
Used to be, we thought kids got lead poisoning from eating paint chips. Current thinking is that the primary exposure is from inhaling the lead dust that comes off painted door edges, door frames, window frames, and other high wear surfaces
I prefer NYC water for taste but….
… Boston water is great for coffee and tea and carbonated water. It’s also free and safe. Unlike some bottled waters.
Shirley Chisholm was once offered imported bottled water at a fancy restaurant and she refused it, saying she’d worked too hard to bring clean municipal water to upper Manhattan to ever want to drink anything but plain tap water.
The one caveat is individual
The one caveat is individual people need to check what comes out of their taps because there are still some private pipes that are not ideal. Overall we have amazing water though.
yup
Or it comes out brown
I was in the southwest at a friends place, who had recently moved from NH. I turned on the water and it had a brownish color to it.
There's something to be said about turning on the faucet and it not being brown or smelling funny.
Alabama
My spouse and I had to spend a year in Alabama for spouse's job. Holy moley, was that some awful water! It smelled like sulfur when you first turned on the tap or ran the shower during the day and tasted pretty sub par. Thankfully, a seltzer maker hides a lot of sins.
Agreed, this is THE best
Agreed, this is THE healthiest form of hydration, and on top of that at about two cents a gallon it's virtually free when it comes to drinking -actually over half of these two cents go to pay for the sewer.
Lots of people I know would be in much better physical and financial health just by switching to tap water for at least 90% of their drinking. Not to mention the environmental effect. But since nobody can expect to get rich or famous by heavily marketing something that's good for you but free, it's not going to happen anytime soon.
Also agree with the first comment that pipes in the building can be an issue. Filter is unnecessary if you fill up a couple of large glass pitchers for the day right after letting a few gallons of cold water run through the main pipes. No need to waste it, this pipe flushing happens all the same while running water from a main cold water line nearby -washing dishes, bathroom use etc.
www.bwsc.org/residential-customers/rates
I think that's why I never
I think that's why I never got into the bottled water craze @Gary C. I just didn't see the point since our tap water tasted so good.
I still think that a filter is necessary for drinking water.
A filter is necessary, because there's so much chlorine and lead in the water around here.
I'll drink to that!
.
I wish I had a background in
I wish I had a background in taste and odor.
So....
How do we think Cambridge ranked?
Gross
I cannot people in Cambridge drink that swill. OMG "Fresh Pond" indeed.
Why haven't they joined the MWRA is beyond me.
Cambridge water smells like a frog pond.
Mostly not Fresh Pond
Cambridge water mostly comes from the Hobbs Brook Reservoir and associated bodies. It's that water you can see off to the west of Rte 95 at the Waltham-Lexington line.
Tasty, tasty highway runoff.
Tasty, tasty highway runoff. Also, doesn't it go through Fresh Pond before ending up in the city water system?
The first thing that popped
The first thing that popped into my head was SNL skit on Amazon Echo Silver. I doneknowaboutthat!