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People with experience working in and around municipal water infrastructure: Do you drink tap water? Are there times when you do not? (lemmy.world)

submitted 8 months ago by j4k3@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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This question is obviously intended for those that live in places where tap water is "safe to drink."

I live in Southern California, where I'm at the end of a long chain of cities. Occasionally, the tap smells of sulfur, hardness changes, or it tastes... odd. I'm curious about the perspective of people that are directly involved and their reasoning.

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[–] Slatlun@lemmy.ml 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I think hey are talking about the chloramine that Minneapolis uses to disinfect. It is more stable and isn't just chlorine, so it would be in a "combined" result. The levels are page three of this report https://www2.minneapolismn.gov/media/content-assets/www2-documents/residents/2022-Consumer-Confidence-Report-FINAL.pdf It looks like 2023 isn't posted yet, but I doubt it changes much year to year.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I just learned about this, was kind of a fun dive! I just wrote up a big comment below with my findings, and you're exactly right, it's at perfectly safe numbers.

Either way, important to call out misinformation. I don't think this person did it on purpose, but their facts are definitely only partial, it took some research to get the whole picture.

[–] Slatlun@lemmy.ml 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Nice work on the write up! It is hard sorting things out when they're half true. For me, drinking water is especially important to get the fact straight on because of how bad it can go if the system fails. It would be silly to disregard anyone saying water wasn't up to a safe standard, but separating things I would care about out from the fluoride and chlorine background noise is tricky. Thanks for the deeper dive!

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 1 points 8 months ago

Thanks, yeah it can be a lot, and I think for a lot of people hearing that there's anything in the water sounds scary. It's great they publish reports monthly to verify everything