Many Americans take Drinking tap water for granted. Recent high profile news events— most notably, the drinking water crisis in Flint — however, have challenged the notion that American water can be blindly trusted for safe, long-term consumption. A deeper dive into this country’s tap water reveals a water system that isn’t always immune to contamination. So, is tap water safe? It’s actually not such a straightforward question.
HOW DRINKING WATER IS REGULATED
Every public water system in America has to follow standards and regulations set by the US Environmental Protection Agency, or the EPA, though privately-owned wells and water systems are exempt from these rules.
The EPA regulates the many contaminants that can possibly get into your drinking water, which include sewer overflows, malfunctioning wastewater treatment systems, local land use practices (fertilizers, pesticides, livestock), and naturally occurring chemicals and minerals. These contaminants and beyond can cause health issues including gastrointestinal illness, reproductive complications, and neurological disorders. Elevated levels of Lead — as seen in Flint – can beget major health issues, most notably in pregnant women and young children.
Examples of the EPA’s work in this arena include the 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act, which aimed to protect the country’s water supply by giving the EPA the ability to control the standards for drinking water quality and additionally look over the states, localities, and water suppliers who put those standards into action. The law has since been amended (in 1986 and 1996) to protect drinking water and its sources — rivers, lakes, reservoirs, springs, and groundwater wells.
Simply put, the EPA helps make sure that H20 meets certain standards. As you will see, though, whether tap water is safe to drink is a fairly complicated issue.
WATER QUALITY ISSUES
Even with EPA regulations, studies have found that American drinking water is far more contaminated than many have previously believed it to be. Manmade “forever chemicals” — known scientifically as perfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, their colloquial name derives from the fact that these compounds could possibly take hundreds or thousands of years to break down — are found in a good portion of US drinking water, and especially prominent in the major cities of Miami, Philadelphia and New Orleans.
Recent findings by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) counter the group’s own 2018 projection that 110 million Americans might be contaminated with PFAS, with a new outlook that states that the number could potentially be much larger. EWG took tap water samples from 44 sites in 31 states and Washington DC, and only a single location – Meridian, Mississippi, which uses 700 foot deep wells for water — had no detectable PFAS.
PFAS have been used in products including Teflon, Scotchguard, and firefighting foams. Some of these chemicals have been tied to cancer, liver damage, low birth rate, and a litany of additional health problems.
IS YOUR TAP WATER SAFE?
Clearly, forever chemicals are more common in water than many people might think. With that said, is tap water safe to drink? Again, it’s not an easy-to-answer question. There are plenty of steps you can take to assess your water for safety, though, and become a more informed citizen in the process.
CHECK FOR CLOUDS
Next time you reach for a glass of tap, the first thing you should do is check for cloudiness. Fully safe-to-drink water should be clear, odorless, and tasteless — cloudy water is one sign that your H20 might include harmful pathogens or chemicals.
Do your hands feel a bit slimy after you wash them with soap and water? That is a sure sign of “hard” water, and it means your tap could be contaminated. Hard water is defined by a buildup of substances including calcium and magnesium, which, in addition to leaving your hands feeling gross, can be the reason why you have marks on your sink or drinking glass.
Though hard water doesn’t automatically indicate your water is compromised, it could be a sign that the water is contaminated with metals like aluminum, manganese, and lead in addition to more benign components like the aforementioned calcium or magnesium. It’s worth noting that harder-than-usual water was one of the first things that Flint residents noticed at the beginning of their water crisis.
STRANGE COLORED WATER
If your water is a different color than normal, you should proceed with caution. Yellow water often signifies that the liquid contains chromium-6, which is the cancer-causing chemical made famous in pop culture as the source of the lawsuit by clean water activist Erin Brockovich. Yellow water could also mean a more-than-normal amount of iron, manganese, copper, or lead. If your H20 is only yellow while running cold water, breathe a sigh of relief: that means your utility is just routinely clearing out its pipes.
Water that is orange or brown could also suggest a buildup of iron, manganese, or lead. It could maybe be a sign of rust — this can lead to bacteria. If your water has a green or blue hue, it might have raised levels of copper, which is caused by corroded pipes. Massive levels of exposure to copper can lead to health issues including anemia or liver and kidney damage.
WEIRD SMELLING WATER
You still might be asking, is tap water safe? It might look OK, but smelling your H20 is a great way to try to get more information on its cleanliness. Take a sniff of your water before drinking it. Does it smell like bleach? That might mean it contains excess chlorine. Though chlorine is intentionally interjected into the US water supply to ward off germs and pathogens, it can mix with different organic compounds and lead to a few negative byproducts, including trihalomethane (THMs), which are linked to kidney issues and cancer risks. Small amounts of chlorine in the water system can make drinkers vulnerable to a parasite known as giardia, whose side effects include diarrhea, cramps, and nausea.
If your water smells like sewage or rotten eggs, it suggests that it likely contains hydrogen sulfide, a colorless gas that can turn up organically in groundwater. When the gas melds with some forms of bacteria, it turns into sulfate, which has the ability to cause dehydration or diarrhea.
Detect a fishy smell in your water? That could possibly indicate that it contains barium, which is a naturally occurring chemical that can make its way into water through drilling or manufacturing processes. If barium exceeds the EPA’s recommended levels, it can produce such adverse effects in the drinker as higher blood pressure, muscle weakness, or kidney, liver, and heart damage.
Fishy water additionally might signify the presence of cadmium, which is a chemical that turns up in lead and copper ores and often makes its way into pipes through industrial waste. Significant cadmium exposure in drinking water can lead to kidney, liver, and bone damage.
If you are looking for a foolproof way to test if your water is safe, try pouring a glass straight from the tap and then moving to another room. Swish the water around in the glass, and if it continues to smell like fish, it very likely means that it is contaminated.
WEIRD TASTING WATER
A pronounced metallic taste in your water might indicate that it contains excess iron and copper. A rusty pipe can unleash metals including iron, manganese, zinc, copper, and lead into municipal water supplies and give your tap a metallic — or even salty — taste. Again, this “off” flavor was one of the many factors that assisted in notifying Flint residents that their drinking water was tainted with lead. In other instances, though, it can simply be a harmless sign of low pH.
DO YOUR RESEARCH
When it comes to water safety, think local. The EWG has a searchable database that lets American citizens input their ZIP code or local utility’s name to see what is in their tap water. The database is made up of testing done by the EPA on drinking water between the years of 2010 and 2015; in those years, the agency performed tests on water from almost 50,000 utilities in all 50 states and Washington DC, and also utilized results of tests conducted by state agencies.
BEST WATER FILTERS FOR YOUR HOME
No matter where you live and what the quality of your local water may be, having a water filter is a great way to be sure that you have safe — and great tasting — tap water whenever you feel like it. A few of our favorite filters are below.
APEC Water Systems ROES-50 Essence Series Top Tier 5-Stage Certified Ultra Safe Reverse Osmosis Drinking Water Filter System
This under-sink, reverse osmosis system is a smart investment for those that want a durable, high-level filtration solution. It filters out over 1,000 contaminants including arsenic, chlorine, lead, fluoride, heavy metals, and bacteria, and can be used for up to a year if you live in a city, which provides much more value than a pitcher or faucet attachment (well water users would be wise to swap filters every four to six months).
This is a full system and requires a somewhat involved installation process — you are going to need to either drill a hole or use an existing hole to properly place the ROES-50. On sale for $189.95.
APEX Countertop Alkaline Filter
If you are looking for a powerful filtration system without an involved installation process, this countertop filter from APEX is a solid choice — it hooks up to your faucet, but rests adjacent to it on the counter. It filters everything from Giardia cysts to mercury and chlorine and has a filter life of up to 750 gallons. Before you buy, make sure your faucet works with this system — it is incompatible with a majority of sprayer, pull-out, and designer faucets. Available on Amazon for $80.95.
PUR PFM400H Faucet Water Filtration System
This faucet system helpfully comes with a switch that turns on and off its filtering function, so you can drink clean water but also rinse and wash your dishes using unfiltered H20. Add to that a simple installation process — no tools are needed — and a helpful sensor that tells you when it’s time to change your filter (which you need to do every two to three months) and you have an intuitive, easy system that crucially filters common contaminants and other heavy metals.
Again, as with the APEX model, make sure it fits your faucet: though it comes with three adaptors, it doesn’t work with pull-out or handheld models. $32.98 on Amazon.
Aquagear Water Filter Pitcher
This 5-stage filter was certified by an independent lab to meet and exceed the National Sanitation Foundation (NSF) standard 42 for improvement of water taste and smell. On top of that, it meets NSF standard 53 for lead removal, which can’t be said about a fair amount of filter pitchers. The Aquagear also reduces 90 to 99 percent of fluoride, chloramine, and mercury as well as other contaminants.
This is all thanks to the many 2-micron pores in the pitcher’s filtration materials — they trap the pollutants as the water moves through it. The pitcher can hold 8 cups (half a gallon) of water at a time and was made with BPA-free food-grade materials. In a full lifetime, the filter can hold 150 gallons of water, which means it can last for roughly a half year. $79.99 on Amazon.
Brita Ultra Max Filtering Dispenser
When you think of water filtration pitchers, the first company that comes to your mind might just be Brita, and the Ultra Max is one of the brand’s best offerings. It is 14.5 inches deep and five inches wide, and can hold 18 cups of water while still being quite compact. Use its built-in filter-change reminder to keep your water fresh – Brita’s included Longlast filter impressively works for around six months on average. Get it today for $40.99.
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