I have always found NYC water to be the tastiest, compared to the West Coast, New England, even Western Europe. Although the tap water in Maine was a close second. Our water here in Los Angeles is pretty foul, which is a shame since we have to drink a lot of it to stay hydrated! And I despise buying water.

Hi there. I grew up in the Catskill watershed and all I can say is that the sacrifices that were made so New Yorkers have fresh water are tragic. The Dairy industry was killed and there are now soooo many restrictions that building costs have increased terribly, in an already economically deprived area. No eco point here, but I did feel the need to vent just a bit on the behalf of all my neighbors, many of whom are now out of work dairy farmers.

Peace. Linda

The best tasting water I think is well water. Unfortuantly no one seems interested in studing/explaining if it is more eco friendly.

Born and raised in NYC, and I can testify that it has some of the cleanest, most delicious water in the country. I wouldn't drink the water in Jamaica, Queens, though. They get their water from Jamaica Bay, I believe. It tastes awful.

THere was some creepy article in the new Yorker a while back about how the water tunnels are in horrible disrepair and one of the main ones is about to cave. Couldn;t find it in the archives. So it tastes good, but it might be enough supply for very long. not to be all doom and gloom

did anyone check to see what was in the water?

I found this article pleasantly shocking. I would have automatically assumed a metro the size of NYC would not have good water.

I would love to know if there is a website that gives the calculations of chlorine, lead, etc. in the municipal water systems cities across the USA.

Graham,
congrats on the return to the city. Kate Stohr, our co-founder, wrote this a couple of years ago. Hope it helps.

gotham Gazette

NYC water is excellent, and tastes very good. Better even than in other parts of NY which are not supplied by the same system.

That said, the water is fluoridated, as in most of the US. Is this really a good idea? I don't think so. I think if someone came up with the concept today, it would never happen.

that is good to know.

orlando has the nastiest water EVAR. you can't quite put your finger on the taste until sprinklers come on and you wonder if someone just soaked a 30 lb block of sulfer in your front yard.

disgusting

I'm really surprised. I've always hated all tap water and loved Poland Spring, I think taste is something way to hard to judge and had different people been tested there would be very different results. Then again I could be wrong. :-)

The water in Yonkers, NY (just north of The Bronx) is supposed to be very good as well.

Here is a good site for Municipal Water testing:

http://www.ewg.org/tapwater/index.php

I can testify that evian bottled water is absolutely terrible.

the water in the pacific northwest (washington state) is very good.

i have always thought aquafina has the best water. i haven't tried the kmart stuff though.

Last time I was in NYC, the water stank of chlorine. But I guess people that lived there long enough don't smell it anymore.

Penn and Teller had an episode on Bottled water...

"In 2003, Penn & Teller: Bullshit!, a Showtime television network program, conducted an informal taste test of bottled water. They found about 75 percent of New Yorkers preferred tap water to bottled waters. They also hired a "water sommelier" to sell $7 bottled water to the patrons in a fancy Californian restaurant. The water sommelier filled each bottle with a garden hose directly from the tap, however, people claimed to know the difference between a bottle of eau du robinet (French for "faucet water") and Agua de Culo (Spanish for "ass water") before they were informed of its source. In the end, the hosts Penn and Teller jokingly offered to sell their brand of water for $150 per bottle."

I lived in NYC for almost 2 decades. Whenever I drank the tap water, I would get a sore throat. Perhaps the test should be on degree of purity instead of taste?

I grew up in Wolcott, CT where the tap water was pure spring well water. Talk about taste my grandparents use to drive for miles to visit to fill up their jugs with our well water because their city water was terrible tasting.

Penn & Teller's : B.S. on Showtime already did a blind taste test of this in 2003, and came up with the same results:

Season 1, Episode 7: Feng Shui/Bottled Water
7 March 2003

Ryan - So you are saying that taste is subjective and that survey results might vary depending on the group answering the questions? Marvelous insight.

What have *you* been drinking?

I've lived in NY all my life, and I've tried water from around the country and I agree with everybody here, this has the best water. Especially compared to florida water in the tampa area, that stuff is filled w/ calcium and tastes NASTY lol

I think atlanta water is fine... ;)

Quite interesting. I'll think twice however!

I'm a New Yorker, and I love NYC tap water, however, just across the river, New jersey water truly and utterly sucks. It just tastes dirty.

I had a girlfriend whose lips used to peel after drinking Atlanta tap water. Woah!

I never had any problems with it though.

"did anyone check to see what was in the water?"

Yes, 20/20 had the NYC tap water and the bottled waters tested for germs. There was no difference; they were all equally safe.

Fwew people are aware of this, but U.S. bottled water is regulated by the FDA, while tap water is regulated by the EPA. As a result, the testing standards are different, and the standards for bottle water are MUCH lowere. Bottled water only has to be tested once a week for bacteria, and only once a YEAR for synthetic organic chemicals. No testing for viruses or parasites (like cryptosporidium or giardia) is required, and some contamination with E. coli or fecal coliform bacteria is allowed. Bottled water does not have to be disinfected.

By contrast, the EPA requires that tap water be tested for bacteria hundreds of times every month, and for synthetic organic chemicals every quarter. It MUST be disinfected. Testing for viruses and parasites is required. No contamination by E. coli or fecal coliform bacteria is allowed.

The notion that bottled water is safer than U.S. tap water is a myth. There is absolutely no factual basis for it.

I will agree with the Orlando water thing. Orlando has absolutely dreadful water. However, the smelly water you are smelling is from the wells in florida. Florida's aquafer has a very large ammount of sulfer in it. That's the smell you get from the sprinklers. But, that doesn't explain the crappy tasting water from the taps in a home because that water is chlorinated and filtered. It's not sulfury, it's just bad. Very metallic... maybe it's the chlorine taste... I dunno. I have to use a Brita filter (way more economical than buying bottled water...).

New York City's water supply system has been called a marvel of engineering -- the eighth wonder of the world. It covers some 2,000 square miles, runs as deep as 1,100 feet underground and supplies as much as 1.5 billion gallons of water per day to more than nine million people.

But even at the earliest stages of its journey -- as water trickles down the face of the mountains of the Catskills -- the people in charge of New York's water supply worry about its quality. As these trickles gather momentum and join together into streams, the city's scientists are right there serving as monitors, looking for heavy algae growth and other signs of pollution, including microscopic animals that can cause stomach problems and diarrhea.

Before 1842, New York's water supply consisted of a single fetid pool in lower Manhattan, and water-born disease was common.

Now, after the water flows from hundreds of small Catskill Mountain streams and the Delaware River into 19 upstate reservoirs, it is naturally filtered by rocks and soil. Once it reaches the reservoirs, it is allowed to sit for a while. That is so that impurities in the water can settle to the bottom.

From the reservoir, water is discharged into the city's aqueducts. The New York City Department of Environmental Protection must check the aging upstate aqueducts for leaks. In June, the city sent an unmanned submarine to inspect a damaged 45-mile stretch of the Delaware Aqueduct. Results from the submarine's 16-hour photographic journey are still being studied, but according to officials, the aqueduct has at least two known leaks that spill as much as 36 million gallons of water a day.

The water that does get through then enters the city distribution system. Most cities filter their water at this stage of the process. But New York does not.

"The water that comes into New York City aqueducts is frequently of superior quality than filtered systems, but it also makes it very fragile," said Jim Tierney, the city official in charge of protecting the reservoirs and the region surrounding it, known as the watershed. "It makes protective efforts to keep pollutants out of the water all the more important."

With that in mind, in 1997, city, state and federal agencies and environmental groups reached an agreement designed to protect New York's watershed, which, though comprising just a fraction of the state's total land area, supplies water to half the state's population. "If there's anything you have to protect in New York," Tierney said, "it's this watershed."

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has waived the requirement that the city filter much of its water. But the city did not apply for a waiver for water coming from the Croton watershed and must now build a filtration plant. The city is currently reviewing three potential sites for the plant, one in Westchester and two in the Bronx. The plant must be operating by 2010 or 2011, depending on which site is chosen.

New York does treat its water though. Chlorine is added to kill organisms such as Giardia, which can cause diarrhea in humans. At each stage of the journey from here on, chlorine levels will be carefully calibrated and monitored, to make sure there is enough chlorine to kill bacteria and parasites -- but not so much that it makes the water disagreeable.

One part of fluoride per million parts of water goes in to help New Yorkers fight tooth cavities. The city adds orthophosphate to keep lead from leaching into the water, while some of the city’s water also gets a dose of sodium hydroxide to make it less corrosive.

Once water is treated, it enters City Tunnels No. 1 and 2, the main distribution tunnels. Pressure in the tunnels forces water up vertical shafts and into the city's water mains.

If there is a leak in either of these tunnels, there is little the city can do. Sandhogs are digging a 60-mile-long third water tunnel, but construction is not scheduled to be completed until 2020. Until then, engineers cannot shut down the city's two existing tunnels for repair.

"A disaster could happen at any moment, a disaster of epic proportions, or they will get the tunnel built in time. Nobody knows," said Jeff Jones of Environmental Advocates.

From the tunnels, the water branches out into the city’s water pipes. Some of these were first put into service in the 1800s, and as residents of Washington Heights discovered recently, they can burst, shooting geysers 20 feet into the air, turning streets into lakes, flooding basements and leaving hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage in their wake. New York City experiences 600 breaks per year on average, according to the Department of Environmental Protection. Even minor ones can sully the water supply and cause disruptions.

Before the water enters individual homes and buildings, it is tested again at one of the nearly 1,000 sampling stations throughout the city. Tony Speranza is one of 16 Department of Environmental Protection field collectors charged with monitoring water quality to ensure it meets federal and state guidelines. On a recent morning, Speranza's route took him to the corner of Maiden Lane and (aptly) Water Street. Inside an inconspicuous metal box resembling an oversized parking meter was a simple faucet and miniature basin.

First, Speranza disinfected and flushed the tap. Then, he pulled a milk crate filled with specimen containers -- each one labeled and bar-coded -- from the truck that doubles as his roving laboratory. As water gushed into the basin, Speranza checked for telltale signs of contamination.

According to Speranza, even small variances in temperature or conductivity (a measure of metals in the water) can indicate a problem in the system. And curbside sampling is especially important when it comes to monitoring chlorine.

From here, water is carried by service pipes to individual buildings -- and finally to residents' faucets. Officials will check some of this water as well, testing for lead levels. This final point marks the end of an extraordinary journey, one that is powered entirely by gravity.

If there are problems, as people like Speranza certainly know there are, still, as far as he is concerned, "New York City water is the best in the world."

previous post from http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/issueoftheweek/20031208/200/796

I believe that bottled water is primarily a fashion accessory, and has little to do with health or quenching thirst.

...not to mention all the transport and packaging involved in Evian. Bottled water is tantamount to driving an SUV—says a lot about a person's relationship to the earth they're dependent upon. That said, if we can get biodegradable packaging and local water, it's not so bad (just like driving a fuel-efficientish SUV with kids in the back seat ain't so bad, either).