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Unlike the Standells, water pros love our clean water
By adamg on Tue, 06/10/2014 - 11:16pm
The American Water Works Association, meeting right here in little old Boston, has named Boston's tap water the best tasting tap water in the country.
Coming in second was water from the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, which is kind of odd, given that Boston's water is MWRA water, but, hey, that just means we're twice as good, right?
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Comments
Boston water should taste bad
Boston water is very soft. Hard water (like spring water) tastes better than soft water, because it's the dissolved minerals and impurities that give water its taste. Highly purified distilled or deionized water tastes horrible. If you want really great tasting water, go back to lead pipes.
A triumph for science
Potent neurotoxins make everything better. Specially for children.
Very soft????
I worked at a pool in Boston for years, and the calcium of Boston's tap water was usually well up near 400 parts per million; the pH was often 8.5-9.5; and the chlorine was usually 2.0-3.0 parts per million.
The ideal chlorine for a pool is 1-3 parts per million, so literally, the tap water just needed a little pH adjustment and it was ready to go in the pool, no chlorination needed.
I had to use bottled water in my fishtank, because getting the tap water into the required parameters for my fish was so much work. It was easier to spend $2 on spring water at Shaw's to fill it up.
From the source:
http://www.mwra.state.ma.us/04water/html/qual4concerns.htm#soft
Also has comments about the "fishy" smell and links to the monthly quality reports
Still waiting for
huh?
It's a typical jurisdiction wrangle.
MWRA is a regional entity similar to the now dead MDC or Massport.
But Boston jealously guards whatever prerogatives it retains so we get this.
http://www.bwsc.org/home/home.asp
A significant element of Masshole governance seems to be this kind of jurisdiction sleight of hand.
It sometimes favors nepotism and sometimes favors corporatism depending on whether you have a Dem or a GOOP in the governors office with the key legislators, (always Dem), working the graft angles.
Mittins (R: Bain Capital) did a lot of this crap to show us all how big biz does it.
Thank God he went off to bother the west coast after his humiliating defeat by the governor's old classmate.
Can confirm
Recently had tap water in LA and it was absolutely disgusting. In fact, can't think of anywhere I've had tap and didn't find the water odd. I thought it was simply because of what I was accustomed to.
Must also concur
I just came back from France (and yes, one of the first things returning home is coming back to good ole UHub). One thing I did kept noting to myself was a sense Boston's water tasted... better. It seems there's might be more to it than just my head.
Drought
I was in LA earlier this year and I found the tap water [at my hotel] to be pretty decent. But then, it was so painfully dry there I probably would have gladly drunk antifreeze just to keep hydrated.
In our city, the best source
In our city, the best source of hydration is practically free. Unlimited, anytime, excellent quality tap water at the turn of a faucet inside my house for under 1.5 Cents per gallon (sewer treatment included!) is something I mull over once in a while. Relatively few people in the world have that kind of luxury.
I just wish that more Bostonian could appreciate that and ditch the useless bottled water (water of dubious origin + plastic bottle + marketing hype for a profit AKA Poland Spring), or the far more harmful soft drink (dubious water + sugar).
Flavored seltzer FTW
Polar (local company) makes some tasty flavored seltzers. All the carbonation of a soda, none of the sugar, most of the flavor.
I'll add this
Most supermarket house brand (Stop and Shop, Shaws) flavored seltzers are nearly as good as Polar, but are less expensive.
Agree re: store brands, but
Agree re: store brands, but Polar has much wider variety.
Store seltzer vs Polar
Most store-brand seltzers don't tend to have enough flavor for me. I think Polar has found the right balance...plus, re: Scratchie's point...no store sells their own Rasberry Lime...which is awesome on its own or mixed with tequila (and some fresh lime juice if you want to punch it up even more).
Black Cherry
Blueberry
Cherry Pomegranate
Cranberry Lime
Georgia Peach
Granny Smith Apple
Lemon
Lime
Mandarin
Orange Vanilla
Pomegranate
Raspeberry Lime
Ruby Red Grapefruit
Original
Strawberry
Triple Berry
Vanilla
Vanilla Pear
Polar also distributes Moxie....for when you want the gentian-root, corn-syrupy goodness of a Moxie.
(dubious
water + corn syrup)
Fixed that for you.
Boston water is on the
Boston water is on the expensive side.
http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/allstat... puts us ahead of most cities, including desert cities including Phoenix and Las Vegas (though they benefit from federally-subsidized water projects).
Plus the Boston figures use a rate of about half a cent per gallon. Did they not include the sewer charges, which bring it up to about 1.5 cents?
Try the water in Phoenix
And then come and complain about the water in Boston. Phoenix is damned near undrinkable. We spent a lot of money (and disincorporated four towns) to have damn good water for damn near free. So did New York and San Francisco. A lot of the country can't say the same.
Having lived in a sizable
Having lived in a sizable assortment of municipalities in my life and visited quite a lot more, I whole-heartedly agree with this. Boston tap water is by far the best I've had.
I was just about to post this
I was just about to post this exact same thought.
Boston's water is good but in
Boston's water is good but in my opinion not nearly on a level with New York City's, which is extraordinary. Fill a fancy bottle with NYC tap water and tell people it's from Europe and they'd pay $6.
My own ranking, based on places I've lived:
The first post saying hard water tastes better should drink some of St Louis' finest gypsum-infused swill. It's like a smoothie made out of drywall. And as a bonus it'll clog your shower head in a week.
Sounds Right Except...
Having lived in a few cities have to agree that our tap water is pretty decent.
But...
Although I can not recall specific locations, certain buildings' drinking fountains persistently exhibited a fishy taste to the water. I know they must have all been roughly in the downtown area because I noticed this back when I was a bike courier and availed myself of nearly every public or building water fountain in the downtown and back bay. I don't think it was anything special about the location like "Well it was on the fish pier and it was not likely the water but your sense of smell affecting the taste".
Has anyone else noted this and recall which ones?
Anyone know why some have that odd taste?
Downtown fish taste confirmed
The downtown fishy taste has, however, improved in recent years as more of the old water mains have been ripped up and replaced with modern, less leaky pipes.
I believe that the fishy taste may have been from old wooden water mains, although I can't find a lot of confirmation of this. It may also have been from leaky pipes or root intrusion, etc.
Want to learn more about Boston's water story?
I highly recommend visiting the Waterworks Museum in Brighton, across from the Chestnut Hill Reservoir.
I know this is a bit of a personal plug (I volunteer there!), but it's an excellent and free museum that tells stories integral to Boston's past, present, and future.
In many ways it is a mini version of Chinatown.
It's the same kind of intrigue, only less ruthless, as the scheming of the Mulholland oligarchs to pull water to LA from a little Sierra Nevada backwater town.
Lake Cochituate was first, but then was inadequate. Then it was the Sudbury Reservoir system after the Civil War.
When that proved inadequate, the Wachusett was created and finally, the Quabbin, which still has western MA locals seething as they lost several towns, Dana, Prescott and two others in addition to the giant cordon land grab for a proper water purity setback.
The Sudbury Aqueduct is still kept as a back up system and I was shooed away when I wanted to get a photo of the old dam last year.
The surrounding land buffer is quite strict about allowable uses.
The pipeline is a great trail system in Swellsley that forms part of the Charles River Link trail.
http://youtu.be/UFejwgSA7vQ
The Quabbin is why our water tastes so good
When they built the Quabbin they ensured that Boston would have the most delicious water because it tastes like the tears of the dispossessed.
There's no sweeter thirst quencher.
Especially when chilled with fat cubes of unbridled avarice.
The plans were on display
At the Statehouse planning department - for nine months!
Yes. They were on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet, stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying “Beware of the Leopard".
Homemade seltzer is the best!
I prefer water over all other beverages (well that and coffee!). The gadget used most in my kitchen is the Sodastream seltzer maker. Turns tap water into champagne water. A glass of frizzy, bubbling, tingling water on a hot or cold day can not be beat. I forgo the flavor additives. Just give me cold tingling water.
Since Boston water is already soft are there reasons for home water filters? Is Brita or a faucet filter actually in effect doing nothing?
One way I know that Boston water is soft is the little sediment that builds on indoor plant pots. I have lived where the sediment builds quickly. In Boston very little builds up.
Personally
I think I'm snobbish when it comes to water - I filter the tap and stick it in the fridge because I like really cold water, and I also find that if I leave a glass of water out for a few hours (as I tend to do at home), it has a funny taste to it.
I think this has more to do with the pipes that lead into the house than the water itself, as I don't remember this being a problem in my last apartment.
Filters last for a long time
We sometimes get odd tastes and sediment in our water. When we renovated the kitchen, we got a fridge that filters and chills the water, so you just stick the glass in the right space and ice and water come out.
The Soda Stream sits just opposite.
This arrangement vastly reduced the consumption of juice, soda, and other non-water drinks in the household - so it was well worth the cost! Our kids like selzer, as do the grownups, so we just have to keep the CO2 on hand.
I really miss that ice machine when travelling outside North America. Seriously!
Sorry y'all
but I was in Lake George last week and I absolutely binged on the tap water there!
Most interesting water
My votes would go to Barcelona and to Lithia Water from Ashland, OR.
Anybody else have nominations for a favorite "acquired taste" water supply?
Free spring water at Wompatuck sips sweetly.
http://www.mass.gov/eea/agencies/dcr/massparks/region-south/wompatuck-st...
And in Vermont, along the Connecticut River near Guild Hall, an old iron pipe runs sideways from the ground or did.
Sandwich Center
One might expect tuna or turkey, but there is also spring water from a deep aquifer, on tap and freely downloaded from a fountain in town.
Boston Water
Nothing better than a cold glass of Quabbin water right from the tap. Bostonians should be proud of our municipal water service, a vanishing breed as the Nestles of the world gobble up public water systems and rights.
Water Hipsters
The best water comes from this small town with their own artesian well, but you've probably never heard of it.
Oh and did you know?
Cambridge has its own water supply. They are attached to MWRA but only for emergencies. Water starts in the reservoirs out along 128 in Weston and Lincoln and flows in to Fresh Pond and to Cambridge from there. I've always wondered if there was much of a hubbub in the '50s when they built 128 right through Cambridge's water supply. I can't see the Cantabs as being particularly happy about that. But that's why there are "low salt area" signs out there. And even with its suburbanization and office parks, Cambridge water is perfectly fine.
I wonder how Cambridge's
I wonder how Cambridge's water ranks compared to MWRA. Personally I can't tell a difference having grown up on MWRA water and now live in Cambridge.