Drinking water in the USA... ?

Hi, my last trip (the first one) to FT Lauderdale -> Dawn Princess -> Caribbean sea was great and I will repeat this with staying for some days at Miami beach, too.
But I had a small problem there across the whole journey: The water I got for drinking smelled not really good. Maybe I have a different tongue - grown up with crystal clear german water. Did I order the wrong beverage? As I ordered some Coke hoping it would be better, it was the same - I could imagine it was the same water powered with some coke-flavour.

What can I do?

Rolf

The water I got for drinking smelled not really good.

This wasn't by any chance the water at one of our beaches, was it? Because that's salt water, y'know.... Seriously though, water varies greatly throughout the U.S. The clearest water (IMHO) tends to be well water in rural areas. In cities, the water is usually heavily purified, softened, etc. and is assuredly safe to drink, but may not have that crisp flavorless taste that you expect.

What can I do?

Bring your own crystal clear water from Germany maybe? Bottled water is available at any store, that may be better than what you're getting at restaurants, etc. The idea of paying for water may be a "tough concept to swallow" but if you find the tap water is intolerable, give the bottled stuff a go.

It's also been my experience that the tap water in coastal areas is usually much worse than in other areas. It's been less bad in the last ten years or so, but I can still smell what seems to be sulfur in the water, and it tastes funny, too. Unfortunately, sodas are usually canned/bottled/fountained with the local water, so getting one of those doesn't usually help.

Just get bottled water. Not much other way around it. You could be all european and get sparkling water, I suppose, if that would help alleviate the concerns about purchasing water.

In San Antonio the water is absolutely horrid: very hard and almost undrinkable. My wife and I put a water softener in immediately after we moved to our new house; it's almost a mandatory purchase here. When we were still living in our apartment it was bottled water the whole way.

I really don't notice sulfer in the water unless it is ultra sulfery. Maybe I'm just used to it. The thing I notice most is chlorine. Some of the tap water in Pennsylvania is like swimming pool water.

Americans only use city water to flush toilets and water plants. The only place I can think of that has good tap water is San Francisco. Here in Los Angeles it's probably worst in the nation. We use bottled water for everything. It's ok, health-wise, to drink the tap water, it only tastes like poison.

I'm surprised that the restaurant served you untreated water. That's rare around here, most places have an RO system so the water they serve is ok.

Wow, so many answers after so little time. Most of the time we were on a ship, maybe they have not enough time/money/sth.else for serving 2000 people with water. Could it be possible that they get water from the sea, re-something it and serve it? Well, my taste says that the have forgotten to re-something it.
If it tastes like poison (indeed it does) but makes life longer I'm satisfied. Pills are bitter :-). Carrying or smuggling water from Germany to the USA could result in a divorce if my wife cannot carry all those things she want to wear at this journey ;-). For her, the water is ok. Don't know if I'm over-sensitive...

Is there someone from Miami or did someone a ship-tour there and can tell me if I'm right with the water at these parts of the world?

Rolf

As for the Coke having the same taste - it might have been the ice cubes!

I think that you're just very sensitive to taste. I grew up in a chalky part of the UK with very hard water, and it tasted normal to me. When I moved to the US I found the water tasted a bit sulphery. Now that tastes normal to me, and when I visit the UK I can really taste the chalk, ie my tastebuds have adapted.

The vast majority of US tapwater is safe to drink.

I can understand this quite a bit, being that I like in a first use water area. My city only uses water from the snow melt from the mountains just a few miles away. Thous, ours is pretty clean. I grew up on the water at my cabin, and tap water at home, and can't stand water elsewhere. This includes most soda as well, since both Pepsi and Coke, along with 7Up have local bottling facilities that use the same water.

Bottled water in most cases is simply tap water filtered. Look at the label to see where it comes from to try and get at least some whater that you can tolerate.

I am convinced that tap water is poison. In the US, the EPA specifies that tap water contain less than a certain concentration of something like 12 specific chemicals. The other 60,000+ known carcinogenic chemicals in the water supply are untested and unregulated in municipal water supplies.

Dr. Michael Colgon, in his excellent book "Optimum Sports Nutrition" goes into detail about the dangers of tap water, with plenty of references to EPA documents and other studies.

Among other things, he makes a very convincing argument about escalating use of agricultural chemicals correlating with the esclating incidence of cancer. The #1 place we ingest those chemicals is in municipal water supplies.

Colgon also describes the 4 step EPA mandated process for municipal water "treatment". It's disgusting. There are 4 steps: 1. Mechanical screening (to get out the used tires, branches, beer cans, etc); 2. Settling (to let the suspended solids sink to the bottom); 3. Precipitation (addition of chemicals to precipitate out dissolved substances like lead and a few others); 4. Superchlorination.

The chemicals used to perform the precipitation are all still in the water. So is everything that wasn't precipitated. So is all of the dead stuff from the chlorinization. So are thousands of dangerous chemicals, the concentrations of which aren't even tested.

What can you do? Don't drink it. It is dangerous. Seriously.

There are two kinds of clean water: distilled and reverse-osmosis filtered. Many of the mineral bottled waters are simply tap water that has been bottled. Just because water is "spring water" doesn't mean it is clean; many bottled spring waters are extremely contaminated. There are "natural springs" whose water contain fatal concentrations of arsnic, for instance.

I drink distilled water. When I am at restaurants I drink coke or pepsi or equivalent (those products begin with RO filtered water). There may be chemicals in those beverages, but at least you know what they are.

At my home I have a water dispenser and have 5 gallon distilled water bottles delivered. Again, specifically ask for distilled, not "spring" water.

Another alternative is to install an under-sink RO system or a home distiller.

Just because your water smells good doesn't mean its safe. Please, consider drinking and cooking with clean water.

Jim

The water you were drinking on the cruise ship was most likely desalinated sea water. I went on a Royal Caribbean cruise upwards of 10 years ago and even then they were desalinating all of their drinking water. I don't remember what it tasted like, though.

- trs

There are "natural springs" whose water contain fatal concentrations of arsnic [sp], for instance.

While I won't argue the veracity of your statement (or question its source), I would like to point out that some of us pick natural, "bottled-at-the-spring" mineral water because of the good things in it.

You got it.
Those big cruise ships "create" all their drinking water through the use of massive watermakers.

They're really just really big reverse osmosis, super high pressure water filters. Sea water in, fresh water out.
Although, in the process of stripping the "sea" out of the water they also strip out all the minerals and other goodies that give drinking water its flavor.

When I was sailing across the Pacific, we had a watermaker on board (much smaller than the cruise ship variety, but same principle) and I always found the water it produced to be a bit flat and not so tasty. But one cant argue with its life supporting properties when supplies are limited.
"Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink"
- The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by S.T. Coleridge

I can always tell when the rivers are high because my water system overchlorinates to counter the weird stuff that's washing into the river when it is.

I am convinced that tap water is poison.

What an unhappy place to be, water being so essential to...life.

Dr. Michael Colgon, in his excellent book "Optimum Sports Nutrition" goes into detail about the dangers of tap water, with plenty of references to EPA documents and other studies.

Dang. *Doctor* Michael Colgan, CCN. 'Course, if I had time, I could probably go here:

http://www.naturalhealinginst.com/residential/ccn.html

and, with sufficient dedication, become Doctor Jim Hogan, CCN

I just point this out to say that the whole "doctor" things doesn't do anything for me in and of itself. If time allowed (which it doesn't), I might be interested in reading Colgan's stuff in more detail and maybe tearing him a new bunghole. As it is, the cynical me reflects that many "water is poison" arguments can be debunked (or diluted) and that many of the alarmists have vested interests in their positions (books, unregulated nutritional supplements, etc.)

Among other things, he makes a very convincing argument about escalating use of agricultural chemicals correlating with the esclating incidence of cancer. The #1 place we ingest those chemicals is in municipal water supplies.

I think that this is actually something to be concerned about....at the same time that I think it is really easy to cook up sloppy correlation studies linking prevalence of factor X with incidence of disease Y.

Colgon also describes the 4 step EPA mandated process for municipal water "treatment". It's disgusting. There are 4 steps: 1. Mechanical screening (to get out the used tires, branches, beer cans, etc); 2. Settling (to let the suspended solids sink to the bottom); 3. Precipitation (addition of chemicals to precipitate out dissolved substances like lead and a few others); 4. Superchlorination.

Most of us are surviving. Thanks God for Richard Nixon and the EPA!!

The chemicals used to perform the precipitation are all still in the water. So is everything that wasn't precipitated. So is all of the dead stuff from the chlorinization. So are thousands of dangerous chemicals, the concentrations of which aren't even tested.

It would be trivially easy for Colgan to test municipal water and make a case for what threatens us. Is that in the book?

What can you do? Don't drink it. It is dangerous. Seriously.

Sorry, man. Gotta drink....primeval urge....

There are two kinds of clean water: distilled and reverse-osmosis filtered. Many of the mineral bottled waters are simply tap water that has been bottled. Just because water is "spring water" doesn't mean it is clean; many bottled spring waters are extremely contaminated. There are "natural springs" whose water contain fatal concentrations of arsnic, for instance.

I would agree that "natural" guarantees nothing or that a particular spring guarantees nothing.

I drink distilled water.

What, no minerals? This may be OK for my car battery, but I WANT MINERALS!!

When I am at restaurants I drink coke or pepsi or equivalent (those products begin with RO filtered water). There may be chemicals in those beverages, but at least you know what they are.

Do you really know what they are??


Just because your water smells good doesn't mean its safe.

True.

Please, consider drinking and cooking with clean water.

Lucky me, I grew up in Boston where we had pretty decent water from the Quabbin Reservoir and no indication of elevated cancer rates or poisoning. More recently, I have been drinking the delightful water from the Seattle Water Department's mountain reservoirs. I expect that there are some agricultural runoff pollutants floating around in there, but I'm going to have to guess that a long, cool glass of poisonous Seattle water is something that the average resident of Baghdad or Tikrit would be *thrilled* to gulp down.

What, no minerals? This may be OK for my car battery, but I WANT MINERALS!!

I dunno. Any time someone says "minerals" in relation to water, I always hear it as a euphamism for "dirt".

By the way, tap water in Florida is notoriously bad. Come on up to the Carolinas next time and get some good water.

While I'll agree that Florida water is pretty bad, I remember Myrtle Beach (SC) water as being pretty putrid, too. But, then, I haven't been down there in many years; it may have improved.

You're probably right...I live a good ways inland from there. The well water here is wonderful.

One good way to cover the poor taste of a glass of bad water is to squeeze a lemon slice in it. For some reason, this masks tastes even as foul as sulphur. And I mean only one slice of lemon for a large glass of water. I'm not talking about making lemonade with a free glass of water.

One good way to cover the poor taste of a glass of bad water is to squeeze a lemon slice in it.

Unfortunately that doesn't work for me. I don't like the taste of lemon either.

Fortunately, the standard of tap water in the UK is generally excellent.

Fortunately, the standard of tap water in the UK is generally excellent.

Says a man who's lived in Cambridge and London! You should go on a proper tapwater tour of the Pennines sometime...

Peter

Thank you very much for so many answers. I feel informed and will test if a slice of lemon will giving me a chance of drinking this water. It could be that this water shouldn't be drunken, but on the other hand I believe that I will get no damage of it when drinking it for a maximum of two weeks. I will also ask for springwater, natural water and distilled water. Maybe they have a bottle of this water and it tastes a bit better, even when there are no minerals inside (this can be compensated by the vine or some coctails ;-)).

Nevertheless, I could imagine staying the rest of my life in the USA (carrying many bottles of german water with me). But looking at my budget, I will start again for no more than two weeks.

By the way: No posting of me has caused so much response like this one. So this subject seems to be interesting for many people. Water is life, I agree...

Rolf

i have worked on the dawn princess

They get most of their water from shoreside as demand outstrips what they can make. They have three flash evaporators 2 big and one little running off waste heat from the engines. from there it went forward to the water tanks and on they way it was stuffed full of chlorine and then taken from the tanks and pumped to the hotel services. And on its way it is decholiriated with i think it was sliver iodide or something similar but iwas pain in the arse system to get right.

but in the end it should be about 0.2 ppm or 2ppm can't remeber at your taps

Oh, very interesting. So do I have a chance of getting other taste of water on other ships? Of course, the dawn princess is very good, but this year we want to check out the norwegian sun... We expect nothing much, let's see what happens.

Rolf

I was there. And I've drunken water.
And...

...it tastes good or let's say, it tastes ok.

Obviously only the water on the Princess tasted different.

So many postings about nothing what did happen :-).
Everything's fine.

Rolf

I had to go back for context; For a moment I was wondering how you were lucky enough to taste water on a Princess...

Fortunately, the standard of tap water in the UK is generally excellent.

Yup, I've not tasted "bad" tapwater in the UK. We live on chalk here in Hampshire and while the water is pretty hard it tastes ok. It comes from a large borehole about three miles away and the village has a large storage reservoir on a nearby hillside so the pressure is excellent.

What is very noticeable is when visiting soft water areas the soap and shampoo works twice as well!

Gareth

LOL, I never had the chance to taste water on a Princess except of the ship named Dawn Princess :-). But since I found my own princess in the huge Internet I may try it, good idea ;-).

Rolf