Tap Water

Trust Your Tap Water

by Josh Peterson
Los Angeles, CA, USA | Mon Sep 22 2008

 

Remember that day years ago, when your father or grandfather spied bottled water in the supermarket? I bet he laughed. "Who would buy that?" he asked. "What a scam." Now, it's like twenty years later, and bottled water has become an environmental scourge. It was a bad idea taken to an extreme. It almost seems like it should be a plot from a really bad science fiction novel that stars a character named Dirk Dashing.
Tap water gets a bad rap. Maybe it's all the fluoride that they put in tap water that makes our wills weak enough to pay a premium for something that is plentiful and cheap, but that's a theory for a different blog in the nether recesses of the internet.
Ninety percent of all tap water in the United States is safe to drink. If there are problems with your tap water, then your local water supplier is bound by law to inform you of it.
The EPA has a higher standard for tap water than the FDA has for bottled water. Tap water is screened more often for chemical and viral contamination. City water is tested hundreds of times a month, but bottled water is tested only once a week. Carbonated water is never tested.
One fourth of all bottled water is repackaged tap water. The bottled water companies have lied to you, but you trust them over the city water company. Why is this? What has the water company done to you?
Our water is still safe. So drink it. Don’t drink bottled water. Trust your tap water.

Gene Dempsey, City Forester

Environmental Services

Office - (954) 828-7704 Fax - (954) 828-7897

GDempsey@fortlauderdale.gov

Think before you print!