Brant
Gahanna
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Should I be concerned that we're ranked 43rd out of 50 on this list?
http://www.sustainlane.com/us-city-rankings/categories/tap-water-quality
Or 75th out of 100 on this list?
http://www.ewg.org/tap-water/rating-big-city-water
And, yes, I already read the official press release that says everything's awesome.
http://www.publicutilities.columbus.gov/NewsReleases/archive/CCR09Release.pdf
kcrissinger
Brookshire
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We all should be concerned. This is a problem all over Central Ohio. It's not only combined sewers, but illegal sewer connections.
Unchecked development hasn't helped the matter much either.
alexs
Limestone bluffs of the Scioto
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A related question, what is the cost to treat the drinking water to whatever acceptable standards? All the silt from farm fields, all the salt from roads - it has to be filtered out.
One thing to keep in mind about "Columbus tap water" is that there are three different sources, serving different parts of the city. There is one treatment plant on Big Walnut that serves more or less the top two thirds of the city. There is a plant on the Scioto that serves Grandview, downtown, etc., then there's a well field that serves the southern part of the city. That well water tends to have less of the agricultural chemicals like Atrazine.
*edited to add* the 2008 report, with breakdown by water plant:
Walker
The KLD / Downtown
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I'd rather see this information with some form of measurement other than national rankings #1 through #50.
Because if the #1 ranking means really really really clean drinking water and the #50 ranking merely means really really clean drinking water, then there's probably not a whole lot of health differences between any city's water supply.
DavidF
Elysium Fields
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agtw31 wrote >>
if you think Columbus water is bad,go to Texas.
the water down there takes the wax off your paint job.
+1 When I was stationed in San Angelo the city had to have signs put up claiming that the water was safe to drink. It was discolored and sulphuric. Foul stuff, it was bad enough bathing in it. Nobody I knew dared drink it.
Twixlen
Westgate, Columbus
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It's interesting... I grew up with decent well water (that we didn't drink because I lived in TN and the only way you drank water was in the form of tea or ice cubes in whiskey), moved to NY to incredibly foul well water that was so iron heavy I'll likely never be anemic, then to another location in rural upstate NY to the Worst Well Water on The Planet. As in contaminated, couldn't even be used for bathing. We had to cap that well and dig one into the other side of the earth to get something that we could at least bathe with (it's still too foul to drink, even with an extremely expensive purification system).
All that is to say what a stinkin' pleasure it was to move to Columbus and have such lovely, tasty, fabulous water come out of every faucet. I drink my water straight out of the tap. (Well, after putting it in a glass.)
Brant
Gahanna
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Walker wrote >>
I'd rather see this information with some form of measurement other than national rankings #1 through #50.
Because if the #1 ranking means really really really clean drinking water and the #50 ranking merely means really really clean drinking water, then there's probably not a whole lot of health differences between any city's water supply.
Good point. The more detailed data reveal that the pollutants in Columbus tap water are within the legal limits, but exceed other federal health guidelines.
JedThorp
Merion Village
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Hmmm...a tricky issue. First, I'll note the difference between drinking water, and surface water (the rivers) as each has it's own issues.
Columbus drinking water is pretty good. It may not TASTE great, depending on where you live, but the City has no control over how old the pipes in your house are (which can impact taste.) Bottom line is that they are in compliance with state and federal drinking water standards. However, no drinking water plant, anywhere, treats for every pollutant that MAY be in your water.
Surface water is a different story. On the one hand, the Scioto and Olentangy are not as polluted as some people think they are. In particular, there are some "hot spots" near the sewer outfalls. Beware of those, especially after a heavy rain, and there will be some wastewater (what you flush) in with the storm (i.e. rain) water. Columbus is spending over a billion (with a B) dollars over the next 20 years to fix this. So, if you really want clean water, don't complain when the roads are torn up or your water bill goes up a bit.
Analogue Kid
5th by West-Northwest
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The water is fine here, don't believe the bottled water propaganda. There is no US water system that produces an unsafe product. Some of them may score poorly on organoleptic criteria but that's not a health issue. If you don't like how it tastes, just get a brita filter or something.
kcrissinger
Brookshire
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JedThorp wrote >>
Hmmm...a tricky issue. First, I'll note the difference between drinking water, and surface water (the rivers) as each has it's own issues.
Columbus drinking water is pretty good. It may not TASTE great, depending on where you live, but the City has no control over how old the pipes in your house are (which can impact taste.) Bottom line is that they are in compliance with state and federal drinking water standards. However, no drinking water plant, anywhere, treats for every pollutant that MAY be in your water.
Surface water is a different story. On the one hand, the Scioto and Olentangy are not as polluted as some people think they are. In particular, there are some "hot spots" near the sewer outfalls. Beware of those, especially after a heavy rain, and there will be some wastewater (what you flush) in with the storm (i.e. rain) water. Columbus is spending over a billion (with a B) dollars over the next 20 years to fix this. So, if you really want clean water, don't complain when the roads are torn up or your water bill goes up a bit.
You make very good points. Surface and drinking are very different. However, the drinking water does come directly from our surface waters.
Columbus finally agreed to address the issue once their backs were up against the wall. I've seen the plans to correct a lot of the issues. However, many will not be corrected by this plan. There are MANY places within City limits that were built in the 40's - 60s's that have illegal clean water connections, i.e. foundation drains, to the sanitary system. When it rains very hard, this water overloads the sanitary system and then it backs up into basements. People then have sump pumps that pump this out to the curb and into storm sewers. These storm sewers go directly to streams and then the rivers. All s**t flows downstream.
alove
Downtown
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JedThorp wrote >>
Columbus is spending over a billion (with a B) dollars over the next 20 years to fix this. So, if you really want clean water, don't complain when the roads are torn up or your water bill goes up a bit.
GOOD!
We can't be one of the greenest cities in the U.S. if our rivers have sh*t in them.
Walker
The KLD / Downtown
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Brant Jones wrote >>
Good point. The more detailed data reveal that the pollutants in Columbus tap water are within the legal limits, but exceed other federal health guidelines.
Thanks for the link. I'm studying some of those numbers but I'm still not sure exactly what they mean. ;)
Nate
Suburbs
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I don't know if it's just me, but this report seems pretty deceptive. Of all the compounds being tested for, Columbus was over the legal limit on one thing in the last 6 years. I don't know where they get their "health guidelines" from, but odds are they are using lower guidelines from super-regulatory states like California. Hell, their limits on many of them are zero/practically zero. They are simply unrealistic. The legal limits and things that approach them are what you should be concerned with, not some arbitrary numbers used in a ranking system.
Reports like these are fishy to me. I wouldn't be surprised if this company's research was paid by other companies marketing bottled water and filtering systems. The truth of the matter is that the water is safe, and if it wasn't you would know about it. The testing is all mandated by the EPA and if people are in noncompliance they are subject to fines and other penalties.
pedex
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Walker wrote >>
Brant Jones wrote >>
Good point. The more detailed data reveal that the pollutants in Columbus tap water are within the legal limits, but exceed other federal health guidelines.Thanks for the link. I'm studying some of those numbers but I'm still not sure exactly what they mean. ;)
they are measured in parts per billion or parts per million and less is better
Just for comparison's sake you can taste the presence of salt in water when it gets up around 1-2 parts per thousand. Brackish water has salt content around 5-7 parts per thousand and ocean water is up around 23-26 parts per thousand if I recall correctly.
Two guidelines:health and legal limit. Health means exactly that, anything over that limit means a health risk, anything over legal means they can be shutdown till its fixed. FAQ's have an item about avoiding the water if you are on chemo or have an immune disease.
all sorts of things are not tested for and may or may not be present in the water
is it safe? that's relative. More than 1 million people live in the watershed area here and farmland too along with some industry. All of it ends up in the water. We are all guinea pigs in drinking or using the resulting cocktail after its treated. We still haven't learned how not to foul our own nests.
I know from delivering the samples all the time years ago this stuff does get tested and tested often like bi-weekly minimum. Even Annheiser Busch has their water tested weekly so they know what is going in their beer. Guess that makes sense as Columbus' biggest water consumer. Zandi labs and another who's name escapes me at the moment does most of it. So even if you drink Pepsi or Budweiser that's made locally you are still drinking our tapwater, no escaping it.
Brant
Gahanna
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A little backstory regarding the OP: I don't have much knowledge on this subject. My brother had a guy from Home Depot come to his house to test his tap water and he was told that there were high levels of chlorine in it, and he was advised to invest in a water filtration system. I was convinced my brother was getting scammed by this "expert" and started looking for hard data online to disprove the charlatan.
After about 10 minutes of Google searching, most of the stuff I found online seemed to support the Home Depot guy and his sales pitch. At the least, there seems to be a big discrepancy between what is considered healthy vs. what is legal. And then, of course, there's the question of taste.
I was hoping the brains on CU could me help clear this up, but even here there doesn't seem to be much of a consensus.
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