Secrets of the City

I drink tap water, but it oftentimes comes out pretty cloudy and gets nasty after about a day in my bottle.

Try the water in Central America or Southern Europe sometime. Minneapolis taps run champagne in comparison.

Minneapolis’s water is great. Robbinsdale’s water is terrible.

We drink tap water run through a Brita filter pitcher thingy. Tastes just like bottled water – without the waste of plastic bottles.

When we lived in Columbia Heights, the water was terrible every Spring. Very strong “fishy” odor.

The tap water around here is great. And so much less wasteful/expensive than all of those plastic bottles (where you’re often just drinking another city’s tap water).

Hopkins was pretty bad when I lived there.

Minneapolis is okay, pretty heavy on the chlorine taste though. And why is it so damn cloudy when it comes out of the tap?

Don’t Minnesotans eat muskies? I don’t see the problem.

I stick to St. Paul municipal water by drinking Phillips vodka.

Minneapolis has some of the best filtered / tasting water around.
Typically if your tap water tastes bad its the piping from the water main to your house that is causing the issues. At my place the ice cubes come out nearly clear which speaks volumes to the lack of particulates.

I guess being in NE and being close to the plant helps too. Oh I almost totally forgot! They just relined all the water mains in my neighborhood last summer. That might be why our water is of such high quality.

I’ve noticed this every year since I moved in in 2004. This year I thought it smelled more but doesn’t have that grimy feeling it has had in past years. That could be due to having moved, though.

Didn’t I read a year or two ago about Minneapolis opening some new gazillion dollar water purification plant that is supposed to be like the best in the world?

Bottled water is evil.

My roommates prefer the Brita, but I think the tap water’s fine.

Kevin, didn’t you come from Mankato? That city sets the standard for smelly, ass-tasting water, for drinking or otherwise. The butt smell of the river near the Oleander even surpasses the stench surrounding the central library’s western corner.

the water does this every spring. it is a bit stinky — but whatever; I’d rather have smelly water from organic leaf material than piles of wasteful plastic bottles that are made with petroleum

++ on the britta filter. I drink city water when I go out to eat (I figure), but that’s it. Otherwise, it’s filter all the way. Life with a filter is great.. no plasticy taste from the bottle, no crappy city water flavor, it just tastes like good clean water. And they’re not that expensive. One filter lasts about two months and a costs about $5.

I’m a fan of the PUR filter thing that you attach to the faucet. I used to think the filters were kind of expensive, but I found a six pack of them at Costco for $50 or something, and that’ll last more than a year.

I think my Minneapolis city water tastes just fine. Though a friend just yesterday asked me if I thought it tasted funny. Maybe a little more chlorine than usual.

if there was a major issue with tap water being bad for you – wouldn’t you think that people would be getting ill left and right? and yet that doesn’t happen. there is a difference in the ‘perception’ of something being bad for you than the reality.

I, for one, only drink grain alcohol and rainwater – to protect against the communist conspiracy of fluoride. must protect those precious bodily fluids.

I’ve had some rank city water in my day… Omaha… Iowa City… Minneapolis isn’t that bad. Does water gets worse as it flows downstream??

I usually drink out of a brita but I always forget to change the filter so essentially I’m drinking tap water.

Dentists were predicting the end of the cavity in the US thanks to flouridated water. Bottled water is undoing those gains.

I drink mpls tap w/o filtering and have found the greatest variance comes from the age and materials of your plumbing.

It’s great to see so many people reveling in all that is Minneapolis water. I, on the otherhand, have the displeasure of leaving near the river. The combined funk of that ol’ stinker + the carp stench eminating from the faucet/showerhead/washing machine have been a bit much the past couple of weeks.

Of course every sane indvidual (save for Katherine Kersten or some equi-whippable non-notable) knows that this is safe. It’s just a stink issue.

yeah I have a feeling some of my issues are more because my building is like 120+ years old than because the water is necessarily bad. But it was renovated like 10-12 years ago, which hopefully included new plumbing. I’m not sure about the connection to the main, or the main itself, though?

If you can afford bottled water please attempt to either put in an RO filter for your house drinking water supply ($150 at home depot, operating costs should easily beat bottled water in a year or two for two people) or go to your local co-op/grocery store/etc and get RO water by the 5gal jug. It helps discourage the transportation of *vast* amounts of water all over the planet.

Instead of bottled water, we just keep a few good bottles (like bike water bottles) and reuse them when we want to bring water with us on the road.

I’m with ranty. Having worked in C.A. for HFH for 4 summers following Mitch and some other storms, we are lucky to not have a layer of gasoline floating atop our wells.

When it comes to potable water, I use a test I call the “am I crapping my pants yet” test. If the criteria is not met within 8 hours of drinking water, it is determined to be “delightful” and “refreshing”.

The only thing that ever makes me think twice is sulphurous odors as I hate deviled eggs.

Christine, Iowa City water isn’t nearly as bad as Minneapolis water in my opinion. It also comes with the added benefit of being in Iowa City, so perhaps that’s why it tastes so nice to me.

Thanks for the tip Scott. Is RO a brand or a type of filter and can a person with all thumbs install it?

Have you even tasted Iowa City water? It makes me gag. Ek, really.

Of course, I grew up on well water, so I have high expectations.

Btw, Iowa City rules, dude. Except for the water, I would totally live there if it weren’t Iowa.

“RO” is just shorthand for the very common reverse osmosis filtering method.

Yes, Mankato water is terrible. At one point, pregnant women weren’t supposed to drink it. St. Paul water ain’t to great either come here pretty soon.

And for all the bottled water fanatics, especially Aquafina (Pepsi) and Dasani (Coke): You’re idiots. All it is is the water they use to make pop, but without the pop in it. So essentially you’re paying the same price or more for Coke without the Coke.

Since I was raised with well water, most city water tastes like a swimming pool to me. I used to drink bottled water all the time but switched to one of those PUR faucet mounted 3 stage filters. It takes out the fish smell and the chlorine taste. I think the water tastes better than bottled (no plastic taste as others have mentioned) and I’m saving the environment and a lot of money.

Tap water is totally safe. It just tastes bad if you aren’t used to chlorine.

If you have kids and have them drinking nothing but bottled water you’ve got some major dental bills ahead of you. Although, I believe they now market bottled water with floride, thus proving Mencken’s maxim that nobody ever lost any money underestimating the American intelligence/taste.

I am curious who drinks water from the tap and who ruins the earth like I do with my cases of bottled water.

why are you ruining the earth?

The water in my old apartment used to run brown and I drank it all the time.

I wonder how soon I’m going to die from rust poisoning?

I, on the otherhand, have the displeasure of leaving near the river.

Uh, where along the river? I live right by the river too and it’s delightful.

You people….
buy filtered pitchers, it’s really quite affordable and you don’t produce the waste. Quite surprised that y’all haven’t figured this out by now and still buy plastic bottles that kill iraqi babies, and kittens. And the earth. I hope you at least recycle them.

Max, you give away your urban-ness when suggesting that muskies are to be eaten. We catch them, but don’t eat them. much too boney and tough.

recycle the bottles, not the kittens or iraqi babies……

Well, I’m a vegetarian, so fish is all Greek to me.

realtor, you are dubious of filters, and other devices….what do you suspect your bottled water is? It ain’t artesian water shipped in from the rockies or some shiot

Actually the FDA has very rigid parameters for labeling of bottled water.
Here is a good source document from the FDA. It even has quotes from scientists at the U of M.

I typically will drink tap water at home but my bottled water of choice is Archer Farms Natural Spring Water bottled from the Waters of America Spring in lovely Sullivan, Mo.

I like the tap water in Mpls.

IAspeak for Christine and Addymal… When I lived in Iowa City (’98-’00), I often gagged when I got into the shower in the morning. It smelled like the locker room adjacent to a swimming pool. And I never drank the tap water. I listened to some good advice and bought a Brita before I moved there and changed the filter religiously.

Things changed in IC in ‘03. The University still gets its water directly from the river, while the city now gets it from an aquifer (replenished by the river). It’s all about the aquifer. I visited a friend there shortly after the change and the city’s tap water is decent now.

I, too, love Iowa City.

OK, back to MNspeak.

I’ve lived in Mpls, St Paul, Minnetonka, Hopkins, and St. Louis Park Of the 5, SLP’s water tastes the most foul.

Minneapolis water always gets fishy in the spring. It’s a proud tradition. I haven’t noticed it yet this year, though — perhaps because of improvements?

We use one of those under-sink reverse osmosis filters, with its own spigot up top. Works like a charm, way cheaper than buying bottled water in the long run, and no futzing around with a clumsy switch on the faucet.

i drink tap water at home, but i always take a bottled water whenever i leave the house. why? cuz men’s health sez i should, that’s why. i suppose i could go out and buy a bunch of bottles, then fill em, then bring em back home, then wash em…oh christ, it’s just easier to pay for it.

IAspeak would totally suck. Please don’t ever bring that up again.

I think we all know that Ames is way better than Iowa City…at least the water there doesn’t stink.

West Des Moines has the worst tasting water. Seriously.

Ames is totally underrated.

Oops, wrong thread.

Mpls Simpleton, what part of NE Mpls do you live in? Just curious how to find out if my water would be similar.

I live in the Waite Park neighborhood.

I think they are relining more water mains this summer in Waite Park west of Johnson this summer.

Here is a link to the 2006 Minneapolis Drinking Water Report.

Yay for northeasterners!

Ames is only a passable alternative to the dreariness that is Des Moines. It’s not actually a good place to be. It’s all relative, I guess.

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Whoa!

Ames is only a passable alternative to the dreariness that is Des Moines.

That really isn’t saying much. But I do have many good memories of hanging out at Iowa State with my friends in college.

Iowa City is better.

I actually have a solid carbon block filter (multipure). I wonder if it can filter out the sort of perfluorobutanoic acid that 3M so thoughtfully deposited into the water supply? Glad I don’t live downriver of that particular corporate citizen.

I certainly have noticed a difference in my tap water recently. It tastes kind of muddy or earthy or something. Why does this happen? (I moved to Minneapolis this past summer, so this is my first spring).

I think it tastes how rotting leaves smell, and I can’t stand the way the smell sticks to me after a shower

I too am new to Minneapolis… HOW LONG DOES THIS HORRIBLE DISGUSTING WATER LAST?????

Floride isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. It works great when applied directly to your teeth (like in toothpaste), but it does nothing when it added to water. Except, of course, put a poisonous substance into your body. I too drink city water, but I wish they would stop adding the floride.

Hm. And yet the The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that fluoridating water decreases tooth decay by 29 percent.

But I suppose we’re just supposed to take your word that they are lying.

It works great when applied directly to your teeth (like in toothpaste), but it does nothing when it added to water.

Not sure about you, but when I ingest water, it generally comes in contact with my teeth somewhere along the way.

And yet the The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that fluoridating water decreases tooth decay by 29 percent.

In fact they’re blaming the proliferation of (unfluoridated) bottled water for the increase in tooth decay in recent years.

Nah, Minneapolis tap water tastes just fine. Drinking some right now

Every spring the Minneapolis water gets a disgusting marshy stench. I find it repulsive. Is this from the spring thaw? Is this from the billions of tons of chemicals that 3M dumped all over the Metro area? It’s hard for me to belive this nasty stinky water, is deemed potable by the city and is ALLOWED, or accepted by the populace. Nice job, Minneapolis! Good way to run a city.

I do notice a fishy taste in my tap water of late.

I live in Minneapolis and every spring the water is so nasty. Someone posted that is less grimy this year, I would agree. It smells like fish slime though and it makes me nauseous. Can’t they filter it longer, or re-filter it for a month or so? Might as well raise the gas tax again.

Man up and drink the water forgodsake.

The smell may be coming from the spring fish kill when the lakes and rivers start thawing and turning over, too.

it’s not old pipes – unless they use old pipes when they build new townhouses.. P U! I’m not sure if i should be sad or relieved to learn I’m not the only one with fish stinking water. It’s easy enough to get a filter for the sink, but what about the shower? I used to have that ‘not-so-fresh’ feeling during my ’special’ time of the month. Now I have it every day. I have friends in Richfield and their water is great. Who can we write to? Let’s start a petition.

‘Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink’

Coleridge in practice.

old pipes isn’t the problem i agree. and all you people are saying its fine and tell people to live with it. y should you have to buy a filter for you tap. shoulden’t you have clean, good tasting water all the time. the city needs to do something about it. they have websites up that cost thousens of dollors to promot drinkind tap. couldent they fix it instead of putting up bogus sites?