People with experience working in and around municipal water infrastructure: Do you drink tap water? Are there times when you do not?

I trust the city government with my water much much more than companies trying to save every penny bottling water.

I manage utility services - among other things - for a group of properties - and have had the mains water analysed for chemical and biological contamination at various times. The results have always been absolutely fine. Not just with EU limits, but far, far, far within them for almost everything and definitely well within them for all measures.

I've got no issues at all with drinking tap water in the UK, even given the state of the rivers etc.

The fda tests bottle water. The epa tests tap water. The standards for the fda are lower than the epa. You’re being bambozzled.

Water and Wastewater operator here. In Texas, where I work and live water is sampled, tested, and reported to TCEQ the Texas specific extension of the EPA. If a water system continually fails to meet water quality standards set out by TCEQ, that system will be taken over by TCEQ and brought back into compliance. All this to say, yes, I drink it because I help make it.

I work in food manufacturing and get the local water test results emailed to me monthly - they are alway well within limits

If you have any reason to suspect the quality of your water, get it tested! It's not that expensive, you just ship a sample to a lab and they email you a report. Because so many people depend on well water there's a bunch of labs all over the country that do water quality testing, it's a relatively cheap and accessible service.

I used to live in Los Angeles and lived in Charlie Chaplin's house that was on the old lot(the current Broadway shoes).

The water coming into the house was probably clean, but the home's pipes were all lead. I did one of those lead tests and it failed.

So your sulfur taste could be from the home and not from the municipal water.

Where I am most people are happy to drink the tap water, and we're all oddly proud of it. Which is fair, it's great water. Very soft too, I remember seeing ads on TV for products to remove limescale but that doesn't really happen here much. I find it a little odd that some places' tap water is so full of impurities that it leaves mineral deposits on their appliances.

Come to Scotland, try our tap water!

Not a water person, but it might be the fire departments fault. If they use a hydrant upstream of you it flows so much water so fast that it can stir up some older stuff that's been sitting in there a while.

I was in the industry for a decent amount of years. I know the operators of the water plants around me. I never hesitate to drink the tap water in my area. At home it goes through the filter in my fridge, which manages the runoff taste in the spring, and keeps the water cold.

I just wonder about PEX tubing. Occasionally, the water has a strong plasticky taste/smell like hose water and I feel like that just can't be good for you.

I live in Grand Rapids, MI where the tap water is 2.4 ppt PFAS. I buy reverse osmosis purified from the store for $0.50 a gallon for drinking, and will continue to do so until I get my own place where I'll install an under-sink one

Just generally, you can get a report of your municipal water testing. The biggest safety variable that I would be worried about testing at home for is lead in the pipes between me and the treatment plant. That includes my house/building and the municipal pipes.

Now taste, that's a to each their own situation. Sulfury water is my limit for sure. No thanks!

Get an undersink reverse osmosis and uv filter kit. Some come with a remineralizer so it doesn't taste flat. Don't go for a cheap one or it will leak. SoCal isn't known for its water purity or consistancy.

The water is pretty solid in a lot of developed countries. If it tastes bad then it might have to do with the pipes and tubing.

I used to work in a municipal city water department. Part of its job was to deal with some chemical blooms from bad waste disposal. While I am not a water science person, I trusted the water science people who told me it was safe and got to tour some of the cool filtration things.

I didn’t drink the water because water in that area has a “green” taste that’s hard to describe unless you’ve had it. Totally fine to drink, just personal preference. Most people I know gave me a lot of shit for it.

I live in SE Michigan, so... ... ...yeah, I want to trust my city water, but I can't. Not since Flint, Michigan.

I love in NZ, most places in the country have good tap water, sometimes slightly over chlorinated.

If you're living in the US, I feel like it's almost cheating to complain. A certain political party had worked for decades to lower safety, standards and oversight to the point that I would really feel nervous living in the States.

As mentioned already you can get it tested for safety. Plenty of water that has the features you described is indeed safe for consumption. But do you really want to? Most of us don't drink enough water, and if it's unpleasant you'll end up drinking a bare minimum. I can't say enough good things about installing an RO system. It makes water really enjoyable and you'll know it's also being cleaned as well. There are plenty of naysayers about these filters, but they are pretty affordable and work incredibly well. Gamechanger for coffee too.

I work as a disaster/contingency planning consultant in Central Europe,not only in terms of water but for everything,but of course water is always an issue. Good friend of mine is the head of the regional government agency controlling the municipal water works around here. While we could do much much more in terms of disaster preparedness there is literally nothing wrong with the water itself - we don't even have any Chlorine in it, it's simply not necessary around here. Only when something goes wrong (e.g. main-line breaks) Chlorine will be added for a few weeks.

Yes. At one point I "designed" chlorination buildings/ rooms. At least where I live, probably due to the historical happenings with the water, everything is very heavily monitored and systems are redundant. Everyone in the city got this big notice about a failure in the water system. I actually read through it and it was because one station didn't get one of their scheduled samples. My parents have well water which I grew up on, and think it tastes easy better. But they need a water softener and filters. There's also a guaranteed amount of heavy metals, even if it's in a "safe" range.

North East, US here. probably fine but I don't trust it. we use a water filter for drinking

I live in San Francisco, give me hetch hetchy

(that's where our tap comes from)

I was just in Vegas and was reminded how lucky I am to have such good tap water. Western Washington has great water

I live in Minnesota. Close to Minneapolis. My brother does testing for swimming pools. He tested the city water for contaminates. He says do not drink it. If the level of chlorine in the city water was in pool water the pool would be shut down. It would not be safe to even swim in it. Yet the city claims it's safe to drink.