Got a nice little color mailer from the Massachusetts Water Resouces Authority the other day: “Tap into Water”. I’ve never been that concerned with tap water, but we’ve all read A Civil Action (or at least seen the movie), and that took place right here in New England. I decided that since this “Right-to-Know” report was required to be sent to me (“Residential Customer”) under U.S. law, I wanted to exercise that right.

The shocking revelation comes on page 4. Apparently, there is something called coliform that could signal that harmful bacteria from fecal waste may be in the water. Question: Isn’t all feces waste? Or is some of it the waste of the feces? I think the former, so we’re talking about feces in water. I’ll refer to this as “crap water” (yes I know, not that technical – I’m just a lay person on this topic – a “Residential Customer” if-you-will)

0.37% of samples in Boston were crap water. Okay, so I’ll get a Brita. Looking down the list though, I was amazed to see that 20% of the tap water samples in Southborough had indications of crap in them. 20%! If you drink five glasses of water a day, you’re likely drinking a glass full of crap-water every day. Disgusting!

On a serious note, there is actual information about this on the EPA Website.

P.S: Be sure to check out David Galbraith's recent thoughts on open source water.