Coming from DE, where the water had a reputation as liquid cancer, I was wondering the relative safety of drinking Philadelphia water from the tap?

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This page might help:

http://www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/u...s/contents.asp

I looked at the reports for NE cities and here're the grades:

Philadelphia - Fair
Newark - Fair
Washington, D.C. - Poor
Boston - Poor
Baltimore - Failing

However, if you read the report, Newark has "a serious problem with lead," while Philly has "significant lead levels" and "chlorination by-products" Here's the link to Philadelphia's report, for those of you not interested in the other cities:

http://www2.nrdc.org/water/drinking/...iladelphia.pdf

Finally, for those of you who may care, Phoenix has a grade of "Poor"

http://www2.nrdc.org/water/drinking/...df/phoenix.pdf

Once you get used to the little brown worms squirming around in it, you hardly notice them. :shock:

Seriously, though, I recall going on a college-sponsored trip to the Soviet Union back in 1988 and visiting Leningrad (aka St. Petersburg); we were warned ahead of time not to drink the water, not even to brush our teeth in it. Well, when they brought pitchers of water to the table at the hotel restaurant, we saw why - the water was quite literally so murky you couldn't see your hand through it on the other side of the pitcher. So we drank Soviet beer, which was pretty bad too, but not deadly.

Philly's MUCH better than that, needless to say. I don't have any problem drinking it, and it doesn't taste funny to me, even after having been away for a while.

Before moving to the U.S., I lived where the water was sort of brownish red and smelled like pond scum -- it also stained toilet bowls that color -- so I have no complaints.

As far as taste, get one of those filter pitchers and you should be fine. I make tea with filtered water from one of them and it ends up tasting ok.

I grew up with Long Island water (artesian well) that tasted great and NYC's Catskill Reservoir water - also pretty terrific.

DC water is awful. Denver's is okay. Philadelphia's is not too bad if you let it run for a little bit and it seems to improve with refrigeration - maybe, some of the chlorine gasses bubble out.

Mixed with scotch, it tastes just fine.

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“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.” - Jane Jacobs