Why?

From the Boston Globe:

“The state ordered 2.5 million gallons of drinkable water and asked the federal government for help in securing additional supplies if necessary.”

“People flocked to convenience stores and groceries in search of bottled water, amid scattered reports of shortages.”

“Coakley set up a hotline for people to call in tips about alleged price gouging.”

Seriously? It’s not like there’s no water coming through. All people have to do is boil it. As long as they have a pot and a stove, they should be all set. So why the fuss over cases and cases of bottled water?

I don’t think it’s laziness, because it’s got to be more of a pain to make a special trip to the store and fight through crowds to pay more money for what comes directly your house for free (after taxes).

I think it’s a serious worry that the water coming out of the tap will make them sick. They’re thinking of their water as something akin to sewage, and if I imagine it like that, I can understand. But it’s mostly the same water they’re used to, with something like 3-5% pond water added. Pond water treated with chlorine. If you’ve ever gone swimming, you’ve probably ingested water worse than this. The precautions are there for the off chance that people might get sick from it, and they’re a good idea, but there’s no need to go overboard.

I’m worried that this will not only create a huge temporary demand for unnecessary bottled water, but make it a habit. I already know people who will never drink tap water, even if it’s filtered, because they’re convinced it’s unclean. That’s crazy. Our water system is generally good. It’s regularly tested, and reports are sent out to residents yearly. And if that’s not enough, you can just test it yourself, like I did. The test costs less than a three-pack of Brita replacement filters.

Now, all this is just me preaching at people, because I’m lucky—Cambridge’s water comes from a different reservoir than the rest of the Boston area. The only way I’ve been affected is that I had to fill up some bottles at home to bring into work. But it’s just been weird to see people’s reactions. Some people weren’t even using the water to wash their hands. After going to the bathroom. News flash: not washing your hands is going to make you sicker than drinking this water.

Okay, I’m off my soap box now. Good night.

I’d thought all this time that our showerhead was low-flow, until I realized that 2.5 gallons per minute was now the legal maximum flow for all showerheads. Truly low-flow is now 1.5 gpm. At least that was the lowest we could find at our local hardware stores.

I was worried that water pressure would be a problem, so I chose a showerhead that advertised itself as high pressure. Too much pressure, in fact. I felt like I was being assaulted every time I took a shower. I tried to get used to it for a week, and then got another. This time the pressure was more reasonable. I actually think it’s better than my old showerhead. And it was only $10.

It's a little utilitarian-looking, but it works for me.

As important as the flow rate is the off switch. With it I can warm up my water and then turn it off if I need to, without it changing temperature. I can even shut off the water while I lather up. Navy shower, anyone?

Unfortunately, now I have an extra showerhead. Does anyone like forceful showers and want to give it a try? I’ll be happy to mail it to you.

That’s right—a commercial car washing facility is the best way to wash a car. Why?

• Less water use – Washing a car by hand at home uses between 80 and 140 gallons of water; automatic car washes average just 45 gallons. They do this by mixing air with the water to get a high pressure spray, as well as reusing filtered waste water.
• Better waste water disposal – Driveway car washing allows the waste water to flow directly into storm drains, where it contaminates waterways. Commercial car washes by law must filter their waste water before directing it into the sewer system.

It looks like the absolute best solution is actually to wash a car by hand at a commercial facility, which uses the least water (around 15 gallons) and prevents pollution from washing into storm drains. That’s awfully cold this time of year, though, so we’ll compromise by using a drive-through car wash until it warms up.

It's not actually as scary in there as you might think.

Our toilet was already a modern, low-flow toilet, using just 1.6 gallons of water per flush. But you really don’t need 1.6 gallons for every flush. That’s now the default setting for the full flush, and 0.8 gallons is the default setting for the half flush, but we’ll have to continue playing around with the water levels to figure out what’s the least amount that we can use.

The kit was relatively simple to install—you can tell by the fact that two very non-handy people did it without flooding the bathroom. Taking the toilet tank off was obviously terrifying, and a little difficult, too, because the bolts were corroded. But this video walked us through the whole thing step by step.

We did run into one problem when we were done. The fill valve continued to allow a steady trickle of water through, even when the tank was already full. We were afraid we’d have to replace the whole fill valve (or shamefacedly ask our landlord to do it), but cleaning the valve did the trick.

The problem? The previous tenants had put bricks in the toilet tank to save water. The bricks had started to degrade in the water, and brick dust had gotten into the valve. This is why people now emphasize that if you want to displace water in your toilet, use a bottle of water—don’t use bricks!

Cross posted on the Cambridge Energy Alliance blog.

• Lead: Negative
• Bacteria: Negative
• Pesticides: Negative
• Nitrates: .5 ppm (very low)
• Nitrites: 0 ppm
• pH: 10 (very high)
• Hardness: 120 ppm (very high)
• Chlorine: 2 ppm (low)

The bacteria test. Purple=negative. Yellow=positive.

We used a Watersafe kit to test it. In addition to the lead and bacteria tests, the kit included tests for things that I wasn’t really worried about, like pesticides and nitrates/nitrites (not lot of farms around here) and hardness, pH, and chlorine (which really only affect the taste and your pipes).

Nitrates/Nitrites and pH/Hardness/Chlorine. These two tests were a little useless, but fun.

The City of Cambridge mails us water quality reports every year, so the only thing I really wondered about was lead. Since that can come from the pipes in your house, it wouldn’t show up on the city’s report. Probably not a large problem anymore, but it’s good to be sure.

Lead and Pesticides. These two look uncomfortably like pregnancy tests, don't they?

All in all, I’m glad we tested our water. Now, instead of wasting our money on filters that then get thrown away every few months, we can be comfortable with it as is. And the test only cost $18 (including shipping), less than a three-pack of Brita filters. Maybe I should test our water at work, too….

Half full or half empty?

Okay, okay, that’s established. My big question: Should I filter my tap water? I had a Brita pitcher when I first moved to Boston. Then I moved to an apartment with a filter in the door of the fridge (terribly inefficient, by the way) and dumped the Brita. When we moved into our current apartment, we switched to straight tap water, and I felt kind of ridiculous for having wasted so much money on filters over the years.

But the New York Times recently published an article about how spikes in pesticide levels in tap water aren’t being accurately reported. And when I looked up water filters on Consumer Reports (my bible), they specifically used Boston as an example of tests showing lead levels of 45 times the legal limit. Since lead is usually picked up from the pipes leading to and inside your house, that won’t show up on the city’s annual report.

On the other hand, there are no children in our house and neither of us are planning on becoming pregant. Those are the two groups that are actually affected by such small levels of contaminants (like with mercury in fish). So we don’t really need to worry, right? And having a recurring expense for something we don’t actually need (and making it into a habit that’s hard to break) is just silly.

On the other other hand, it’s kind of freaky to think that I could be drinking heavy metals and E.coli. I might just test our tap water to see if a filter’s necessary. Consumer Reports listed a few options, including state-certified labs and an over-the-counter kit. What do you think?