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- Is
my drinking water safe?
Yes.
White House Utility District meets the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency’s standards for safe drinking water.
- Can
I tell if my drinking water is okay by just looking at it, tasting it,
or
Smelling it?
No. None of the chemicals or microbes that could make you sick
can be seen, tasted, or smelled.
- How
are germs that can make me sick kept out of my drinking water?
Chlorine a chemical
disinfectant is added to the drinking water at the treatment plant. Chlorine is the most common disinfectant
used in the United States and Canada.
- Is
water with chlorine in it safe to drink?
Yes. Tests have shown that the amount of chlorine found in treated
water is safe to drink, although some people object to the taste.
- Why
does my drinking water taste or smell bad? Will this smelly water make me sick?
The two most common reasons for
bad tasting or smelling water are:
- From
the chlorine that is added to the water to kill germs or:
- As
algae and tiny fungi grow in surface water sources, they give
off nontoxic,
smelly chemicals that can cause unpleasant tastes in drinking
water. Different algae cause
different tastes and odors – grassy, swampy, and pigpen, as examples
and the little fungi can cause an earthy-musty taste. None of the contaminants that
could affect your health can be tasted in drinking water. There are no proven incidents of
the chemicals that cause a bad taste in drinking water making people
sick.
- My
water sometimes looks cloudy or milky when first taken from a faucet
And then it clears up. Why is that?
The cloudy or milky water is caused by air becoming
dissolved in water similar to
the gas bubbles in beer and carbonated soft drinks. When taken from the faucet
after a while, the air bubbles rise to the top and are
gone. This cloudy or milky
appearance usually occurs when water has been shut-off
for line repairs or when
newly installed lines are first put in to service. Although aesthetically unpleasing,
it presents no harmful health effects.
- Should
I buy bottled water?
Remember that U.S. bottled
water is less regulated than municipal drinking water.
You don’t need to buy bottled
water for health reasons. If
you want a drink with a different taste, try adding lemon juice to your tap
water. If you buy bottled water for
taste reasons, remember it costs up to 1,000 times more than municipal
drinking water.
- What
are cross-connections and why are they a problem?
A cross-connection is a
connection between a drinking water pipe and a possible polluted
source. Here’s a common
example. You’re going to spray weed
killer on your lawn. You hook up
your hose to the sprayer that contains the weed killer. If the water pressure drops at the same
time your hose is turned on, the chemical in the sprayer may be sucked back
into the drinking water pipes through the hose. This would seriously pollute the drinking water system. Using a backflow prevention device
can prevent this problem.
White House Utility District operates a cross-connection control
program, which duties are to eliminate or protect the water supply from any
apparent or possible cross-connections.
Protecting the water supply from cross-connections is vital if the
drinking water quality is to be protected!
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