What's in Your Water?

Is there something I need to know about the local water supply here in Cupertino?

Last weekend, I was at the shopping center near De Anza Boulevard and McLellan Avenue, when I noticed a line of people patiently waiting to enter a “water store” to fill up their huge plastic jugs with water. It had me wondering—what’s so special about this H20 that would want to make people create yet another errand for themselves. Who wants to stand in line and haul heavy bottles of water all the way back home, when they could get an unlimited amount of water, practically for free, out of their own kitchen sink?

First of all, what is a water store, and why would you want to go to one? A water store is a retail location where water is purified on-site. Customers either bring empty bottles to the store or buy empty bottles at the store to fill with water. Customers fill their bottles and then pay for the number of gallons of water they used.

Basically, these water stores filter water that comes from the local water supply. (Which by the way, has already been tested and deemed safe for public consumption.) What you may not know is that a tremendous amount of time and technology is expended to make your city’s tap-water safe to drink. At your local treatment plant, water is put through many processes before it even reaches a consumer's tap!

According to The Water Education Foundation, “U.S. drinking water supplies are heavily regulated. Public and private water suppliers operating treatment systems today have methods to control nearly all of the properties found in water: hardness, acidity and alkalinity, color, turbidity, taste and odor, as well as the biological and organic chemical characteristics.”

If you still do not trust your city’s water supply or simply do not like the taste of your local tap-water, you can avoid having to lug 20-gallon water bottles back and forth from store to home with the use of an in-home, whole-house filtration system. This type of water purification system cleanses the water that comes out of every faucet in your home. One major drawback—it will set you back about $500!

Another option is to hook up a small purification system underneath your kitchen sink or onto your faucet. Not quite as outrageously priced as the whole-house system, this type of unit will run about $150.

Now, don’t get me wrong—I have no issue with drinking water from the tap, but my kids prefer the taste of cold water that has been filtered with a Brita filter. It removes the taste of chlorine from the water, and I can get them to drink a lot more water this way! These filters are the most economical and the simplest to use. Just fill up and put in the fridge. Twenty dollars will get you a Brita pitcher.

All of the three filters mentioned will remove the taste of chlorine from your tap-water, as well as copper and cadmium, which may be found in your water with the corrosion of a household plumbing system or galvanized pipes.

As the San Jose Water website reads, “Drinking bottled water should be a matter of taste, not concern for your safety, since public water agencies must comply with very stringent regulations. Each of San Jose Water Company's supplies meets all state and federal drinking water standards.”

If you’d like to learn more about your local water supply, go to San Jose Water and request a copy of its Annual Water Quality Report.