Talk:Tap water

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Tap water is included in the 2007 Wikipedia for Schools, or is a candidate for inclusion in future versions. Please maintain high quality standards, and make an extra effort to include free images, because non-free images cannot be used on the CDs.

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[edit] Fact check requested

a few points that need checking and maybe mentioning in this article:

  • some municipalities have a dual water system -- eg in Paris, water from the river is used to clean streets.
  • New eco-friendly homes now being built use "grey" water for things such as flushing toilets rather than tap water. This can befrom the rainfall on the roof, or recycled water from shower, bath or washing machine.

-- Tarquin 10:57, 9 Jan 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Fact that would be interesting to include

Does anyone know what chemicals are artificially added to American tap water and for what reasons? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.217.108.158 (talk) 15:39, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi,

I do not believe the Tap Water article should be merged with Domestic Water System. To me it seems that tap water is not the same thing as the whole system that brings it to us.

However, I feel that this article is incomplete and is in great need to be developed further. A list of chemicals added to the tap water by municipalities needs to be included, and how harmful or harmless they might be to us. Also other possible contaminants of tap water before and after it leaves the water station, and what studies and tests of tap water around the world told us.

I came here hoping to learn if my fears about tap water were founded or not, I discovered that none of my fears were mentioned here despite the fact that most people drinking bottled water instead of tap water have the same fears, though most of us don’t understand exactly what these fears are or where they come from. We need a clear understanding of what is tap water and how safe it is.

Someone will need to address these issues so this article will provide a better understanding of what we are actually drinking. And since I am no expert, it cannot be me.

By all means, if you are an environmentalist, feel free to tell us how harmful it is to drink bottled water instead of tap water, but both sides need to be developed further. This would be more what readers of Wikipedia would expect, an unbiased point of view. Otherwise, this article tells us what we already know, tap water is water coming to our home through pipes after municipalities treated it “somehow”. Somehow I was expecting more.

Markytea —Preceding unsigned comment added by Markytea (talk • contribs) 22:27, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] History of running water

Expert Attention needed--69.215.76.193 04:58, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

needs a history of running water... -- Feb 27 16:46:19 EST 2006

Is it true the roman empire invented the first working faucet? This article will benefit from a history section.

There's nothing domestic about Rome...

[edit] List of countries by whether tap water is potable or not?

I think this would be a valid and interesting list, but it's whether anyone has the source material to make it that would be the problem.--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 22:32, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

There are sources that cover access to clean water. Whether they define "access" as "being on tap" I don't know. There was a big debate about this on this or another wat er page a year or two ago and we found a U.N.-related organization that had statistics. The narrow question of potability of tap water is a bit murky. Water that natives are accustomed to may make tourists ill. Tap water may vary in its potability by location with a country, by time due to damage and repairs to pipes, etc. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 23:04, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, it's interesting, because I am from the UK (Scotland, specifically) and I went to Romania this year, and stayed with a Romanian family. I did drink the tap water there for a while, but they told me not to do so, because they buy bottled water all the time because tap water is not potable, and from then on I didn't drink their tap water. Still, somehow I don't think that drinking their water would do me the same harm as drinking 20 pints of Stella Artois.--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 02:11, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Will Beback here. The idea of such a list is not realistic for several reasons:
  1. Potability relies on water meeting certain levels of acceptability in terms of microbial and chemical quality
  2. If we assume that "potability" means that it meets quality criteria set for drinking water in that country, then we find ourselves unable to list "like with like"
  3. As Will Beback points out, differences between the microbiological fauna of drinking water in different areas may present problems to visitors to that area simply because their immune systems are not accustomed to that particular fauna.
  4. Even if water is potable in the sense that non-immuno compromised individuals would not present with acute symptoms of water borne disease through drinking it, it could contain e.g. heavy metals that could increase the risk of chronic ill health over prolonged exposure.
  5. Water quality is not static in any area - it fluctuates both temporally and spatially according to myriad factors (source water, treatment efficacy, quality of the water infrastructure etc. etc.) Jimjamjak (talk) 12:04, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Inconsistencies and duplication

Before making any changes to this article, I think it is important to check what already exists in other articles on Wikipedia. Independently editing this article will likely result in inconsistencies and duplication. The other articles I would suggest looking at:

To a lesser extent, the content of following articles may also be relevant to Tap water:

Jimjamjak (talk) 11:45, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] USAcentric

I think that there is a real need to point out the variety of meanings of tap water for countries other than the USA, and to address some of the issues in those countries - non-continuous supply problems, differences in plumbing quality, public/private supply issues etc.Jimjamjak (talk) 11:48, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

  • Yes this is pretty much just talking about the USA, we need to add a tag that says this article needs to be more internationally friendly, so to speak...I cannot remember what it is called...--Cheesypot (talk) 18:21, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
  • I think the
Globe icon
 This article or section deals primarily with the United States and does not represent a worldwide view of the subject.
Please improve this article or discuss the issue on the talk page.

template message would be the most appropiate, but I would like a second opinion before doing anything. Cheesypot (talk) 18:30, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 19th century??

are you kidding? it is well known from ottoman archives that Architect Sinan was awarded (but then charged because of that thats how it enters to archives) to have water for his own usage at home, while other citizens were using public fountains in 16th century, 3 centuries before... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Doganaktas (talk • contribs) 02:26, 25 March 2008 (UTC)