Would you drink it if your tap water tasted and smelled like diesel (after a spill)

We had a chemical spill in the water supply in my community last year about this same time.
Water spill
We were not allowed to drink, bathe, or even use the water to flush toilets for several weeks. Water was brought in and people lined up to get water to use at home. After it was over, people had to flush out their hot water tanks several times before using. It was a pain and you can’t even imagine what/who the water chemical spill affected. Hospitals could not perform many functions such as surgery’s, dialysis, or even cook food for patients. Hotels could not let guests shower, nor could they cook food for them. It was out of control.

Flush it as best you can, and if after a day or so still bad probably replace it.
As for drinking tap water don’t do that now, we have had a reverse osmosis for years.

No. I recently kept drinking my tap water when it tasted very chemical. I put it through two filters, but it didn’t completely get rid if the taste. A few months into the problem we received a notice that our drinking water had high levels of a certain chemical and they were working on controlling the levels. I regret that I didn’t switch to bottled when I first tasted the difference.

Reminds me of what it was like to live in Newark, Delaware. The tap water smelled about as bad, although we were assured the water was “safe”. I NEVER drank tap water there, and shuddered when I took a bath. You can be certain it was a fast one!

You might want to get someone with some know-how involved to help you make sure when your water is safe to drink and help you sort out how to deal with it in the meantime.

Where is your municipality in all this?? I would avoid any use of that water until you were assured that what ever problem that allowed diesel fuel to contaminate your water supply. Then I would flush your entire plumbing until there is no smell nor yuck taste of diesel. Write a letter to your local officials noting your concern and do use certified letter to make sure you have a record that your local officials are on notice of your concern and inconvenience.

I wish I had called my water company when it happened here. I thought about calling and never did. The letter they sent talked about how infrequent the testing is done. Maybe enough complaints would have prompted a test before the typical scheduled one. I thought water is constantly monitored. I was shocked.

For years, communities near where the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers meet always have had an oil sheen floating on their tap water. It smells and tastes bad, but most people use it anyway. This contamination is not cause by spills, but by the fuel oil escaping from tugboats hauling mostly grain and coal. Because of the extreme poverty in this area, nothing has ever been done about this and it is unlikely that anything will be done about it in the future.

Thank you everyone but diesel is not something that can get diluted in water it can’t be flushed out according to some experts. Something that cuts the dielsel would have to be put in there at the source (city) right? The city got the wrong info and they said go ahead and drink it they didn’t even list of exeptions. They are being sued or something I’m not sure.

I would go all out on bottled water for drinking and cooking or at the very east reverse osmosis filtering and avoid hot showers until this is resolved with some sense of certainty and transparency.

Is this not a no brainer though that the city should have done what @chyna‘s city did?