Which source of fresh water would you rather have and why?

Well, in most municipalities in this country – and all of the ones that I’ve lived in since my childhood – municipal sewer systems are part of the infrastructure. And all homes are hooked up to them, and all homeowners pay. The billing is usually a combined “water and sewer” charge, with the sewer charge being the larger part of the bill.

I’ve had a well, and I liked it, but they aren’t inexhaustible, they are still subject to introduction of pollution from various sources, including farm runoff that manages to percolate to the water table, point pollution from other sources that becomes permanently part of the water table (or “permanent” in human terms, anyway, potentially lasting for thousands of years), and are generally not monitored except when the property changes ownership, which can mean decades between formal, calibrated tests.

Municipal water systems, on the other hand, are constantly monitored. And while negligence can happen, as in the case of the Flint, Michigan public water supply, those are exceptions. As much as there is for me to dislike about aspects of Connecticut, the MDC sends periodic reports that one doesn’t have to be a chemist to read and understand.

I’m relatively happy with the MDC.

I was raised on well (deep spring) water and accepted that as the norm. When I moved into my current house, I was thrilled with the idea that it was supplied by well water. When I found out we actually had a sand point in the farm field across the road, I was less thrilled. Not only can the farm chemicals leach into the water, but the farmers are drilling sand points all over for irrigaters. I’m afraid the water table may lower.

I subscribed to rural water service.

Drawbacks of well water also include:
no fluoridation (all 3 of us kids had bad teeth)
electricity required for pumping
hard water may also require a softener
severe drought, groundwater contamination can affect your water supply

It really depends on the well in question.

The house I’m renting sits on a well that is full of rusty, non-potable water. We don’t even brush our teeth with it. The house we lost in the recession had a well drew from the same aquifer as the Zephyrhills bottled water company. That was fantastic water.

At this point, I’d leap with glee if city water would come down my street.

The well water I had as a kid was amazing but we were in the middle of nowhere. It was pristine. If I’m near industry or agriculture I’d cast an evil eye on well water. Ultimately I would like to have the option for both.

Well water is great but there is the cost of electricity to run the pump and the lack of chlorine and fluoride. If the water table drops substantially, you have to drill a new well or deepen the old one. Plus other pollutants ( antifreeze, oil, Diesel fuel, fertilizers, etc.) can seep into your well and ruin the water.
I’d opt for city water.
In my case, we’re on a community well that is watched over by the water master in our subdivision. There is still the danger of pollutants, in which case we’d be forced to turn to city water, and the cost of putting in a meter and main line pipe/plumbing in the street WITHOUT hooking it up to the house is at least $10,000. But as long as the community well is a safe,working utility, the cost is only $30 a month.

I have never experienced any problems with our good, old, pure, Aryan, Deutsch tap water.

Wells go dry, and if they do, you have big problems. Honestly, I’ll prefer the county water system because I know the treat it and clean it.

I’d prefer water from a pristine source, preferably from a fast moving mountain stream, which is what we have.

BBE has a well, but it isn’t tested for drinking. He lives in a desert, so he only waters his lawn and trees with it. My brother in law in a small town in America is in charge of the water system there. He has a spectrometer he can test the quality of the water with. I don’t have one. I will trust the trained, educated person with the correct testing equipment first.

Where I live in Norway, they have a similar, well run system. We don’t pay for our water. I didn’t pay for water in New Zealand, either. Commercial entities like canneries, breweries and food processing plants had to pay for their water with a metered system. I lived in an often drought-striken area of New Zealand. Charging for high usage of water acted as a deterrent for these businesses to not be wasteful.

@stanleybmanly you get all your drinking, cooking and bathing water from a stream?

Our subdivision has its own water treatment “plant” and the water , at least in this house, is horrible. I don’t mean a little off taste; I mean undrinkable. So we have a filter under the bar sink. It’s the only water I’ll drink or give the dogs.
I feel like suing the Real Estate company or the managers of this place. This was never disclosed to us.

I like the water we get from the Sierra Nevada, delicious snow melt.

I wouldn’t trust well water unless it was received from a trusted filtration plant. Too many chemicals in the aquifer.

@Aster I get the ‘not having real estate issues’ explained. I feel awful that something as basic as water supply is that bad for you. The thing I complain about is that I live down a private drive with several dwellings running off it. The man at the far end of the drive wants all of us to pay for the drive to be paved and he wants my building to pay the lion’s share. I don’t even have a damn car, so I have communicated my decision on the issue to his Tesla driving ass.

The other thing they charge my building for (and we have to pay for divided by 4) is a pumping station and takes our sewage waste and pumps it up the hill to meet up with the local authority waste management system. We talked about the charge and why it was so high… how on earth could they justify it? So, they started discussing how we could all don haz-mat suits and carry out the monthly systems check and filter clean on a roster system if we wanted to save money. We now pay the fee.

@Aster Hetch Hetchy. Same sort of source as Zenvelo

I am on a municipal well water system and have to filter the water to make it drinkable since it is very hard water. My Wisconsin lake house is on a private well and the water is pristine…so good i fill water bottles to take home.

As long as it’s clean, I don’t care. I don’t know anyone who drinks well water here. We could sink a bore on our property, but it would cost a fortune. We can put storage tanks in (and will when funds permit) and many people say they prefer tank water to town water (town water is water pumped to us by the council). We have very good town water. I have water. I have clean water I can drink straight from the tap. I’m not going to complain and I don’t wish I had a different type of water given how many people across the world are not so lucky.

.Theoretically, I would prefer the well.

Typically, I prefer city water, but it depends where I live. Sometimes you can’t win either way. For instance, a lot of parts of FL the well water smells and tastes terrible. But, I did have an instance in FL where my tap water started to taste like poison. About two months of having chemical tasting water we received a notice that the city water had high levels of some chemical that isn’t good for you. No surprise.

I feel like public water is less likely to have bacteria and parasites (I don’t know if that is statistically correct) but in turn it has more chemicals. I use a filter to remove some of he chemicals, I don’t know how well it really works. I’d rather deal with some chemicals than get sick from a parasite.

A very common problem with well water is that water from the hot faucet runs black. With some searching I found that it is caused by bacteria that only live in water of a certain temperature, so you can turn your temperature up or down to where the water runs clear. I live in a small town and the water is frequently yellow, brown, or PINK while the water guy tries to fix the system. At least it doesn’t stink of motor oil like it used to. AFIK if you have well water you need a filter at least for drinking water. But “filter” does not mean “softener”. If you buy a water softener then the water has lethal amounts of sodium and you still have to buy drinking water in bottles.

Bacteria infused water is not all that common from water heaters, @SmartAZ . When I read about it in the instructions for my new hot water heater, I turned the heater up to the recommended 140° and it was hot enough to burn me, so I turned it back down.
I have friends that get water from an above ground spring, much like @stanleybmanly. But it’s not fast moving mountain spring water – it’s a creek, IMO.

What water softener adds lethal amount of sodium to water?? Is there some class-action suit against Culligan I’ve not heard of?
If you don’t doubt the wisdom of buying water in plastic bottles, you’ve never heard of margarine or cholesterol. Like all science, food science evolves.

@SmartAZ “LETHAL” is not the amount of sodium added by a water softener.

Also plastic bottles is not the answer.

I suppose “lethal” was not the best word to use there. Artificial softeners work by exchanging sodium for the magnesium and calcium in the water. Sodium increases the risk of a heart attack. It is the heart attack that can be fatal, only indirectly caused by sodium. If you buy a water softener they will (or should) warn you of this, unless some new method has been invented that I have not heard about. Link to current figures.

Here’s the Mayo Clinic’s view of water softeners.

In healthy people it is not a problem.

Uh, yes, I agree, if you don’t have a problem then you don’t have a problem. But what about almost healthy people? What about people with a history of heart attacks?

Reducing Salt Might Harm Heart Failure Patients