Is tap water in southern california as healthy as bottled water?

Southern California has 2 sources of tap water – the Colorado River and groundwater. Groundwater is taken from about 4,000 ft bgs, and is filtered through subsurface soil. River water is run through a man-made filtration process. Although, either way isn’t 100% safe. Both may contain contaminants such as MTBE, Benzene, PCE, TCE, and other carcinogens. There have been many instances of tap water in the past, but regulatory agencies, such as SRWQCB, have become stricter. All in all, bottled water goes through a more strenuous filter process while other sources still contain small amounts of contaminants (but the concentrations are so low, it would not affect you even over a lifetime). Personally, I don’t think bottled water is worth the money, but is always a safe bet.

Hope this helps.

bottled water is frequently just tap water from somewhere else. anytime a water bottle label says “distilled”, that means it’s from the tap.

water bottles are a gigantic source of waste in the united states… americans drink 2.5 million gallons of bottled water per HOUR. then those bottle are all thrown away… even the ones which are recycled cost a huge amount of energy to process.

get a brita if you’re worried about your tap water. get a nalgene if you want to carry water around with you.

I can’t vouch for tap water in the home, but MOST businesses contract for bottled water for drinking use in offices and factories, etc. The main purveyor used to be Arrowhead but business circumstances changes. In any case it is very rare not to see some kind of commercial water fountain or cooler in most business offices in Los Angeles.

steve

Water quality also varies substantially by locale, as the plumbing matters. There are also a number of quality issues that don’t affect health: water that tastes funny, or bad, may still be perfectly okay to drink.

If you’re concerned about the quality of the water in a specific place, have a water test done. It’s quite possible that the quality of the water from the tap is better than the quality of bottled water, but there’s no way to know without testing, and there’s no way at all to be certain for an entire geographic area like “southern California.”

i dont know, i always thought that the tap water was healthier because it has more minerals in it.
in general, tap water will have more “stuff” in it, for better or worse
(the good: minerals, flourine
the bad: junk, carcinogens)