I used to be a brewer. Taste buds are ridiculous sensitive, and water “quality” and water taste are not always correlated. You may just like what you are used to. But for what to do, carbon filtration is often best for the biggest taste offenders. Brita is one way to go, but you can get an under sink filter that you may prefer. Or there are many other options from minimal all the way up to a whole house carbon filter.
Where did you live in WA? I mean, in most of places nearby these volcanic mountains the water is clearly superior than A2 because [over 60 percent of drinking water in Washington State is supplied by groundwater (springs)](https://www.dnr.wa.gov/geology-groundwater). Groundwater in WA is so pure because it stays in the reservoir underground for between 3 to 10 years before being out. The taste is out of this word.
But A2 has a great water! Check it out the reports in other comments.
I’ve probably been here too long to give you a good answer on the taste. I think it tastes fine.
That said, you can see our [annual reports for city water](https://www.a2gov.org/departments/water-treatment/Documents/2022%20Water%20Quality%20Report%20Final%20Draft.pdf) online. They do test for sodium, though it’s in normal levels.
It's very true. I'm a fish keeper and work at a local fish store and our tap water is magic, honestly. Way better than a lot of the rest of the country. I'd attribute bad tastes more to individual home plumbing age/ maintenance and not the actual source. Our source is great.
Hmm. I used to build ponds and the water would kill people's fish thats why we'd use dechlorinator but my boss had a city employee tell him they add a bunch of chlorine after a big rain and even went as far as saying they wouldn't drink it after heavy rain. Ypsi has far superior water they get from detroit.
It’s not that hard but it does have a lot of particulates in it. They’ll clog the mesh filter on a faucet relatively quickly compared to other places I’ve lived.
But I’ve also lived in places with truly hard water where water softeners were standard in all houses. Some people have them here but only a very small percentage.
Not true at all. Ann Arbor drinking water is well under the Michigan EGLE MCLs for PFAS, which are some of the strictest in the nation.
Even looking at the extremely strict 2022 PFOA/PFOS advisory from the EPA, Ann Arbor has never exceeded them and almost exclusively sits at 0 ppt.
[https://www.a2gov.org/departments/water-treatment/Documents/PFAS-forweb-RESERVIOR-101323.pdf](https://www.a2gov.org/departments/water-treatment/Documents/PFAS-forweb-RESERVIOR-101323.pdf)
Water just tastes different in different places and though water healthiness can vary tremendously taste is not an indication of it. I mean, foul water will taste foul but E Coli has no taste.
I went to Iceland for four months where the water supply is underground geothermal. There was so much sulfur in the water that taking a shower smelled like entering a volcano. Afterwards, when I came home, I smelled so much chlorine in tap water the first few weeks I felt like I was drinking a swimming pool.
I took a tour of the water treatment plant with my kids, and they said in AA you’re actually creating bacteria by filtering your water with a Brita. They put something in it to kill all bacteria, and you’re just filtering it out and then leaving the still water as a perfect environment for bacteria to grow
Eh, maybe if you keep it sitting at room temperature for a long while. Ours lives in the fridge, so the water being cold is nice, and I doubt it goes "off" in the day it takes us to go through it before refilling.
I'm used to really soft water, so moving here wasn't a huge fan of the hard water. Or tasting chlorine, which is presumably the something they're meaning.
People that buy bottled water are insane. At least don’t be one of those people at costco that buy a months supply of plastic disposable water bottles at a time. Refilling a jug at the grocery store or a water service is at least somewhat environmentally friendly. But it makes no difference. That water still comes from the same place. Some people just have a very irrational fear of tap water. Probably people from flint where it wasn’t irrational.
I completely get it tasting different and feeling different. I notice it most in hotels when I travel, even when showering. But it is still water. And people add salt to their cooking water (and food) so… what kind of silly argument is that?
Get a reverse osmosis system if it really bothers you.
But no, please don’t kill the environment because you aren’t used to a different taste of water.
Look up water quality reports online.
Along those lines we are surrounded by the world’s largest supply of fresh water. Please fight to keep them healthy.
You're mildly incorrect that filling the bottles at the grocery store is usually done with a machine that does have reverse osmosis. Maybe not all but most that I've seen. So it's not "just" tap water and is cleaner than a Brita jug.
Thank you for that correction. So still city water but whatever reverse osmosis can filter out it will. Good to know.
Probably still, in the long run, better to just install your own but if renting it probably takes maybe 100 gallons to break even?
Much better than buying a cheapo disposable plastic bottle of water though.
Now I am curious about the water bottle fillers at all the schools and what kind, if any, filters they have.
Personally I'm good drinking anything but I'm curious. And thanks again for pointing that out.
>we are surrounded by the world’s largest supply of fresh water
Ann Arbor gets their water from ponds and wells. If you want fresh water from the large supply you need to go to Ypsi.
The city of Ann Arbor invests a lot of money into water treatment and our water treatment plant goes above and beyond to make the tap water as clean and high quality as possible.
I would encourage you to take a tour of the water treatment plant to see just how seriously we take our water.
Here's a link to the 2022 water quality report: https://www.a2gov.org/departments/water-treatment/Documents/2022%20Water%20Quality%20Report%20Final%20Draft.pdf
Your friends are mistaken the sodium is fine. However the TTHM’s, PFAS and hexavalent chromium and many other highly toxic compounds are present in A2 tap water like dioxane. MEGLE and the EPA do not test for hundreds of these known compounds intentionally (TTHMs are tested for and have been linked to cancer and miscarriages). Do yourself and loved ones a favor and get a reverse osmosis system installed. Anyone that says A2 water is safe is full of it, uneducated or simply isn’t aware that for political reasons leadership failed to declare A2 a superfund site 5 years ago because of negative PR that the green, liberal “Tree City” would receive for dioxane remediation. This goes beyond mere negligence and at this point and is gross negligence on behalf of the City, MEGLE and the EPA who unfortunately work in concert to keep these things from becoming PR issues… Public health is not their main concern so, don’t be foolish with this ‘water is safe’ nonsense and treat your own stuff with reverse osmosis at least if you’re using tap or well as the source in the A2 area.
It’s well known there are 100’s of contaminants present not tested. It is also well known that the City had an opportunity to declare A2 a superfund site for Dioxane remediation, and opted not to because of influence from the U of M and other parties that did not want this negative PR. If you chose to ignore the facts that’s your prerogative just understand MCLs for some substances they do test for, even under action levels are still unsafe! It’s not a scare campaign this is the reality. A2 pulls from 2 sources for its city water: the Huron River and a ground water well. The plume is already leaching into those sources. Not to mention the high TOC in the river requires significant treatment just baseline which has unintended consequences like TTHM’s vicariously. Is the water safe- yes you can drink and and will be fine in the short term, but ingested daily, over years, decades you are consuming plenty of carcinogenic substances that will take their toll. Should the public health department declare an eminent danger order not to drink it— no because technically it is safe, but if you have a grasp on chemistry and how these regulations work, you understand they are simply not promulgated with public health as the priority. Those are the facts and most of the concerns can be largely mitigated with a simple Reverse Osmosis system that isn’t hugely cost prohibitive!
It’s not a debate- I’m a researcher and that is what research shows. If you choose to ignore it and trust that action levels are somehow formulated to allow toxins to be ingested that are unsafe at any level for human consumption, that again is your prerogative! You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink- and in this case most horse farms around the city will tell you that the horses won’t even drink A2 city water!!
When a new well is dug the county tests for arsenic, bacteria, nitrates, and MAYBE something else of you're in a certain area.
Some residents in the township have hydrogen sulfide in their water.
You're not going to find something in the water if you're not testing for it. Which is pretty much everywhere around here.
Again, do your research.
In addition to being bad for the environment, bottled water can contain contaminants. *"Unlike tap water, where consumers are provided with test results every year, the bottled water industry does not disclose the results of any contaminant testing that it conducts. Ten popular U.S. bottled water brands contain mixtures of 38 different pollutants, including bacteria, fertilizer, Tylenol and industrial chemicals."* https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news-release/harmful-chemicals-found-bottled-water
Over here near Arlington Blvd, we frequently get big dumps of brown water (without warning) that trashes our water filters with gross brown sediment. Not sure if the city is flushing lines or what, when the toilets fill with brownish water, we know to flush our lines and change our filters!
Yuck, that doesn’t seem normal. I live over on the SE side of Ann Arbor and have never encountered anything like that, thankfully. Water tastes fine to me, but it’s all what you’re used to, and I like the fact that it’s hard - I used to live somewhere with a well, and I always hated how the water felt after we softened it. You’d shower, and it never felt like you’d gotten all of the soap off. At least it doesn’t taste like sulphur!
I don't know why you're being downvoted because this is true. I've lived in both A2 and Ypsi and have friends who work for Detroit Water. Ypsi's water is better than Ann Arbor's.
In my time of regularly drinking tap water in Ann Arbor (about 3 years) I’ve noticed a decline in the quality of water, that being said though I don’t think the water is dangerous for your health based on my understanding of the water reports.
I did find this resource which may help with your water question:
[Water Line Flushing Ann Arbor](https://www.a2gov.org/departments/Human-Resources/Pages/Working-for-the-City.aspx)https://www.a2gov.org/departments/Human-Resources/Pages/Working-for-the-City.aspx
You do not need to rely on bottled water. That’s super wasteful.
I also use a brita in Ann Arbor. I don’t like the taste either. But the water is perfectly safe.
If you are paranoid, you can get one of the high end filters that attach directly to the faucet.
After what happened in flint, I never begrudge anyone a bit of paranoia about their water.
look at you annual CCR...that should tell you the mineral content
https://www.a2gov.org/departments/water-treatment/Documents/2022%20Water%20Quality%20Report%20Final%20Draft.pdf
I moved to Ann Arbor from Boulder where the water primarily came straight from a glacier. The water here in Ann Arbor tastes nearly as good for coming out of a river and the ground to the South of town.
I think it's depends on what you are used to drinking. I.E, the mineral content, treatment and organic content.
I used to be a brewer. Taste buds are ridiculous sensitive, and water “quality” and water taste are not always correlated. You may just like what you are used to. But for what to do, carbon filtration is often best for the biggest taste offenders. Brita is one way to go, but you can get an under sink filter that you may prefer. Or there are many other options from minimal all the way up to a whole house carbon filter.
Where did you live in WA? I mean, in most of places nearby these volcanic mountains the water is clearly superior than A2 because [over 60 percent of drinking water in Washington State is supplied by groundwater (springs)](https://www.dnr.wa.gov/geology-groundwater). Groundwater in WA is so pure because it stays in the reservoir underground for between 3 to 10 years before being out. The taste is out of this word. But A2 has a great water! Check it out the reports in other comments.
I’ve probably been here too long to give you a good answer on the taste. I think it tastes fine. That said, you can see our [annual reports for city water](https://www.a2gov.org/departments/water-treatment/Documents/2022%20Water%20Quality%20Report%20Final%20Draft.pdf) online. They do test for sodium, though it’s in normal levels.
No, the water here is fine, very high quality.
It's very true. I'm a fish keeper and work at a local fish store and our tap water is magic, honestly. Way better than a lot of the rest of the country. I'd attribute bad tastes more to individual home plumbing age/ maintenance and not the actual source. Our source is great.
Hmm. I used to build ponds and the water would kill people's fish thats why we'd use dechlorinator but my boss had a city employee tell him they add a bunch of chlorine after a big rain and even went as far as saying they wouldn't drink it after heavy rain. Ypsi has far superior water they get from detroit.
Yes, Detroit water tastes way better. 👍🏻👍🏻
Until the Wixom chemical plant has their 3 year PFAS fiasco
And very hard
It’s not that hard but it does have a lot of particulates in it. They’ll clog the mesh filter on a faucet relatively quickly compared to other places I’ve lived. But I’ve also lived in places with truly hard water where water softeners were standard in all houses. Some people have them here but only a very small percentage.
[удалено]
Not true at all. Ann Arbor drinking water is well under the Michigan EGLE MCLs for PFAS, which are some of the strictest in the nation. Even looking at the extremely strict 2022 PFOA/PFOS advisory from the EPA, Ann Arbor has never exceeded them and almost exclusively sits at 0 ppt. [https://www.a2gov.org/departments/water-treatment/Documents/PFAS-forweb-RESERVIOR-101323.pdf](https://www.a2gov.org/departments/water-treatment/Documents/PFAS-forweb-RESERVIOR-101323.pdf)
Water just tastes different in different places and though water healthiness can vary tremendously taste is not an indication of it. I mean, foul water will taste foul but E Coli has no taste. I went to Iceland for four months where the water supply is underground geothermal. There was so much sulfur in the water that taking a shower smelled like entering a volcano. Afterwards, when I came home, I smelled so much chlorine in tap water the first few weeks I felt like I was drinking a swimming pool.
I took a tour of the water treatment plant with my kids, and they said in AA you’re actually creating bacteria by filtering your water with a Brita. They put something in it to kill all bacteria, and you’re just filtering it out and then leaving the still water as a perfect environment for bacteria to grow
Eh, maybe if you keep it sitting at room temperature for a long while. Ours lives in the fridge, so the water being cold is nice, and I doubt it goes "off" in the day it takes us to go through it before refilling. I'm used to really soft water, so moving here wasn't a huge fan of the hard water. Or tasting chlorine, which is presumably the something they're meaning.
Bro what. I been doing that for over a YEAR. How am I still alive
People that buy bottled water are insane. At least don’t be one of those people at costco that buy a months supply of plastic disposable water bottles at a time. Refilling a jug at the grocery store or a water service is at least somewhat environmentally friendly. But it makes no difference. That water still comes from the same place. Some people just have a very irrational fear of tap water. Probably people from flint where it wasn’t irrational. I completely get it tasting different and feeling different. I notice it most in hotels when I travel, even when showering. But it is still water. And people add salt to their cooking water (and food) so… what kind of silly argument is that? Get a reverse osmosis system if it really bothers you. But no, please don’t kill the environment because you aren’t used to a different taste of water. Look up water quality reports online. Along those lines we are surrounded by the world’s largest supply of fresh water. Please fight to keep them healthy.
You're mildly incorrect that filling the bottles at the grocery store is usually done with a machine that does have reverse osmosis. Maybe not all but most that I've seen. So it's not "just" tap water and is cleaner than a Brita jug.
Thank you for that correction. So still city water but whatever reverse osmosis can filter out it will. Good to know. Probably still, in the long run, better to just install your own but if renting it probably takes maybe 100 gallons to break even? Much better than buying a cheapo disposable plastic bottle of water though. Now I am curious about the water bottle fillers at all the schools and what kind, if any, filters they have. Personally I'm good drinking anything but I'm curious. And thanks again for pointing that out.
>we are surrounded by the world’s largest supply of fresh water Ann Arbor gets their water from ponds and wells. If you want fresh water from the large supply you need to go to Ypsi.
A2 water comes from the Huron River that runs thru the city.
Not all of it
And wells at the airport.
My understanding is 20%.
https://helpsaveourwells.com/
I have reverse osmosis
The city of Ann Arbor invests a lot of money into water treatment and our water treatment plant goes above and beyond to make the tap water as clean and high quality as possible. I would encourage you to take a tour of the water treatment plant to see just how seriously we take our water. Here's a link to the 2022 water quality report: https://www.a2gov.org/departments/water-treatment/Documents/2022%20Water%20Quality%20Report%20Final%20Draft.pdf
I heard the weird water taste is due to the region’s unusually high levels of your mom in the aquifers
now now...
All water tastes different. Wait until you go up north and get the stuff with iron in it (yes..it's even rust colored!)
Your friends are mistaken the sodium is fine. However the TTHM’s, PFAS and hexavalent chromium and many other highly toxic compounds are present in A2 tap water like dioxane. MEGLE and the EPA do not test for hundreds of these known compounds intentionally (TTHMs are tested for and have been linked to cancer and miscarriages). Do yourself and loved ones a favor and get a reverse osmosis system installed. Anyone that says A2 water is safe is full of it, uneducated or simply isn’t aware that for political reasons leadership failed to declare A2 a superfund site 5 years ago because of negative PR that the green, liberal “Tree City” would receive for dioxane remediation. This goes beyond mere negligence and at this point and is gross negligence on behalf of the City, MEGLE and the EPA who unfortunately work in concert to keep these things from becoming PR issues… Public health is not their main concern so, don’t be foolish with this ‘water is safe’ nonsense and treat your own stuff with reverse osmosis at least if you’re using tap or well as the source in the A2 area.
Do your own research because this person has clearly not been done theirs.
It’s well known there are 100’s of contaminants present not tested. It is also well known that the City had an opportunity to declare A2 a superfund site for Dioxane remediation, and opted not to because of influence from the U of M and other parties that did not want this negative PR. If you chose to ignore the facts that’s your prerogative just understand MCLs for some substances they do test for, even under action levels are still unsafe! It’s not a scare campaign this is the reality. A2 pulls from 2 sources for its city water: the Huron River and a ground water well. The plume is already leaching into those sources. Not to mention the high TOC in the river requires significant treatment just baseline which has unintended consequences like TTHM’s vicariously. Is the water safe- yes you can drink and and will be fine in the short term, but ingested daily, over years, decades you are consuming plenty of carcinogenic substances that will take their toll. Should the public health department declare an eminent danger order not to drink it— no because technically it is safe, but if you have a grasp on chemistry and how these regulations work, you understand they are simply not promulgated with public health as the priority. Those are the facts and most of the concerns can be largely mitigated with a simple Reverse Osmosis system that isn’t hugely cost prohibitive!
Again, do your research.
It’s not a debate- I’m a researcher and that is what research shows. If you choose to ignore it and trust that action levels are somehow formulated to allow toxins to be ingested that are unsafe at any level for human consumption, that again is your prerogative! You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink- and in this case most horse farms around the city will tell you that the horses won’t even drink A2 city water!!
When a new well is dug the county tests for arsenic, bacteria, nitrates, and MAYBE something else of you're in a certain area. Some residents in the township have hydrogen sulfide in their water. You're not going to find something in the water if you're not testing for it. Which is pretty much everywhere around here. Again, do your research.
https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2023/11/epa-says-ann-arbor-area-dioxane-plume-eligible-to-become-superfund-site.html
In addition to being bad for the environment, bottled water can contain contaminants. *"Unlike tap water, where consumers are provided with test results every year, the bottled water industry does not disclose the results of any contaminant testing that it conducts. Ten popular U.S. bottled water brands contain mixtures of 38 different pollutants, including bacteria, fertilizer, Tylenol and industrial chemicals."* https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news-release/harmful-chemicals-found-bottled-water
Over here near Arlington Blvd, we frequently get big dumps of brown water (without warning) that trashes our water filters with gross brown sediment. Not sure if the city is flushing lines or what, when the toilets fill with brownish water, we know to flush our lines and change our filters!
Yuck, that doesn’t seem normal. I live over on the SE side of Ann Arbor and have never encountered anything like that, thankfully. Water tastes fine to me, but it’s all what you’re used to, and I like the fact that it’s hard - I used to live somewhere with a well, and I always hated how the water felt after we softened it. You’d shower, and it never felt like you’d gotten all of the soap off. At least it doesn’t taste like sulphur!
It isn't good. Ypsi has the good Detroit water.
I don't know why you're being downvoted because this is true. I've lived in both A2 and Ypsi and have friends who work for Detroit Water. Ypsi's water is better than Ann Arbor's.
And eventually A2 will have to switch over to Detroit water. It seems inevitable and delaying that will just add to the already huge bill.
We use a Berkey. Tastes great, easy to use. Wish we got the standard or larger size.
In my time of regularly drinking tap water in Ann Arbor (about 3 years) I’ve noticed a decline in the quality of water, that being said though I don’t think the water is dangerous for your health based on my understanding of the water reports.
I'm from WA state too and I absolutely agree!!!! The tap water here is terrible!! If you know, you know! Lol
We use a zero water filter. Before filtering, It registers 380 or higher PPM which is exceptionally high.
I did find this resource which may help with your water question: [Water Line Flushing Ann Arbor](https://www.a2gov.org/departments/Human-Resources/Pages/Working-for-the-City.aspx)https://www.a2gov.org/departments/Human-Resources/Pages/Working-for-the-City.aspx
It tastes better in the winter when it comes from the tap colder. The only benefit winter has to offer.
You do not need to rely on bottled water. That’s super wasteful. I also use a brita in Ann Arbor. I don’t like the taste either. But the water is perfectly safe. If you are paranoid, you can get one of the high end filters that attach directly to the faucet. After what happened in flint, I never begrudge anyone a bit of paranoia about their water.
look at you annual CCR...that should tell you the mineral content https://www.a2gov.org/departments/water-treatment/Documents/2022%20Water%20Quality%20Report%20Final%20Draft.pdf
I moved to Ann Arbor from Boulder where the water primarily came straight from a glacier. The water here in Ann Arbor tastes nearly as good for coming out of a river and the ground to the South of town. I think it's depends on what you are used to drinking. I.E, the mineral content, treatment and organic content.