Is El Paso tap water safe to drink?
Ever since we moved to El Paso we noticed that many of our colleagues, friends, and neighbors have in-home water filtration systems with big water dispensers. I was always curious why everyone would have one of these giant systems in their kitchen corner. (Probably because they throw big parties all the times. Or, there could be some other reasons.) For some reason, I haven’t asked anyone why they choose these systems over tap water. So, today I was searching for any data related to El Paso tap water, just to make sure the water we have been drinking for the past couple of years is really safe to drink. Here is the link to EP water data: Updated link for 2017 Data.
The table above is copied from the second page of the original document. It has all the measures of the water quality for the year 2017. The MCLG column is the ideal amount of any mineral or other products in water. I was sad to see that the average Arsenic level is 4.2 where the goal (MCLG) is to have zero Arsenic in water. It was also alarming to see that there are traces of Lead in the drinking water. The table does indicate that 90% of the lead data were at or below the levels shown. A possible reason for lead poisoning could be corrosion of household plumbing systems.
Many of the elements of the table are unknown to me. I will spend some more time on water data to figure out if we need to make the switch from tap water to any kind of sophisticated water filtration system.
Chlorine smell in city water
When we first moved to El Paso, Texas a few years ago, we could smell the strong smell of Chlorine in the tap water. The smell was so strong that we could not directly drink water out of the tap.
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We used a Brita Water Filter to treat the tap water for drinking. It helped a lot with reducing the Chorine smell.
Over the years I (Dear Mom) grew tired of the pitcher. It was bulky. We had to wait for the water to get filtered if we want to pour it safely, otherwise all the water on the top part would spill. Besides, the plastic pitcher didn’t look as good.
So, when the time came that we needed to buy more filters for the Brita pitcher, I started looking for other options. After a lot of searching, I found this interesting water filter. The design is quite unique. It is manufactured by Kor and called Water Fall. Instead of a pitcher, the system uses decanters. The quality of the filtered water is just as good as the water filtered by a Brita. The overall structure can be a bit wobbly though. And the glass decanters are scary to Dear Husband because he thinks someday Dear Son is going to break those decanters and get horrible cuts. Other than that, I really like the look and feel of these decanters.
We also have a water line and a water filter attached to the refrigerator. We can get our drinking water from the refrigerator as well, but we rarely do that. For no particular reason, we mostly use the refrigerator water system for ice-cubes.
We would love to you hear from you regarding your experience of drinking water. Please leave a comment in the Comments section below if you have any feedback.
Note: The article was originally published on Aug 4, 2017. We updated the post on December 4, 2018, with the latest available data. The comments on the post may have old dates.
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The water over here in London is pretty good and definitely safe to drink. We actually had a bit of a chlorine problem around 6 months ago but the water company fixed that. They came over here, did a few tests and a few days later there was no chlorine at all in our tap water. It doesn’t taste weird and it’s pretty clean to drink without having to do anything to it.
Where I live, the drinking water is not safe to drink. People can drink tap water but it is not recommended. There is most probability that you will fall sick. Most people use water filters at home to purify the water. Water filters are not that expensive and easy to maintain. We change the filter cartridge 2 times a year. Some people boil the water and store it in containers.
Tourists usually buy bottles of mineral water to be safe. There is need to setup water purification plants here so that we can consume the normal tap water.
Thank you for sharing the drinking waters safety strategies used in your area. I hope the water purification plant are built soon. Have a wonderful time.
Thanks for your kind reply. I greatly appreciate it. You too have a splendid time.
Yes. Our city water is safe to drink. In fact, that’s our everyday drinking water and we’ve never got any problems or encounter any illness when drinking on a tap water. The taste is good too. It doesn’t have any funny taste or something. We’re getting what we paid for.
That is so excellent! Thank you for sharing your wonderful experience with all. Have a wonderful day.
No problem. Your post is very informative too. I’m glad to hear that most of us have a good source of a clean water.
The water here is safe to drink. A few times a year we’ll have a boil notice because they’re working on the pipes, but other than that, it’s perfectly safe. We have a Pur water pitcher with a filter that we use at home, but the main reason I bought it was to filter water for the Keurig (since the instructions say to use filtered water). So we drink filtered water sometimes, and tap water sometimes. I always use tap water to make ice cubes and to fill my water bottle in the morning before I go to work, and I don’t notice much difference in flavor.
That said, I know many people who insist that the town water is awful and will only drink filtered water. Quite a few people have refrigerators with built-in water filtration, or have a water cooler and get water delivered in 5-gallon jugs.
Thank you for sharing your daily experience regarding drinking water. I find it so amazing that people from so many countries have shared their experiences on this post. I appreciate your time on reading this post and writing such a descriptive comment explaining your experience. Have a wonderful week.
I agree with you onlineblogger here in the philippines there are inexpensive water refilling-station all over the city. Though not much on rural part. Anyways we use mineral water instead of tap water for drinking we just felt that mineral water is much safe to drink.
I am so glad to learn about the Philippines through the comments. I can imagine that rural areas will have lesser facilities. Boiling water and then cooling it to normal temperature is always a good option when there is no mineral water.
Thank you for visiting and commenting.
We always use RO purified water for drinking purpose. I am not sure, whether the water is safe or not. But, Arsenic in drinking water is definitely a bad thing.
Excessive flouride content in water can leads to ‘fluorosis’, which is an irreversible disorder of teeth. We have to be very careful in the terms of drinking water, which has a huge impact on our health.
Thank you for the information regarding fluorosis. I did not know about it. I completely agree with you that we must be very careful about our drinking water.
Thank you for visiting and commenting. Have a wonderful weekend.
I am in Denmark right now and the tap water here is safe to drink. No weird smell or whatsoever.
Back in my home country on the other hand – Philippines, most (not all) buy water to drink because of the chlorine smell of the water and in some places, it is a little murky so it’s not really safe to drink it. A lot of inexpensive water refilling station is all over the place though so buying drinking water is not that much of a hassle.
Thank you for sharing your experience regarding safe drinking water in Denmark and in the Philippines. It is great that there are affordable refilling stations in the Philippines. That makes life a little easier. Thank you for visiting and commenting.
Here we Brazil we don’t drink directly from the faucet. The risk of contracting hepatitis A it’s huge. There are two available possibilities. You could buy a filter and install directly to your faucet. And the most common, buy a galon of mineral water, suitable for consumption.
Thank you for sharing your experience. This reminds me that many towns in the USA now-a-days do not have good drinking water too. I wish your country as well as all countries in the world had safe drinking water supply.
Have a wonderful weekend.
We’re only using water from the faucet in washing the dishes and when we do the laundry. We are buying mineral water for drinking just to be safe. Especillay here in the Philippines when it rains the water that comes out from the faucet is not too clean since you can actually see the dark color abd yiu can feel the dirt on yiur hands.
Thank you for sharing your experience on drinking water in the Philippines. I wish everyone in the world had clear water to drink.
Have a wonderful weekend ahead.
We always bought our drinking water to a mineral water station. Because on the faucets it contains chlorine and we can smell it, so instead of drinking in it. We buy our own and it’s not too expensive.
Yes, it is a good idea. The chlorine smell is sometimes horrible. I heard that it is still safe to drink the water with the chlorine-smell unless there are some other harmful things.
Ah! that’s new to me that even with chlorine you can still drink it. Maybe I’ll try it if I can hehe.
I wish everyone on the planet had as much drinking water as we do. It’s still good here where I live, but some houses have really bad water due to poor installations. I hope you get better news soon!
I am happy to know that you have a great water supply. I wish too that everyone had great water. Thank you for visiting and commenting. Have a wonderful evening.
Hello!, im new to this blog, i find this ford informative. I hope cities have safe tap water to drink but it is not the case. We have to filter and distill our water for us and our children to drink safe and clean water. Its a big project if the city government make this happen.
Thank you for subscribing to our blog. I wish too there were sources of safe drinking water everywhere. I appreciate that you have shared your experience. Thanks again.
No! My mom and I experienced some terrible diarrhea because we drank water straight from the sink once lol
I am so sorry to hear that.
Sometimes boiling the city water makes it safer, if bottled or filtered water is not around.
Thank you for visiting and commenting.
It’s not that unfortunate though, I don’t know why we ended up laughing while heading straight to the local clinic. I guess we just have to be extra careful and sure about how clean our source of water is.
yea,water in my country is purify by the purifying company called Water pub.So we get to drink at least germ free water.But I don’t like the taste of chloride so I diffuse my purifier into the water to get the taste off.Good to know about yours.
Thank you for sharing information about your water. Have a wonderful weekend.
We moved to the southern part of Colorado Springs shortly after there was a major city water scare. Apparently, something about one of the local military bases doing something or another which then polluted some unpronounceable chemical into the drinking water. Our conspiracy theorist neighbor insisted there was no way we should drink the local water. The water company reported that everything had been cleaned up, the incident didn’t actually affect our local water table, etc. What do you believe? I do know, as someone who has lived in many different locations around the world and only ever drinks water, that the water does not taste very good to me. It just has an odd taste. We currently use a Brita water pitcher and it helps with the taste, but we occasionally still buy bottled water.
I read about the Colorado Springs city water contamination, I think last year. That was so horrible. I think around eighty thousand people were affected by this contamination. I am glad to know that your water is now safe. Yes, Brita removes odd tastes a lot. Bottled water is safer for many towns. Thank you for sharing your experience. Have a wonderful rest of the week.
Yes we always see reports that show how great our water is and then I look at the list and my mind boggles. “Arsenic” “Miniature pony feet” “Spam” So maybe those aren’t actual contaminants (although I would argue that they are but just not listed), but we have opted for a water softener / filtration system. The water is stinky without it. Not my favorite. But I did like the post! 🙂
Glad to know that you liked the post. Yes, it is better to be safe before trusting the stats. Also stats come from past years. ? thanks for visiting and commenting.
Actually, the answer is no, we do have the chlorine as well, besides that the PH is too high and in some places, there were found some bacteria. I prefer to buy water from the store even if I don’t know how healthy it is. Some people who don’t want to spend too much money on the water they prefer to boil the city water and drink it!
When I first moved into town I couldn’t get over the smell of chlorine in the tap water. I bought a Brita filter for my sink and it seems to have helped. I think the water is safe to drink for me and my family.
Yes, Brita filter removes the chlorine smell well. Thank you for sharing your experience. Have a wonderful week.
We have award-winning tap water where I live (Hamilton, Ohio). It’s delicious!
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So glad to hear that you have great tap water. I envy you. Have a wonderful week.
Are you going to start using a filtration system? I don’t but as you say we need to be aware of arsenic levels. Another important topic you have spotlighted here. Sharing on my social networks now 🙂
Probably, I will use one, especially due to the arsenic level. I need to further check if there is really a filtration system that will lower arsenic as well as lead levels down. Thank you for visiting and sharing the post on the social media.
These are all good questions. I don’t live in Flint, but I live about 20 minutes from there and so there has been great concern about the drinking water. Even though we personally have well water and aren’t using city water, we still filter it. I’m clicking over to Amazon right now to check out Water Fall. 🙂
Yes, the water situation at Flint, Michigan is so upsetting. I was just talking about it with hubby. Hope the situation there will get better soon. I am happy to know that your place has safe drinking water. I appreciate the visit and the comment. Have a wonderful weekend.
I also sadly have no clue about what that table means… it’s all a mystery to me same as to you, haha 😀 but yeah. I agree with your thoughts about the importance of doing some research whether the tap water is good to drink or not.
I know that certain countries and areas have huge problems with the water being contaminated.
We are pretty lucky because our tap water is really high quality so we never had any real issues. However, we still use the Brita Filter that you’ve linked. Ours is a bit different though and in dark blue color. We use that just to make the water EXTRA safe and you can put different filters that add magnesium into it.
I am so glad to know that your city water is safe to drink. Yes, Brita Filters are great in filtering drinking water. I appreciate your comment. Have a wonderful weekend.
Best option is to use an aqua guard..We may get the purity..
I not sure if that specific brand is available in the USA. I am sure there are alternative. The main concern is if filtration is enough to prevent arsenic and lead poisoning. Thank you for sharing this. Have a wonderful weekend.
I don’t have the answer.
Haha ? that probably means it is safe because otherwise you would have heard something on the local news. Thank you for visiting and commenting. Have a wonderful weekend.
Lol! Why don’t you try, am sure you can come up with something to say. In my country tap water isn’t that safe for drinking.
That waterfall looks Great.
Luckily tapwater in Amsterdam is good and Healthy.
Kind regards,
Haha … 🙂 the “Waterfall” looks beautiful. I am very happy to know that the capital of Netherlands is maintaining a great water supply. Thank you for sharing the information. Have a wonderful weekend head.