No matter in what state or city you live, when your locale becomes famous for one reason or another, and whether good or bad, you tend to take notice. So it was with me to learn that sweet old Pensacola, the City of Five Flags, is also among the lowest rated when it comes to the quality of drinking water.
Because the above chart leaves some ambiguity in perspective, I’ve asked the EWG people for an explanation and will update this post if/when I get a response.
Does that mean that Pensacola is the worst out of 48,000 communities or that there are 99 others that are worse, or that there are perhaps hundreds more that are worse and you merely stopped at 100?
That website has a lot of data on it, a neat and search-able database. Let’s be careful not to fall into ‘the sky is falling and we’re all gonna die’ mindset though. From a chemist’s perspective, nothing we ingest is pure. Well, not unless you ate the mercury in elementary school science class.
Besides, Dibromochloromethane doesn’t taste too bad. It’s in Arlington’s water too!
I remember hearing Boortz talk about a school that tested the water in their drinking fountain and from the toilet bowl in the restroom, and the toilet water tested better. Same for ice in ice machines. Without proper maintenance, they can produce more bacteria in the ice for your soda than what is in the toilet. That’s after flushing I think.
related links: Over 300 Pollutants in U.S. Tap Water | National Tap Water Quality Database | Pensacola (Emerald Coast Utility Authority) Water Analysis
