How Bad Is the Water? Let’s Find Out
posted at 1:43 am
on Nov. 22, 2006
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Drinking the Water, Day 2
As many of you know, there’s a Vancouver-wide water advisory that’s been happening since November 17. The GVRD Medical Health Authorities have said that no hospitals, day cares or schools can use the water, and that residents could decide for themselves.
News reports are contradictory. This morning, The Vancouver Sun headline said “Murky Water May Last for Weeks” but this afternoon, an update said “Turbidity levels decline, officials hope to lift advisory soon”.
However, even though it’s an advisory, no one I know is drinking the water. People are worrying just even about using it to wet their toothbrushes. And one fellow I know spent a good while looking up instructions on “The Best Way to Shower without Drinking the Water”. (For the record: Keep your mouth closed.)
So, being the scientific type that I am, I decided to take the advisory at its word. After all, it’s just an advisory. It doesn’t say I CAN’T drink the water. Starting today, I’m going to drink nothing but Vancouver tap water, and report the effects to you. In your face, E.Coli! (Well, in my face, more accurately…)
Here’s what the tap water looks like today:
The one on the right is bottled water for comparison. I drank the entire contents of the glass on the left—about a pint—at 12:30 a.m. It’s now 1:30 a.m. and I am not, according to my observations, dead.
The water tasted pretty much fine. It looks much worse looking down into the glass, because it’s denser. I did notice some residue at the bottom of the glass, but I chipped at it and I think it was just stuck-on Alpen from the dishwasher.
I should say one thing: Just because I’m doing it, doesn’t mean anyone else should (including me!) Don’t try this at home! Don’t for a minute think that I am some guy who knows what he’s doing. I take no responsibility if you drink tap water and get the runs or an alien bursts out of your stomach during dinner or something.
Also, to do a purely scientific experiment, there should be more than one person and I shouldn’t know if I’m drinking tap water or not. I might just imagine bad things happening to my internals (spleen venting into liver, pancreas eating itself, etc. etc.) because the water is a little gross. I also normally drink a lot of caffeine during the day, so that might also throw off the results.
I’ll keep drinking water until the advisory is lifted, or it becomes a mandatory ban (I’m not that crazy) or I become too sick to continue drinking the water.
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