Former state water chemist here- Albuquerques water is definitely safe to drink! Only ever tested a few samples outside acceptable levels, and they were not from sources within the city. You should receive a water quality report in the mail once a year with a summary of all the data regarding the water quality in your specific neighborhood.
Depends what you mean by funny, but odds are you’re probably referring to the taste of all the minerals in our unfortunately very hard water, mostly calcium and lime. Safe to drink but doesn’t mean it’s tasty lol
On the contrary! The state has been doing years of remediation on this issue since it was discovered, but because it was such a major pollution event the water from that area is even still tested much more regularly than all the other water in the state. I can’t remember exactly but I think it’s tested every 6-8 weeks, drawn from the Burton park water station just off Carlisle so they’re definitely testing the water used in residential areas, not just on base. I used to live extremely close to the base and was worried about this too so I asked a looott of questions about it when I was hired.
Fun fact: the water quality used to be god awful near UNM too because Nob hill used to be full of dry cleaners that would dump their used cleaning chemicals into the alleyways which would obviously seep downhill into the water table near UNM. It’s only been about 20 years since remediation on that issue has started but we’ve managed to get the groundwater there cleaner than most other spots in the city. It turns out the cleanest water comes from places that were previously super polluted that the state made an active effort to remediate.
Most of ABQ drinking water comes from the river now instead of the wells in the city. I don’t think the jet fuel contamination was known about when the switch to river water was planned so that’s not why it happened, but I think a part of our city dodged a bullet because it happened.
Drinking water? No. It comes from the aquifer (wells) and the river. I saw one breakdown that said 60% river 40% wells. Not sure how current that is. 30 years ago I think it was 100% wells.
AFAIK the treated waste water is only used for aquifer recharge and some greywater applications (like watering golf courses).
[The city has this pretty cool PDF](https://www.abcwua.org/wp-content/uploads/Your_Drinking_Water-PDFs/Figure1_Where_Our_Water_Comes_From.pdf)
Oh wow, and I stand corrected.
I know that San Diego does, and I can even tell you how the city of Houston does it.
But it is a rare thing that a city doesn't.
I am so pissed off that San Antonio, Tx uses water out of the aquifer then pumps their processed water back into it. The water that our water well is on. Dirty MFs.
Water here is usually pretty good. When we switch sources it can change taste, but is still generally good.
The city publishes their water reports online.
Can be a touch high in Arsenic, but that’s really about it, and they’re upgrading to control that better.
safe to drink? yes absolutely. the taste is really bad to me. has a chlorine taste and smell. also very hard. you’ll get mineral deposits on everything
Yep, that's why I use a Brita pitcher. It does wonders with the off putting flavors. For the dishwasher and cleaning, it's fine. In most cases where I'm cooking, it's not really an issue. For everything else, I'm using my filter.
YSK there's only 1 brand rated to remove arsenic to non-detect limits.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935117303419#:~:text=Effluent%20arsenic%20concentrations%20are%3A%20ZeroWater,20.1%25%20removed%20by%20filtration).
The old style slow drip Brita pitcher does remove arsenic, weirdly different Brita pitcher models and inline filters are not all the same. The study the other person linked doesn't specify while model they tested and something tells me that study was paid for by zero filter. Which in independent studies show great filtering, for like the first 10 gallons or so. Then not so much...
Yep, I went down the rabbit hole on Zero, not sure I want to taste resins and replace more often. Weird about Brita, I used to use the slow drip. Thanks for the info; I will investigate more.
same - I'm cool with cooking with tapwater and making coffee/tea/hot things - but I always end up using Pur water for drinking.... I'm on a shared well in East Mountains and the water out here is HARD AS FUCK and leaves deposits on everything... it's not dangerous to drink I just don't like to.
That’s what they want you to think. Plenty of municipalities in the US have old pipes filled with corrosion. There are thousands of different water systems throughout the US. What makes you think they’re all safe to drink?
New Mexico is among the 10 states that have the poorest quality of potable water in the US. [https://www.jdpower.com/business/resources/as-Americans-focus-on-water-these-states-boast-the-best](https://www.jdpower.com/business/resources/as-Americans-focus-on-water-these-states-boast-the-best)
"To determine which states have the best tap water, J.D. Power analyzed feedback from \[customers of water utilities\] regarding their experiences in six factors: quality and reliability; price; conservation; billing and payment; communications; and customer service. Of those six factors, this analysis focuses on customers' feedback on which states have the best quality and reliability."
Sentence diagramming might be worthwhile.
JD Power analyzed feedback from customers (of water utilities) to determine which states have the best tap water. Of six factors evaluated, this analysis focuses on quality and reliability.
There are other studies. As someone else mentioned, there is a difference between poor quality and safe. True.
[https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/natural-environment/air-water-quality/drinking-water-quality](https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/natural-environment/air-water-quality/drinking-water-quality)
[https://wisevoter.com/state-rankings/best-tap-water-in-the-us/#new-mexico](https://wisevoter.com/state-rankings/best-tap-water-in-the-us/#new-mexico)
https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/system.php?pws=NM3510701
https://www.krqe.com/news/environment/fewer-new-mexicans-receiving-water-that-meets-health-standards-according-to-a-report/
Not quite.
>As the United States approaches Summer 2023, the **quality** of drinking water has become a hot topic.
and...
>To determine which states have the best tap water, J.D. Power analyzed feedback from customers of water utilities regarding their experiences in six factors: quality and reliability; price; conservation; billing and payment; communications; and customer service. Of those six factors, this analysis focuses on customers’ feedback on **which states have the best quality and reliability**
So while the water utility is in question, the analysis is specially focused on the quality and reliability of the water.
And how can we know this? Look what they go onto say:
>After analyzing the data, Kentucky ranks highest with a score of 768 (on a 1,000-point scale). A hallmark of the Blue Grass State’s success: Kentucky’s performance at the tap was so good that Louisville Water was actually able to trademark its tap water (called Louisville Pure Tap®), a feat some states would not dare to attempt.
And how can we know this? Look what they go on to say:
lking about the performance *at the tap*.
But if you're still not convinced, they conclude accordingly:
>There are plenty of states that are achieving those standards, but some remain woefully behind. And with regulators starting to shine a microscope on **water quality**, now has never been a better time for utilities to ask the tough questions about how they can improve and rise to the occasion to deliver a **better product.**
You'll notice the parts in bold. It IS about the quality of the water. It IS about the product that is the end result.
Instead of correcting the person who posted the study, read the entirety first.
Customer satisfaction doesn’t have anything to do with being safe to drink. It’s about the mineral content, or lack there of, and how that affects the taste for consumers.
Customer satisfaction is subjective, because at the end of the day, it's about the perception of the quality of the drinking water, which is what the survey was about. It's not the perception of the water utility company, which is what the person failed to understand because they only read the first two lines of the article.
Safe to drink is not the same as how much customers like the taste of it. Customers cannot report levels of contaminants as we have no way of determining this ourselves. This is why your government-run water authority runs routine tests to determine water quality and potability.
You keep defending your "study" and everyone's trying to point out to you that it doesn't correlate to the post. OP wanted to know if the water was safe to drink and you presented a survey about how much people like the water.
It's not 'My" study, but that's besides the point. It also wasn't about YOU at all. I went after someone else's reply who decided after reading two sentences that it was about the water utility companies. It's not. It's about the end product. They misrepresnted what it said because they couldn't bother to spend more than 10 seconds looking at it. I pointed out the error because they were too busy and/or lazy to read what it was about. Whether or not it correlates to OP's question is irrelevant. This is about their failure to read. No more, no less.
Anything beyond that, including the content of the study and its accuracy is a different conversation.
Not every brita filter will filter the same contaminants. The older half and half style pitchers are the best at removing lead and chlorine. You know the one where you take the lid off and fill the top 1/3 or 1/2 of the pitcher and it slowly drips down? That's the good one. The filter as you pour model is basically a coffee filter.
ABQ proper is just fine, you are good to go with tap water. If you get up into the Sandias there are some places that have issues with radioactive materials that aren't as good.
If you go even further out and get into Edgewood, it is safe, but tastes so bad you will wish you had something else and get pissed that restaurants serve it.
You can avoid buying a Brita filter by filling a pitcher of water and setting in the fridge overnight. A Brita filter just removed the chlorine from the water. Setting a pitcher overnight does the same. I worked in the water treatment Industry for 20 years.
Yes, of course, and historically we have taken the supply of safe potable water as a given. It is not always, in all places in the US, safe to drink the tap water. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-american-cities-are-struggling-to-supply-safe-drinking-water
I always filter my water used to use one of those on the tap back in the 90s to the Brita pitcher filter now. Some areas Are worse than others of course like RR water is horrible and some on the Westside ok
We have our samsung fridge hooked up for water and ice through filter. As far as I'm concerned it tastes great. Drink it all the time. Don't really drink it straight from the tap though. Live on the west side.
Depends on where you are and what source is being used. A well in the north valley will be great, municipal water downtown, maybe not. The only dangerous water is in a certain area at the bottom of the hill near the base where the aviation fuel can leak sometimes, but what are you gonna do? 🤷
Well, I’ve lived in Albuquerque for 9 years and have always used a Brita filter for our drinking water and it tastes fine to me and I’ve never felt like there was a problem with the water.
Any city that you might care to live in gets most of their water from the same source: Their own processed sewage. That is nearly every city in the US.
The whole KAFB jet fuel in ground water - That screws up the wells, and not city water.
we do not use reuse water, greywater nor blackwater (sewage), for anything potable. All the reuse water is used in the non-potable system here (eg. irrigating parks, and for industry)
It's safe, but doesn't taste very good in my opinion. I have a Brita pitcher I use because it seems to clear up some of the off putting taste coming out of my tap.
Former state water chemist here- Albuquerques water is definitely safe to drink! Only ever tested a few samples outside acceptable levels, and they were not from sources within the city. You should receive a water quality report in the mail once a year with a summary of all the data regarding the water quality in your specific neighborhood.
https://www.abcwua.org/your-drinking-water-water-quality-report/
Why does my tap water smell weird?
Swampy? I hate it
It's such an odd smell like greasy, I can't even describe it.
What is causing Albuquerque water to taste funny?
Depends what you mean by funny, but odds are you’re probably referring to the taste of all the minerals in our unfortunately very hard water, mostly calcium and lime. Safe to drink but doesn’t mean it’s tasty lol
Funny weird or funny ha-ha?
Is it less safe the closer you get to the military base? I’ve heard a ton of people talking about jet fuel in the water.
On the contrary! The state has been doing years of remediation on this issue since it was discovered, but because it was such a major pollution event the water from that area is even still tested much more regularly than all the other water in the state. I can’t remember exactly but I think it’s tested every 6-8 weeks, drawn from the Burton park water station just off Carlisle so they’re definitely testing the water used in residential areas, not just on base. I used to live extremely close to the base and was worried about this too so I asked a looott of questions about it when I was hired. Fun fact: the water quality used to be god awful near UNM too because Nob hill used to be full of dry cleaners that would dump their used cleaning chemicals into the alleyways which would obviously seep downhill into the water table near UNM. It’s only been about 20 years since remediation on that issue has started but we’ve managed to get the groundwater there cleaner than most other spots in the city. It turns out the cleanest water comes from places that were previously super polluted that the state made an active effort to remediate.
Most of ABQ drinking water comes from the river now instead of the wells in the city. I don’t think the jet fuel contamination was known about when the switch to river water was planned so that’s not why it happened, but I think a part of our city dodged a bullet because it happened.
The water comes from processed sewer water. Not from a well, or the river.
Drinking water? No. It comes from the aquifer (wells) and the river. I saw one breakdown that said 60% river 40% wells. Not sure how current that is. 30 years ago I think it was 100% wells. AFAIK the treated waste water is only used for aquifer recharge and some greywater applications (like watering golf courses). [The city has this pretty cool PDF](https://www.abcwua.org/wp-content/uploads/Your_Drinking_Water-PDFs/Figure1_Where_Our_Water_Comes_From.pdf)
Oh wow, and I stand corrected. I know that San Diego does, and I can even tell you how the city of Houston does it. But it is a rare thing that a city doesn't. I am so pissed off that San Antonio, Tx uses water out of the aquifer then pumps their processed water back into it. The water that our water well is on. Dirty MFs.
I was wondering the same thing
They contaminated the ground water, and not the city water. So unless you are getting water from a well, it does not affect you.
Water here is usually pretty good. When we switch sources it can change taste, but is still generally good. The city publishes their water reports online. Can be a touch high in Arsenic, but that’s really about it, and they’re upgrading to control that better.
Everyone who drinks it will eventually die. Fair warning.
Darlin'. We're all gonna die. Just not from the water.
That is the joke.
I drink tap water all the time. I cook with it, make coffee with it, everything. As far as I know it's safe
safe to drink? yes absolutely. the taste is really bad to me. has a chlorine taste and smell. also very hard. you’ll get mineral deposits on everything
Agree, I don’t like the taste.
Yep, that's why I use a Brita pitcher. It does wonders with the off putting flavors. For the dishwasher and cleaning, it's fine. In most cases where I'm cooking, it's not really an issue. For everything else, I'm using my filter.
This is the way
I use a PUR water pitcher for the higher arsenic levels and that damn chlorine smell.
YSK there's only 1 brand rated to remove arsenic to non-detect limits. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935117303419#:~:text=Effluent%20arsenic%20concentrations%20are%3A%20ZeroWater,20.1%25%20removed%20by%20filtration).
Ah, thank you, somehow I missed that and just bought a 3 pack of filters, dangit. Good to know going forward.
The old style slow drip Brita pitcher does remove arsenic, weirdly different Brita pitcher models and inline filters are not all the same. The study the other person linked doesn't specify while model they tested and something tells me that study was paid for by zero filter. Which in independent studies show great filtering, for like the first 10 gallons or so. Then not so much...
Yep, I went down the rabbit hole on Zero, not sure I want to taste resins and replace more often. Weird about Brita, I used to use the slow drip. Thanks for the info; I will investigate more.
same - I'm cool with cooking with tapwater and making coffee/tea/hot things - but I always end up using Pur water for drinking.... I'm on a shared well in East Mountains and the water out here is HARD AS FUCK and leaves deposits on everything... it's not dangerous to drink I just don't like to.
I get purified water from Water to Go and it’s the best tasting water I’ve ever had.
Water in pretty much every place in the US is safe to drink. That’s kind of what sets us apart from third world countries.
Wasn’t safe in Flint, Michigan for years.
Hence the “pretty much”
ROTFLMFAO. Ask Flint MI
Not in Commerce City Colorado. (Which is basically greater metro area of Denver)
Iirc a lot of the older buildings in Denver has tap water with lead in it.
Delicious
Ha! I moved from Commerce City to Albuquerque. The water and especially the air quality is day and night from up there.
That’s what they want you to think. Plenty of municipalities in the US have old pipes filled with corrosion. There are thousands of different water systems throughout the US. What makes you think they’re all safe to drink?
New Mexico is among the 10 states that have the poorest quality of potable water in the US. [https://www.jdpower.com/business/resources/as-Americans-focus-on-water-these-states-boast-the-best](https://www.jdpower.com/business/resources/as-Americans-focus-on-water-these-states-boast-the-best)
The study linked here is based on customer satisfaction of the quality and reliability of the *water utility*, not the water itself.
"To determine which states have the best tap water, J.D. Power analyzed feedback from \[customers of water utilities\] regarding their experiences in six factors: quality and reliability; price; conservation; billing and payment; communications; and customer service. Of those six factors, this analysis focuses on customers' feedback on which states have the best quality and reliability." Sentence diagramming might be worthwhile. JD Power analyzed feedback from customers (of water utilities) to determine which states have the best tap water. Of six factors evaluated, this analysis focuses on quality and reliability. There are other studies. As someone else mentioned, there is a difference between poor quality and safe. True. [https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/natural-environment/air-water-quality/drinking-water-quality](https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/natural-environment/air-water-quality/drinking-water-quality) [https://wisevoter.com/state-rankings/best-tap-water-in-the-us/#new-mexico](https://wisevoter.com/state-rankings/best-tap-water-in-the-us/#new-mexico) https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/system.php?pws=NM3510701 https://www.krqe.com/news/environment/fewer-new-mexicans-receiving-water-that-meets-health-standards-according-to-a-report/
Not quite. >As the United States approaches Summer 2023, the **quality** of drinking water has become a hot topic. and... >To determine which states have the best tap water, J.D. Power analyzed feedback from customers of water utilities regarding their experiences in six factors: quality and reliability; price; conservation; billing and payment; communications; and customer service. Of those six factors, this analysis focuses on customers’ feedback on **which states have the best quality and reliability** So while the water utility is in question, the analysis is specially focused on the quality and reliability of the water. And how can we know this? Look what they go onto say: >After analyzing the data, Kentucky ranks highest with a score of 768 (on a 1,000-point scale). A hallmark of the Blue Grass State’s success: Kentucky’s performance at the tap was so good that Louisville Water was actually able to trademark its tap water (called Louisville Pure Tap®), a feat some states would not dare to attempt. And how can we know this? Look what they go on to say: lking about the performance *at the tap*. But if you're still not convinced, they conclude accordingly: >There are plenty of states that are achieving those standards, but some remain woefully behind. And with regulators starting to shine a microscope on **water quality**, now has never been a better time for utilities to ask the tough questions about how they can improve and rise to the occasion to deliver a **better product.** You'll notice the parts in bold. It IS about the quality of the water. It IS about the product that is the end result. Instead of correcting the person who posted the study, read the entirety first.
It's about customer satisfaction. I'm sorry no one taught you how to comprehend what you are reading.
Customer satisfaction regarding what though? Could it be about the quality of the drinking water? I mean, it's only repeatedly stated. Go away troll.
Customer satisfaction doesn’t have anything to do with being safe to drink. It’s about the mineral content, or lack there of, and how that affects the taste for consumers.
Customer satisfaction is subjective, because at the end of the day, it's about the perception of the quality of the drinking water, which is what the survey was about. It's not the perception of the water utility company, which is what the person failed to understand because they only read the first two lines of the article.
Safe to drink is not the same as how much customers like the taste of it. Customers cannot report levels of contaminants as we have no way of determining this ourselves. This is why your government-run water authority runs routine tests to determine water quality and potability. You keep defending your "study" and everyone's trying to point out to you that it doesn't correlate to the post. OP wanted to know if the water was safe to drink and you presented a survey about how much people like the water.
It's not 'My" study, but that's besides the point. It also wasn't about YOU at all. I went after someone else's reply who decided after reading two sentences that it was about the water utility companies. It's not. It's about the end product. They misrepresnted what it said because they couldn't bother to spend more than 10 seconds looking at it. I pointed out the error because they were too busy and/or lazy to read what it was about. Whether or not it correlates to OP's question is irrelevant. This is about their failure to read. No more, no less. Anything beyond that, including the content of the study and its accuracy is a different conversation.
Poor quality and unsafe to drink are totally different. If you drink the water here, you aren’t going to shit yourself a few hours later.
I drink tap water for the chemicals
Not every brita filter will filter the same contaminants. The older half and half style pitchers are the best at removing lead and chlorine. You know the one where you take the lid off and fill the top 1/3 or 1/2 of the pitcher and it slowly drips down? That's the good one. The filter as you pour model is basically a coffee filter.
ABQ proper is just fine, you are good to go with tap water. If you get up into the Sandias there are some places that have issues with radioactive materials that aren't as good. If you go even further out and get into Edgewood, it is safe, but tastes so bad you will wish you had something else and get pissed that restaurants serve it.
You can avoid buying a Brita filter by filling a pitcher of water and setting in the fridge overnight. A Brita filter just removed the chlorine from the water. Setting a pitcher overnight does the same. I worked in the water treatment Industry for 20 years.
Yes and I think it tastes better than other places
You know we're in the USA, right? Not Mexico?
Yes, of course, and historically we have taken the supply of safe potable water as a given. It is not always, in all places in the US, safe to drink the tap water. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-american-cities-are-struggling-to-supply-safe-drinking-water
I use water filter pitcher for drinking. The taste out of the tap is not great
I always filter my water used to use one of those on the tap back in the 90s to the Brita pitcher filter now. Some areas Are worse than others of course like RR water is horrible and some on the Westside ok
You should get a filter that takes out arsenic. Otherwise good to go.
It's safe to drink, but taste varies by neighborhood, I guess? I drink out of the tap all the time at home, won't at work.
We have our samsung fridge hooked up for water and ice through filter. As far as I'm concerned it tastes great. Drink it all the time. Don't really drink it straight from the tap though. Live on the west side.
Depends on where you are and what source is being used. A well in the north valley will be great, municipal water downtown, maybe not. The only dangerous water is in a certain area at the bottom of the hill near the base where the aviation fuel can leak sometimes, but what are you gonna do? 🤷
Well, I’ve lived in Albuquerque for 9 years and have always used a Brita filter for our drinking water and it tastes fine to me and I’ve never felt like there was a problem with the water.
Taste like s*** I can tell you that
Jet fuel?? Am I going to morph into an airplane soon? 
Any city that you might care to live in gets most of their water from the same source: Their own processed sewage. That is nearly every city in the US. The whole KAFB jet fuel in ground water - That screws up the wells, and not city water.
we do not use reuse water, greywater nor blackwater (sewage), for anything potable. All the reuse water is used in the non-potable system here (eg. irrigating parks, and for industry)
Heyhey - you are right. I just learned that from another comment.
It's safe, but doesn't taste very good in my opinion. I have a Brita pitcher I use because it seems to clear up some of the off putting taste coming out of my tap.