> There was not a single trustworthy test I could find to say here is a decent test profile we ran on your sample, and here is the water quality score.

The local authorities are the ones you should be reaching out to here, not random Amazon test kits. Testing for microbial contamination is difficult and requires specialized equipment and training. There is no reliable way to DIY it, unless you have a couple of years training in a microbiology lab.

Of course the local water works in any first world country test the water every day at the water production station, but a common failure mode is that sewage and water lines run in the same ditch, and both suffer a breach.

For this reason, water works are typically very interested in receiving reports from the public and testing samples.

For Amsterdam, two minutes on Google tells me you should contact Waternet. I also found a service page where you can check whether your area is within a known fault, a and submit your complaint/info. Google Translate works well for reading this:

https://www.waternet.nl/service-en-contact/problemen-met-wat...

> The local authorities are the ones you should be reaching out to here, not random Amazon test kits. Testing for microbial contamination is difficult and requires specialized equipment and training. There is no reliable way to DIY it, unless you have a couple of years training in a microbiology lab.

Absolutely not. Remember what happened in Flint, MI? Moreover, there can be hyperlocal differences in water quality due to factors outside of a water utility's control, such as old pipes.

The best approach is to find an independent, non-government associated testing facility and send them your water for a fee. They have high-end equipment that no consumer would reasonably want to acquire and will provide unbiased results.

Note that I wrote "in any first world country". I'm sorry if your country does not qualify as such. Then the best solution is to keep paying for bottled water, or to move.

I'm not being flippant here. If, on a general basis, you can't trust the country where you live to provide you with access to clean drinking water, then you have literally failed the UN's Sustainable Development Goal no. 6: "By 2030, achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all." This is something that every nation on earth aims to achieve during this decade.

To add an example, Berlin just had a “boil water and don’t shower” order out for some regions because 2 samples of their continuous water testing regime showed low amounts of some specific bacteria. The problem was rectified within a day. Tap water is taken serious here, regulations are far stricter than for bottled water.

Same in the UK - we do it so well that water safety isn't a thing anyone thinks about because tap water is simply safe.

I'm 41, I've drank "council pop" (what my grandma sweetly called it) since I was old enough to turn the tap and never once gotten ill.

Local water company does half a million tests a year - 99.949% of all tests are excellent and of the remainder vast majority are within acceptable guidelines (they go way beyond the mandated standard).

> Note that I wrote "in any first world country". I'm sorry if your country does not qualify as such.

> I'm not being flippant here.

Sorry to say, (Canadian here), yes you came off as being flippant. The issues with Flint seem to be larger than my understanding, but it was not the least contributed by issues and injustices with the demographic (majority black) and the lack of federal aid. Saying it's not a first world country isn't wise of you for these reasons and more.

> Then the best solution is to keep paying for bottled water, or to move.

Obviously not the best solution, just a bandaid over the problem in lieu of the fact that "Bottled water is 3,500 times worse for the environment than tap water".

> you can't trust the country where you live to provide you with access to clean drinking water, then you have literally failed

No. The government around the citizen failed. Saying the the victim failed is quite telling of your assumption that the individual is to blame if the government has in some capacity, in some municipal area, failed.

> literally failed the UN's Sustainable Development Goal no. 6

The goal is tied to a future date, you cannot fail it by definition in 2021. I'm sorry to say, and I'm also not being flippant here, basic math and logic is taught in "first world countries", your comment here is obviously a failure of such, and I'm sure, there's probally a UN goal I could quote as well. See what I did?

The immediate cause of the issues in Flint was mismanagement. Treating the source water to moderate the PH would have prevented lead from leaching into it (the cost would have been very small). And then layered on top of that, they didn't need to switch to the source that needed that treatment. And so on.

Removing the possibility of lead leaching into drinking water is an ongoing activity in Michigan, but we are ahead of much of the country at this point (in that we are doing it).

That the US has plumbing that uses lead is of course not unique.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/worried-about-lead-in-your-wat...

I'm not saying that first world countries don't have sporadic issues with water supply. They do.

What I'm arguing is that if as a general rule you can't trust the results when your local officials testing the water quality, then your country has failed at meeting the standard for a first world country.

I agree that "you have failed" would have been better framed as "your country has failed you". That was my thinking, but the sentence did not make it clear.

Yes, the UN SDG6 is a goal for 2030 - for developing nations. If you haven't already met this goal, you are a developing nation, not a first world nation.

"contributed by issues and injustices with the demographic (majority black) and the lack of federal aid"

How is thus an excuse? South Africa, Russia, etc. all have grave issues. either have objective criteria, or we don't

> How is thus an excuse?

Because it is a causal factor and not an excuse?

> South Africa, Russia, etc. all have grave issues.

I agree. See, we have so much in common.

> either have objective criteria, or we don't

I am not invested in any criterion discussion, merely because I'm not into political science, I am merely firing back at the original poster at their "first world" vs. "third world" views and obvously flippant tone in their message with the audacious preface of not being flippant.

The specific causal factor I understand is white flight and the associated downstream effects. That's pretty objective and measurable (tax base), but it's more of a powder keg analysis. The real cause of fault is in the pipes as the other commentor shared, something I did not fully understand until now.

The parent is wrong. Yes, contact government officials if you suspect the drinking water is dangerous.

I think you also are being flippant when you suggest a nation is not developed because there are isolated regions with faulty infrastructure. Flint is a tragedy, but most of the country has waterworks that pay close attention to the health of their product.

>Remember what happened in Flint, MI?

If memory serves, the contaminants in Flint were introduced after the water treatment, and could have been identified if the community had said "this is weird, come test it". That being said, if memory serves, there were also several points of corrupt/incompetent leaders who failed their leaders.

This is generally viewed as anomalous. To be clear, what happened to the residence of Flint ABSOLUTELY SUCKED. It should not have happened anywhere to anyone, and as someone who pays federal tax dollars, I'm very disappointed that my federal government let them down. I'm also suspicious that similar problems are happening in other places, but I'm not sure how to detect it.

City tap water in Europe and North America is regularly tested for common parameters and yearly, more or less, for most other constituents(pollutants, minerals, chemicals etc.) It is very very unlikely you got sick from the tap water. If you want to test your own water, find an "environmental laboratory". Communicate with them, they will help you decide which range of tests. They will also provide you with the appropriate sample bottles. (There are organic and inorganic parameters with different protocols for sampling.) It won't be cheap however. Especially one time testing. You can spend anywhere from ($CAD) 50-150 for inorganic tests (arsenic, lead, etc.) And 150 - 500+ for organic tests ( DDT, PCB, etc etc.) Cheap and easy - but all cities do it all the time, is hardness, pH, etc. If you are suddenly sick it is likely organic, and most likely biological (bacteria, virus.) Also most likely from food. But, it is fun to test your water, and interesting. (Same with the soil around you.) The world around us complex and the interweaving of systems is fascinating; as is our infrastructure to allow city living. (Source for my diatribe: 20+years Environmental Engineer)

The city may well test tap water and find it to be safe, but this testing wouldn't account for contamination that happens downstream from their systems, e.g. caused by poor building plumbing.

I’m on the equivalent of a HOA in Berlin, and we are required by law to have periodic checks of the tap water, mostly for Legionella bacteria but afaik also general water quality.

Proper testing includes samples from the faucets of random households.

California cities do it every year, and the results are public: just look up "water quality report" or "consumer confidence report" + your city.

Even if you don’t trust tap water, reusable 5 gallon jugs are still a much cheaper and more environmentally friendly option.

As to everyone getting sick at the same time, that’s likely a function of your move. Moving long distances to a new area means being exposed to a huge range of new microbes. It’s very common to get sick in the first several months as your immune system adapts.

Since I'm Dutch and near Amsterdam (we have the same water facility over here) I can guarantee you that the Dutch tap water is of very high standard. You only buy bottled water if you are a hipster here.

I leaved for 3 years in Amsterdam coming from another European country, moved flat several times and always had bad tap water in my house. I never got sick though, but the taste was always awful. My feeling was it was not the water that was bad, but more the pipes, as most house I leaved in was old. Either way, I gave up and bought water bottle

Thanks. That’s comforting to hear. My gut instinct was that as well, and I am going back to tap water now.

In case you're curious, look up Bar-le-duc mineral water and the place where the city of Utrecht gets it's water from.

Why do you blame tap water specifically? I've never heard anyone getting sick from drinking tap water in a developed country.

It happens more often than you’d think. Here is one example from New Zealand, where many got sick, lots were hospitalised and some may have died. Colleagues describe the bedlam at local hospitals and the smell of the place as they were inundated with the afflicted.

Whether or not we are a first world country could be queried.

https://watersource.awa.asn.au/community/public-health/lesso...

It happens very rarely in New Zealand, and when it does it is national news (or international news as per your link).

Also our government response to such events is usually functional, with national changes to procedures and systems to try and avoid repeating mistakes.

The follow on to that saga found potential unsafe water supply to 750,000 New Zealanders. Years later the situation is reported to be little better.

This bit alarmed me: “In December 2017, a government-commissioned inquiry found that 20 percent of New Zealand’s drinking water was “not demonstrably safe,” meaning at least 759,000 people could be exposed to disease-causing contaminants. It found that there were about 35,000 cases of acute gastrointestinal illness contracted via reticulated drinking water each year.”

https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/99591173/state-of-ne...

https://m.scoop.co.nz/stories/GE2102/S00058/new-zealand-town...

Happens a lot, though probably mostly isolated cases. But sometimes it’s a big deal: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_water_crisis

It is not scientific at all. Myself, my wife and my 2 year old all got sick with the same symptoms, and we did not eat the same food in the last few days. Drinking water seemed like the common denominator.

Looks like one of you got a bug and passed to the others

Sounds more like a stomach flu to me, which is often spread throughout a household via contaminated surfaces.

I'm here to second that drinking the local water in a new place will loosen you up even if it is clean.

You were all in the same space, though, right? It could have been something contagious.

Time to split the family up into a control and test group. For science.

Boil water alerts happen all the time.

And sometimes things really go wrong and people die. In 2000 in Ontario 6 people died and dozens were hospitalized.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkerton_E._coli_outbreak

Our rental agreement (Germany) actually contains instructions on how to ensure that a certain kind of bacteria (legionella) doesn’t build up in the apartments plumbing.

If you are gone for > 7 days, open your taps on the hottest setting and let them run for 2 or 3 minutes. Let them run for a minute on the cold setting.

If you have a house rather than an apartment, maybe check whether there is any filtering system installed that would need a potential replacement.

As a temporary solution Brita water filter might help. For the longer term, you could install a reverse osmosis water purifier in the kitchen sink.

https://www.thespruce.com/best-reverse-osmosis-systems-45868...

This was tested and they found that this made the water quality worse, because the Dutch tap water is already of high quality and the water filter makes it dirtier because bacteria start to grow on it after a while. In fact, the water company filters the water through the same type of activated carbon filter, except that the filter in the Brita is at best a couple of centimeters long whereas the filter of the water company is 2x250 centimeters long (and they use other filtration steps, not just activated carbon).

In 2015, approximately 11000 people got sick in Dejvice, Prague 6, after wastewater contaminated the fresh water supply[1]. I was out of town, but when I returned in 2016/2017, the incident was still fresh in people's memories and their water consumption patterns clearly changed in favour of bottled water.

[1]: https://vodnihospodarstvi.cz/dejvicka-havarie-a-epidemie-neb...

Dumb question: isn’t it possible you got sick normally (because you moved to a different country, etc.)? And the tap water timing coincides with recovering?

Tap water in Amsterdam is tested daily and perfectly safe for drinking: https://www.waternet.nl/en/service-and-contact/tap-water/can...

Where is it tested? In Flint a lot of the lead came from pipes into the house.

I the US the water provider is supposed to follow EPA rules and sample water at household taps on a yearly basis for lead and copper. I wonder if Flint complied with that rule.

>Local water testing lab only tests for specific pollutants with legal precedence like Lead, Cadmium, Mercury etc.

Does the pollutant list only contain chemicals, or do they include microbial pollutants as well? The EPA for instance has standards for microbial pollutants in addition to chemical pollutants.

I believe the city water department tests for a more detailed set of factors(I could not get proper information because I moved here recently, and I don’t yet speak Dutch). However, the tests I could buy/order from commercial labs around here only tests for specific ones (Lead, Mercury, Cadmium, Nickel, Coliform bacteria). I’m guessing that is because those were the common culprits.

By law, the water from the tap may only contain 1 microgram pollutants per liter, and the water companies usually set themselves stricter standards (and stricter than the standards for bottled water, IIRC). Assuming you drink 2 liters per day that is 0.066 grams over the course of a 80 year life. If the cause of the illness of your family is is the tap water, then it is very likely a problem with the plumbing in or near your house.

However, even that is very unlikely. Even if the plumbing in your house is lead, that's not likely to make you ill immediately (but it will over the long term). If the pipes leak, then the water is more likely to go out than pollution getting in, due to the water pressure. Given that several members of a family get ill, the overwhelmingly more likely explanation is either a contagious disease, or food poisoning.

At least in Britain, if there are separate taps for hot and cold, you shouldn't trust drinking from the hot tap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfHgUu_8KgA

Interesting situation. Is there a particular reason a reverse osmosis filter isn’t a good possibility? I guess the better test would of been to have half the family keep on drinking tap water and see if anything changes but at the expense of the control group.

A typical thing they do in less developed countries where tap water is decent but not quite reliable enough is either install an in-line filter for drinking water, or get a pitcher filter (like a Brita).