Re:Boil Water Notice for City of Houston
by gumby on Monday November 28, 2022 @09:46AM
(#33774222)
> Is there much daylight between unsafe to drink and unsafe to shower/etc. IE, is there such a thing as nonpotable water that's still OK for domestic use?
Certainly. As a kid in 60s/70s, when in India we washed, brushed teeth etc with tap water (were careful not to swallow any!) but only drank water that had been boiled or otherwise treated (the fetish for plastic bottles of water had thankfully not developed anywhere yet). This was visiting relatives, so it's not the case that our guts had adapted to the local intestinal flora.
I think there's an economy of scale of running a single pipe of potable water to each location rather than running (and maintaining) a dual system, which would have "leakage" (both the physical kind, which is normal, but would occur 2X, and the case of people accidentally drinking from the wrong pipe).
Certainly. As a kid in 60s/70s, when in India we washed, brushed teeth etc with tap water (were careful not to swallow any!) but only drank water that had been boiled or otherwise treated (the fetish for plastic bottles of water had thankfully not developed anywhere yet). This was visiting relatives, so it's not the case that our guts had adapted to the local intestinal flora.
I think there's an economy of scale of running a single pipe of potable water to each location rather than running (and maintaining) a dual system, which would have "leakage" (both the physical kind, which is normal, but would occur 2X, and the case of people accidentally drinking from the wrong pipe).