It is always nice that you get a sip of chilled tap water as you walk through the park on a hot afternoon, but are you sure that that water you are sipping is safe to drink? If you happen to be in any of the following ten cities in America, it is probably not!

Pittsburgh

This is one of the cities that has had very many incidents of warnings regarding water safety. In 2017, the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority told their residents to be careful and boil the water they intend to drink, brush their teeth, or even wash dishes.

Milwaukee 

When it comes to safe drinking water, Milwaukee has likewise been embroiled in controversy. From 2015 to 2017, public health officials failed to tell families whose children tested positive for excessive lead levels. Because of worries regarding lead exposure, families have initially been advised to install water filters if they resided in a home built before 1951.

Washington DC

The lead pollution problem in DC stretches back to the early 2000s, and by 2016, over 12,000 DC homes were still using lead pipes for their water supply. Many of the properties that are at risk of exposure are in older, less wealthy areas. Residents may expect to pay roughly $2,500 to have their lead pipes removed on average, which is expensive.

Flint

In 2014, Flint residents reported cases of having odorous brown sludge coming from their pipes. And although that was fixed, the issue may not entirely be resolved unless all the lead service pipes are replaced.

Brady, Texas

Texas has the most widespread water infringements in the country, owing in excellent proportion to the existence of radium in its water supply, a radioactive element attributed to bone cancer. Radium levels are nine times greater than the EPA limit in Brady. Residents claim that the tap water is orange, brown, or even green in hue and that many have turned to bottled water instead.

Baltimore 

Druid Lake, the city's reservoir, is also polluted with particles that can carry viruses, bacteria, or parasites. So authorities launched a $140 million project to bring the reservoir up to code. And that is beside the lead contamination cases still on the rise.

Dos Palos, California

Residents in the city of Dos Palos have decided to switch to plastic bottled water after it was uncovered that their drinking water contained trihalomethanes, a collective of chemicals linked to kidney problems and an increased risk of cancer. In addition, the city's well failed at least 22 safety tests between 2013 and 2018.

Charleston, West Virginia

Residents of Charleston observed a licorice-like odor floating through the city in 2014. The smell, it turned out, was caused by a massive spill of MCHM, a synthetic foam used to rinse coal. The chemical is harmful as it can cause vomiting and skin irritation. Unfortunately, the same has been found in drinking water.

Newburg, New York

Perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), a harmful pollutant associated with cancer and chronic kidney illness, was found in a 1.3 billion-gallon reservoir in Newburgh, New York, in 2016.

That same year, the Newburgh authorities declared a state of emergency after the finding of PFOS. As a result, the city has now constructed a new filtration system.

Newark

Approximately 100 out of 240 samples from Newark's water supply indicated lead levels above the EPA's safety threshold between July and December 2018.

High quantities of haloacetic acids (HAAs), which can occur during the water disinfection process, cause skin irritation, and perhaps raise cancer risk, have also been identified. As a result, residents in the area are now receiving water filters from the city. It's also replacing its lead service lines.

Take away

The long-term solution in all of these cities is changing the whole piping, which was done using lead. Or better filtering water reservoirs. But in the meantime, people can use FilterSmart water filters to ensure safe water.