Oh I dunno drinking out of a pipe that is miles long without any idea of what else is in it adds a bit of intrigue. Never mind that all municipal systems have leaks which allows water out and other stuff in.
Then there was the town water dept that screwed up and hooked a new sewage line to the water line. People couldn’t figure out what all the white stringy stuff was in their coffee pot filters, not to mention the brown grainy stuff.
Most municipal systems have Transite asbestos pipe. The EPA Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) is 7 MILLION fibers per liter. It’s estimated that municipal drinking water contains between 200,000 and 2,000,000 fibers per liter. I am in the asbestos consulting business (don’t hate me - I’m like your accountant, helping people negotiate the tax code). Somebody’s got to do it. Might as well be a conservative who doesn’t drink the koolaid.
I wonder how many of the older water systems still have lead pipes in use?