'Irony' water meets health standards, report says

Complaints of discolored, cloudy and poor-tasting water on campus have been expressed by students for years, but despite the dissatisfaction of some, reports say the water is safe to drink.

The MSU Water Quality Report for 2007, which was released last month, stated MSU water meets or exceeds all federal and state drinking water standards.

“The question is what is the causation of the poor quality of water,” said Mark Dobson, Residence Halls Association president. “And that really depends (on) who you talk to.”

The discoloration of the water is iron oxide, a mineral that is not unsafe to consumers, which comes from the iron that is present in the water wells, said Doug MacDonald, plant maintenance engineer and waterworks manager for MSU’s Power and Water Department. Whether the water tastes bad is a matter of opinion, he said. Every year from May to August the campus water mains are flushed to try to remove some of the iron deposits and the Physical Plant makes attempts to notify people in advance when work will be done on the water mains, he said, as the flushing itself can cause discoloration.

“The problem is really after a period of low demand, like after Christmas and New Year’s,” MacDonald said. “I think we’re getting a little bit more of it now because over the last couple of years we’ve had more construction on the water mains.”

ASMSU, MSU’s undergraduate student government, encourages ongoing research to ensure the students have the best quality of water possible for drinking and showering, said Michael Webber, Student Assembly chairperson.

“Our assembly passed, last year, a bill to look into the water quality on campus,” said Webber. “It was found that it was safe but not the best-tasting — we’ve had complaints about the taste of the water for years.”

MacDonald said he thinks the water is discolored and poor-tasting to some people because it’s extremely hard, meaning that it has a high mineral content. Most buildings on campus soften their hot water by passing it through some sort of media which removes the developed minerals, while the residence halls soften both their hot and cold water and apartments on campus soften neither, MacDonald said.

The cost may figure into the decision not to soften the water, he said.

“I don’t remember the color (of the water) being any different than I was used to, but I definitely always filtered my water because it didn’t taste very good,” said Jordan Shelley, an environmental biology senior. “I try not to buy too much bottled water because it’s kind of wasteful.”

Julie Bucklan, a nutritional science junior, said she lived in Bryan Hall as a freshman and Gilchrist Hall as a sophomore and wasn’t dissatisfied with the water in either location.

“At orientation when I was down in Case (Hall) the water was really irony and disgusting and I went to college in fear that I would be grossed out all the time,” she said.

“But where I lived the water was perfectly fine, (though) the water fountain was broken half the year. Otherwise it was sort of warm, but it tasted fine nonetheless.”

Webber said when he lived on campus he bought bottled water for drinking.

“The bottom line is no matter what, drinkable and acceptable are interchanging ideas,” Dobson said. “It’s not all right to say the water is safe to drink, there needs to be a long-term solution.”

Published on Tuesday, July 22, 2008