Consumers often ask the question, “OK, so my water is safe to drink according to my local Water Authority and a recent certified laboratory test, but why does it taste funny, smell bad and/or appear so cloudy?”
The answer to that question lies in something called Secondary Drinking Water Standards. The United States Environmental Protection Agency makes suggestions as to limitations for water parameters that do not necessarily pose health risks to humans, but can affect drinking water’s aesthetic properties (i.e. color, taste, odor, etc.).
| Contaminant | Secondary MCL | Noticeable Effects above the Secondary MCL |
| Aluminum | 0.05 to 0.2 mg/L* | colored water |
| Chloride | 250 mg/L | salty taste |
| Color | 15 color units | visible tint |
| Copper | 1.0 mg/L | metallic taste; blue-green staining |
| Corrosivity | Non-corrosive | metallic taste; corroded pipes/ fixtures staining |
| Fluoride | 2.0 mg/L | tooth discoloration |
| Foaming agents | 0.5 mg/L | frothy, cloudy; bitter taste; odor |
| Iron | 0.3 mg/L | rusty color; sediment; metallic taste; reddish or orange staining |
| Manganese | 0.05 mg/L | black to brown color; black staining; bitter metallic taste |
| Odor (i.e. Hydrogen Sulfide or Tannins) | 3 TON (threshold odor number) | “rotten-egg”, musty or chemical smell |
| pH | 6.5 – 8.5 | low pH: bitter metallic taste; corrosion high pH: slippery feel; soda taste; deposits |
| Silver | 0.1 mg/L | skin discoloration; graying of the white part of the eye |
| Sulfate | 250 mg/L | salty taste |
| Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) | 500 mg/L | hardness; deposits; colored water; staining; salty taste |
| Zinc | 5 mg/L | metallic taste |
| * mg/L is milligrams of substance per liter of water | ||
If you need to test for any of the above items, we currently carry testing products for a number of them in the Water Test Kit Store (Shop.WaterTestingBlog.Com).
