>What about the people that live
>out in the country &
>have well water?

Well water can be a tricky issue. if you recnelty recieve a well, then the material sued for piping is safe; however the source water (i.e. the aquifer) may not be. Here in the upstate SC there has been a lot of controversy recently becasue the residents of Simpsonville found Uranium in there drinking water. Needless to say it was fgound to be a natural source. If you have a well, have you local environmental regulatory agency test it REGULARLY. You yourself can buy some at home tests from hardware store, but sometimes the results are tricky to interpret.


>Is is possible to drink tap
>water & remain healthy?

Yes! Tap water is regulated whereas the bottled water industry is not. So for example, the bottle may be a permeable to semipermeable membrane. During transportation they may stoire those boxes near household cleanign chemicals If those chemicals are volatile at all, the bottled water could act as scrubbers and absorb some of those chemicals.


>Our bodies fight off bacteria every
>second.. So if the tap
>water has bacteria in it..
>our bodies should be able
>to fight off anything that
>could cause us harm.

Yes and No. Coliform is used as an indicator organism for water contamination, If there is any detected above a threshold value, the residents should and would be notified. However, some bacteria form cysts. *remember the whole anthrax scare* Those cysts can certainly resist chlorine, which is rendered ineffective, and remain dormant in the body. Things like Giardia and Chryptosporidium can cause seriuos problems with only a realtive samll number of cysts within the body.

>That is a rip-off!

Very True! I was glad Mos Def dropped it in a song. That way it could reach more of the general populus.


>hygenically speaking... is bottled water much
>cleaner than tap water?..

No not necessarily. Some companies just buy tap water and bottle it with a pretty picture of a spring on front. Word!

>Who's to say that I can't
>open a water company &
>just fill it up with
>tap water.. make millions?

Some do, See above.