r/bloomington • u/multifamdev • 1d ago
City of Bloomington Water
We moved to the east side of town and installed a whole house filter. I just changed the first sediment filter (there are three filter stages) after six months and this is what it looked like! The new filter is not the left, the old one is on the right. Kind of yuck.
55
u/Conscious_Yak_7303 1d ago
We have some of the cleanest water in the country. Most of the regulated chemicals are undetectable in our water supply. The water is soft. In the winter its ice cold straight out of the tap. No PFAS!
https://echo.epa.gov/maps/water-quality-indicators/wqimap
https://www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/pfas_contamination/map/
9
u/multifamdev 1d ago
I agree, I built a house for my mother in law in Brown Co. and was shocked at how chemically the water was, but it's still kind of shocking that the filter comes out like that. I ended up installing the same water filter system that we have in her house because of that.
13
u/Conscious_Yak_7303 1d ago
I moved here from Arizona. The water out there tastes like pool water year round.
0
2
5
u/AgathaChristie678 1d ago
When I visit my family in New York State, I am reminded water can actually taste good straight from the tap. Dunno if it's cleaner, but it tastes a million times better and never algal bloom taste
5
u/Conscious_Yak_7303 1d ago
I will say the algae blooms are nasty, but conspiratorially I think that has more to do with the population and water use doubling overnight every august than actual algae.
10
u/motocycledog 1d ago
I would not call it some of the cleanest, more like average and not actively toxic
5
u/Conscious_Yak_7303 1d ago
I mean if you wanna read about pfas and look at the water supply elsewhere then not toxic is basically a luxury that we are swimming in! Unless the utility is lying to us...
6
u/PostEditor 1d ago
You been drinking too much Lake Monroe tap if you think Bloomington has the cleanest water in the country. Might want to read about all the PCBs they dumped around here back in the day.
3
3
39
u/xdonkeykangx 1d ago
Your water filter is indeed filtering water, thank you for informing the community. You should see the water anywhere else but Bloomington.
17
u/orpheechante 1d ago edited 1d ago
I have noticed that anytime anyone brings up the state of Bloomington water, many someones on this sub defensively say something like Bloomington has the cleanest water in the universe. So much so that it makes one suspicious. While “clean” is a relatively subjective kind of word, the fact is that water in the US is routinely contaminated with all sorts of terrible stuff, including horrible chemicals along the lines of Erin Brokovich. Btown is no exception. You can read the water report yourself. Also, just because water is deemed legally safe (by the EPA under Tr*mp and the Repubs) does not make it safe in reality. A good example is hexavalent chromium — allowable in small amounts for legally “safe” drinking water, the actual safe amount for humans to consume would be zero.
Of course, Big Business and Co does not like this.
The 2026 Btown water report is below. There you can see at least 7 chemicals / compounds present in our water (including pesticides and radioactives) that ideally should not be present at all. They are nonetheless there and within “legal” limits, apparently. I personally don’t feel good drinking the water. I think other people might feel the same.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/18wOGctWshZhgCRe23r1BYJKQ83WSUhCC/view?pli=1
7
8
u/PostEditor 1d ago
People are way too eager to defend our tap water here. I've always had my water filtered. After what happened in Flint I really don't trust any tap water anywhere now. They already lied about the fluoride levels here. What makes you think they aren't lying about anything else?
3
u/jaymz668 1d ago
shouldn't you have replaced it right after the boil order a few weeks ago?
1
u/multifamdev 7h ago
It’s the first filter of three (sediment, lead, active charcoal) for the whole house and we have a reverse osmosis filter system in the kitchen for cooking and drinking so we were covered.
2
u/111Sisotowbelllane 7h ago
"Indiana consistently ranks among the worst states in the United States for toxic chemical releases, industrial pollution, and environmental health risks: [1, 2]
U.S. News & World Report: Ranked Indiana 50th (the worst state) for the natural environment and pollution, specifically placing 48th in industrial toxins and pollution-related health risks. [1]
EPA Toxic Release Inventory (TRI): Indiana frequently leads or ranks near the top of the nation for total toxic chemical releases per square mile (often #1 or #3 depending on the specific annual EPA report cycle), with heavy industrial and steel manufacturing facilities—such as U.S. Steel Gary Works and Cleveland-Cliffs—accounting for a massive share of the state's total volume. [1, 2, 3]
Population Impact: Roughly 17% to nearly 29% of Indiana residents live in close proximity to active toxic release facilities, placing a heavy burden on surrounding communities. [1, 2]
Water & Air Quality: Indiana has repeatedly ranked high for industrial water-polluting discharges into local rivers and streams, and major urban hubs like Marion and Lake counties frequently receive failing grades from the American Lung Association for particle pollution and ozone. [1, 2, 3, 4]
PFAS ("Forever Chemicals"): State regulators and local water utilities have ramped up monitoring under updated state laws following widespread detections of PFAS chemicals in municipal drinking water supplies."
59
u/brainrotspatial 1d ago
I bet most of it occurred during that manganese oxidation event. They could've handled that intake switch better IMO.