Thursday, March 06, 2008

'Main water is not drinkable' says Minister?

In response to a question about how much bottled water the Wales Department bought over the past three years - which incidentally increased year on year - the Secretary of State of Wales Paul Murphy has implied that mains water (at least in London and Cardiff) is not drinkable unless it is filtered.

The implication came in his follow up response to justify his predecessor's increasing use of bottled water when he said his Department, "in line with Government initiatives on sustainable development, is exploring possibilities of installing filter taps to provide a drinking water tap in the kitchen at my London office.... My Cardiff office is fitted with a filter tap for drinking water."

Note that the filter will provide "drinking water" ergo, without a filter, the water is not drinkable. I wonder what the Drinking Water Inspectorate will make of that? Or is he seriously saying that the Wales Office on Whitehall only has a water supply from a tank and no mains feed piping into its kitchen?

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Most likely, he has chlorine issues -- the stuff is harmless but tastes icky.

Animals too hate the taste, so the trick is to draw the water the day before and let the chlorine evaporate over night. This also works for brewing beer and wine -- no need to mess around with the water profile either, UK water is just fine.

As for the water filters -- I tried it and it made the water very sour, yuck. And most people are blissfully unaware that those filters often are a perfect harbour for bacteria, especially in warm weather.

Anonymous said...

Chlorine is a nerve agent developed
in military labs.It is toxic.
We were told in the 1980's that tap water was,is unsafe ,long after it had become so.Bottled water is also "poisoned".
As I cannot think of another way to put the fact that toxins are put in it.
phyz

Anonymous said...

Chlorine is an element with the atomic number 17. In high enough doses, everything is toxic.

It does make tap water smell awful, though.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, chlorine is evil, not only has it poisoned nearly every creature on the planet, but it also combines with many other substances to make unhealthy stuff like salt, bleach and other toxic compounds -- and worst of it all, it's a killer of the ozone layer....

We must start a campaign to write to the UN to demand a ban of the dangerous chemical dichlorine that is polluting our planet!!!1!

Then again, to me it's it's not so much the Chlorine and other stuff that is disgusting, but the thought that fish fuck in water just grosses me out, period.

Andrew said...

Minister's drivel unpalatable says voter.

Anonymous said...

Chlorine is an element. It is a constituent part of stomach acid.

But I digress. Could it also be "undrinkable" because the big jesse doesn't like the taste of hard water? The big jesse.

DiscoveredJoys said...

No, fair doos, in a lot of big office buildings the cold water is fed from a header tank and is therefore not 'fresh' or categorized as fit for drinking..

They usually provide a smaller number of 'drinking water' taps which are fed direct from the mains water.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 10:12, keep your tinfoil hat on...

Unknown said...

chlorine is evil, not only has it poisoned nearly every creature on the planet, but it also combines with many other substances to make unhealthy stuff like salt, bleach and other toxic compounds -- and worst of it all, it's a killer of the ozone layer....
club penguin