Water Chemistry

One of the features of living in coastal South Carolina is getting to really see the water coming out of the faucet. Even at its clearest, my water resembles weak iced tea, and it coats the inside of my coffeemaker with a fine layer of silt. One potential water source is the Black River, so the weak tea appearance is actually an incredible accomplishment on the part of the city's water department. However, the residual tannins in the drinking water have a nasty habit of combining with the chlorine added to the water to produce a carcinogenic compound. One solution is to drink bottled water. Another is to add a water purifier to the tap used as a drinking supply.

Most water filters will remove the chlorine, discoloration, and heavy metals, but you really need reverse osmosis or distillation to remove some of the potentially cancer-causing organics and fluoride, if that concerns you. Those sorts of filters tend to be expensive for personal home purchase, but if you are buying bottled water, all you need to do is check the label for the method of water treatment. Carbon filtration, ozonation, UV treatment, and microfiltration are treatments used to remove particulates, chlorine, metals, and to kill microorganisms. Reverse osmosis and distillation additionally will remove fluoride and certain toxic organics.
How to Remove Fluoride from Water | Hard & Soft Water