Just when I thought I knew everything about Milwaukee, I stumbled upon a fun fact the other day. DASANI, the bottled water produced by Coca-Cola, uses good old Milwaukee tap water for the Midwest distribution of its product.
I discovered this nugget on the City of Milwaukee's Water Works Web site, which explains just how high-quality our city's H2O really is.
After that cryptosporidium scare in the '90s, it seems Milwaukee got really, really serious about clean water. For example, the EPA requires water utilities to test for 90 regulated contaminants on an ongoing basis, but the Milwaukee Water Works tests for more than 500.
DASANI, for its part, doesn't hide the fact that it uses local tap water. "DASANI source water is usually obtained from the local water utility," it says on its site. But, considering that Milwaukee's water is considered by many to be better tasting than our neighbors' water, I'm not surprised that it's being used regionally.
So, our water might not taste as good as what flows from the waterfalls in Fiji, but for my money, it's pretty good. I might just go grab a bottle of DASANI today; or better yet, I might drink a glass of Lake Michigan water straight from the tap.
Andy is the president, publisher and founder of OnMilwaukee. He returned to Milwaukee in 1996 after living on the East Coast for nine years, where he wrote for The Dallas Morning News Washington Bureau and worked in the White House Office of Communications. He was also Associate Editor of The GW Hatchet, his college newspaper at The George Washington University.
Before launching OnMilwaukee.com in 1998 at age 23, he worked in public relations for two Milwaukee firms, most of the time daydreaming about starting his own publication.
Hobbies include running when he finds the time, fixing the rust on his '75 MGB, mowing the lawn at his cottage in the Northwoods, and making an annual pilgrimage to Phoenix for Brewers Spring Training.
