r/Eugene • u/starfishmantra • Nov 15 '24
Our water here... jiggly
Is so damn good! I just went down to San Diego for some sunshine and surfing (got to wear a 3/2mm instead of my 5/4mm I use here!), and eat good food. San Diego has some tasty places to eat, and delicious beer also. Ocean Beach had so much weed in the air it was like Eugene x1000. Great farmer's market too!
BUT, their water is kinda gross. Funky taste to it. Came back home, got a glass of water from my tap, and damn...Oregon mountains and watersheds just treat our water right. It's delicious! We are lucky here.
Like the old PBR ad..."it's the water!"
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Nov 15 '24
The valley is great but Central Oregon's water is even better; my worst experience was in Florida where it comes out of the tap warm 🤢
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u/BeeBopBazz Nov 15 '24
It comes out of the tap warm, smells strongly like sulfur, and if you don’t have a central filter it will destroy the inner workings of your faucets.
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u/starfishmantra Nov 15 '24
Like in Bend/Sisters area? I'm gonna go up there soon to snowboard, so will give it a try.
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u/zebrafish_groupie Nov 15 '24
As someone originally from Bend I think Bend's water is the best! Probably translates to most of central Oregon
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Nov 15 '24
I know from my experience staying in Prineville, but the water tables are probably very similar all around that area
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u/kaleidingscope Nov 15 '24
Everytime I fly out of Eugene I cherish that last Nalgene of Eugene water like gold.
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u/littlestghoust Nov 15 '24
My husband and I do this. If he flies somewhere ahead of me, I fill a separate bottle just for him and we mourn when they are emptied.
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u/TransmissionBuilder Nov 16 '24
My wife does the same. She talks a lot about how crummy the water is when we are on vacation, and is sure to fill up all her bottles before getting on the plane in Eugene. I kind of wish I could go back to the time before I realized this and didn't think too much about it.
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u/GeorgeDogood Nov 15 '24
I brag about our water all the time. When people visit. It holds up. It’s essentially the gold standard in the USA. We get the water everyone wishes they got out of their faucets.
Say what you want about EWEB. The water is solid. 😉
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u/ArrenPawk Nov 15 '24
As someone who just moved from San Diego, I can confirm: the water there is absolutely disgusting. We used Brita filters and even then it still had an off taste to it.
Our water here, by contrast, tastes so good.
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Nov 15 '24
We have some of the best water in the world and the McKenzie river is one of the cleanest rivers in Oregon. Hawaii is one of the only other places that has anything like it, in that abundant rainwater and snowmelt are filtered through volcanic sediment for thousands of years to emerge above clear lake.
The McKenzie River is regularly and rigorously tested for pollutants and only minuscule amounts have been detected once or twice in decades of testing. The aquifer which is its source is so large that if all precipitation ended now, the McKenzie River would continue flowing at normal rate for several years. We are very lucky as far as water is concerned, despite it often not raining for 3-4 months out of every year.
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u/hezzza Nov 16 '24
The spooky thing is there's a highway right beside it. I'm expecting an overturned fuel truck or something to dump its load at some point.
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Nov 16 '24
Totally. It has happened but thankfully not too bad that I’m aware of. I do know spill drills are practiced to be ready to respond and contain any spills as fast as possible if it ever happens but very concerning
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u/BringBackWaffleTaco Nov 15 '24
I grew up in San Diego. When I was younger I thought that’s just what water tasted like and was used to it. Once I moved here about a decade ago, I won’t ever forget that first time drinking a cup of water from the tap, it was honestly mind blowing haha. Now every time I go back to visit family, I dread drinking water cause it’s just so disgusting to me now haha
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u/Mochigood Nov 15 '24
I went to visit family in rural New York and their water was atrocious. I'd rather have drank the lithium water in Ashland than that.
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u/hopednd Nov 15 '24
I grew up in Houston..went back a few months after living here.. I couldn't drink tap water..it smelled like a swamp.. which is fair..it is a swamp. But the water was one of the reasons we moved..well and the lack of a dystopian government.
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u/Minimum-Act6859 Nov 15 '24
Imagine if you were on well water here. Every time I visit my Sister in Pleasant Hill I walk in, fill a glass with ice, and water from their tap. It makes the water in Eugene taste like the water in San Diego. .
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u/MarthasPinYard Nov 16 '24
The mountain water you can fill your canteens up in are the best. City tap taste like chlorine.
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u/sillygreenfaery Nov 16 '24
Like a swimming pool
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u/MarthasPinYard Nov 16 '24
YMCA gray water
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u/sillygreenfaery Nov 16 '24
OMG at a glance I thought that said 'YMCA gay water" 😳 That's not a damn thing lol Please tell me what gray water is.... Google just says it doesn't have poop in it which is definitely super important because poop is dangerous.
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u/MarthasPinYard Nov 16 '24
That’s something we don’t talk about here😉
…and like dirty but still good reusable water like shower run off for example
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u/sillygreenfaery Nov 16 '24
I have super senses. I can practically taste anything I smell. There is chlorine in the water here. If I fill a bottle and keep it capped for like an hour, the air in the bottle smells and tastes like a swimming pool. It is so fresh and clean and tastes perfect if I don't put a lid on it and just let it....breathe
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u/Better_than_Zero Nov 15 '24
Just don't share this opinion with residents of Junction City or Mapleton.
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u/Dr_Wristy Nov 16 '24
Unpopular opinion: at least in Eugene, the tap water reeks like bleach, because it’s river water that sits in a reservoir before coming into the pipes.
I grew up in Eugene, and always thought the cold, clear glacial melt was pristine. Then, after living in the Bay Area, I was sure of it.
Then I went to a place called Soest in The Netherlands, and their tap water is sublime compared to Eugene. It filters through the dune sand and gets brought back up to the tap. So much softer and without the overwhelming bleach smell.
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u/Ichthius Nov 16 '24
The reason it smells like bleach is that we see one of the few city wide water systems that uses just chlorine. Most everywhere else adds chloramines, which is essentially ammonia and chlorine. It’s stabilizes the chlorine and it tastes bad but you don’t smell the chlorine the same way.
I’ll take a bit of chlorine smell any day over the nasty taste of chloramines.
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u/LateralThinkerer Nov 16 '24
If you go hiking in the mountains and there's a spring from a pumice bed, have at it - you'll never look at even good municipal water the same way.
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u/maybe2223 Nov 15 '24 edited Nov 15 '24
It’s recycled waste water
*San Diego is using purified waste water
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Nov 15 '24
If by recycled sewer water you mean rain which fell on mountainous volcanic soil and was filtered for thousands of years before emerging into a crystal clear and cold spring, then sure.
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u/YetiSquish Nov 15 '24
I miss surfing in San Diego.
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u/starfishmantra Nov 15 '24
We were surfing up in La Jolla. Was a lot of fun! I did see a sea lion that appeared to have had its stomach bitten out, so that was. a bit creepy...
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u/YetiSquish Nov 15 '24
I surfed La Jolla on occasion - a sea lion swam right under my board once. Scared the hell out of me until I realized what it was. For point break days I went to Swami’s but normally I went to OB
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u/Data_Made_Me Nov 15 '24
Lived in OB for last 10 years before moving here, can confirm. They say it's because the pipelines that bring water there from CO river are extremely old and contaminated. There seems to be some truth to this because after rain falls, the beaches are closed to swimming and surfing due to contaminates
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u/Amanderka Nov 15 '24
I went to Salt Lake City about 10 years ago and got some tap water from a drinking fountain and almost threw up lol. In that moment I realized how spoiled I’ve been growing up in Eugene drinking only tap.
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u/crazyscottish Nov 16 '24
New York City Water is the best in the world. And I’ve been around the the northern hemisphere.
Eugene is a close second. I just drove to Bandon and brought a half gallon of tap water with me.
That being said… LA, Cali? Jesus. I don’t like to, but I’ll buy plastic gallons before I drink that shit. Even Alabama’s lime infested water is better.
Hey, you want kidney stones? Live in Shelby County Alabama. Probably anywhere in the south
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u/DKFran7 Nov 16 '24
I lived in Phoenix AZ for a few years in the 80s. We used Culligan because of all the floaties in the tap water. When my parents came for a visit, one of the first things they offered was water from the camper's tap. Good, clear, cold Eugene water! Of course, we said yes.
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u/hezzza Nov 16 '24
not all California water is shitty. I lived in a rural area on the west slopes of the Sierras and our well water was very tasty.
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u/RepresentativeBig240 Nov 16 '24
I grew up in Shasta, were supposed to have the best water in the world there... Eugene's is nearly as good in my opinion... I actually looked up the research to compare, Eugene is right up there with Shasta in term of testing.
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u/soljwf98 Nov 16 '24
Absolutely! Yet so many people I know (mainly extended family) act so paranoid about our water cause they believe anything they read if it’s sensational enough! But seriously it doesn’t make sense spending money on bottled water here in Oregon.
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u/ontour4eternity Nov 16 '24
The water quality is one of the reasons there are so many breweries here. At least that's what they told me at Ninkasi when I worked there.
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u/Special_Customer_997 Nov 17 '24
dude im from the bay area and literally when i go home i miss the delicious tap water here idk how its so good but its fucking delicious 😭😭
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u/ltrtotheredditor007 Nov 20 '24
Used to live in SD. Worst water I've ever tasted. Lived in Irvine before that and it wasn't great, but my god SD water. Eugene has the best tasting tap I've ever had.
Another SD/Eugene worst/best is power pricing. SD is most expensive in country, Eugene cheapest. So glad to be here.
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u/ShastaPlaster Nov 15 '24
Didn't dumbass hippies in the 80s actually the fluoride removed from our water?
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u/StarWaas Nov 15 '24
I know the water wasn't fluoridated when I was growing up here in the 80s - I took fluoride supplements. Dentists are always surprised when I tell them I grew up here, I guess it's not common for people my age to not have cavities.
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u/Fantastic_Baseball45 Nov 15 '24
Yikes. I lived there in 1977, and my roommates bought drinking water. I took my cue from them.
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u/brycesaysaloha Nov 15 '24
I noticed the same thing! Whenever I go see my parents on the Central Coast of California, I can’t stand the taste of the drinking water. Oregon has the best tasting water ever. Bobby Boucher would be proud ✨