This story appears in the March 2019 issue of National Geographic magazine. When my young daughter says she’s thirsty, I take for granted that the water from our kitchen tap is clean and safe.

Think tap water is dirty, unsafe, or just plain gross? You’re not alone. A lot of people assume bottled water is the only way to get clean drinking water, but that’s not necessarily true.

tap and bottled water are both safe to drink Isla knew that tap water goes through a lot of cleaning processes so her hunch was that it would be cleaner than bottled water. Because bottled water ...

In complex city water systems like Richmond, getting pressure back still doesn’t mean the tap water is safe to drink. Residents will need to keep boiling their water until at least Friday ...