If you want another reason to be grateful for New York's tap water (the champagne of municipal beverages, our mother always called it) try this on for size: Hexavalent chromium (chromium-6). The Environmental Working Group recently did a spot check of water in 30 cities across the country for the carcinogenic chemical, which they refer to as the "Erin Brockovich chemical." Seriously, that's what they call it).
Comparing the levels of chromium-6 to California's proposed "safe limits" of .06 parts per billion the group found some scary numbers in places like Norman, Oklahoma, (12.90!), Honolulu, Hawaii, (2.00) and San Jose, California (1.34). And how did we do here? We came in on the wire at .06 parts per billion. Not good, certainly, but also not Norman.
