PHOENIX — ASU’s Arizona Water for All helps residents in Yuma County cope with their hard water.
Arizona Water for All (AW4A) is one of the five pillars of ASU’s Arizona Water Innovation Initiative.
“The aim of Arizona Water for All is to advance water security in Arizona’s most water insecure households,” AW4A research scientist Patrick Thompson told KTAR News 92.3 FM.
The years-long project has been to communities all over the state to help solve local water issues.
The latest study took place in Yuma County with a focus on household water levels.
Researchers went door to door to test residents’ water inside their homes and interviewed them about their experience with their water. They found that the number one issue was taste.
Why does hard water have a metallic taste?
Arizona is known for having hard water, meaning it’s high in mineral content like calcium and magnesium, which are good in small doses.
“All water has salts and metals to some extent; it’s just from the natural processes of how the water flows through the rock,” Thompson said.
But Arizona water has trace amounts — or sulfates — of other metals like copper, iron and even arsenic that can create a metallic taste.
Thompson said high mineral content doesn’t make water unsafe to drink, but it can impact the taste, which is the case for Yuma County residents.
“People may not want to drink it because it doesn’t taste good,” he explained.
What can solve the issue of hard water tasting metallic?
Thompson and the other researchers on the project will go back in a couple of weeks to present their findings to the residents whose water they tested.
“The water was safe to drink. I would say some of the mineral content was very high,” Thompson said.
Some subjects even reported issues washing their clothes due to the hard water, saying it makes white clothing discolored.
Thompson suggested bottled water as an alternative to the kitchen faucet for drinking water if Yuma County residents don’t like the taste of hard water.
Filters can also help to remove some of the minerals to improve the taste; however, AW4A has come across a number of households who don’t change the water filter as often as they should.
“One thing we have found in a few cases is if people aren’t maintaining those properly, they can actually introduce contamination,” Thompson said.
Once the filter has reached capacity it’s doing less filtering and doing less to improve the taste. He’s looking forward to presenting the AW4A findings to the community and educating them on how to improve the taste of their water.
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