Water in pump-rooms in Kyiv: drink or not drink?

Summer is in full swing, and Kyiv, it seems, will soon begin to melt from the heat. We can escape the scorching sun at home or in the office, take a break in a cafe or cool off under air conditioning in a shopping center. It's equally important to stay hydrated and drink enough fluids to avoid heatstroke. But what if, while walking around the city, you don't meet a single stall with soft drinks nearby? And what about animals, pets that we take with us for a walk, or fluffy strays for whom it's hard to find water in the city?

Water availability is a "quality mark" of a settlement and any of its locations. For example, the prestigious Blue Flag award is given only to those beaches where access to drinking water is open: it should be free, in drinking fountains or pump-rooms.

There are no maps with drinking fountains in Kyiv yet, but there are maps with pump rooms. It's the most recent data, updated on July 9, 2021. Functioning fountains are marked in blue, temporarily inactive fountains are marked in red. The pump rooms are serviced by "Kyivvodfond": they provide maintenance, carry out repairs, control the safety and quality of drinking water.

The depth of wells in pump rooms ranges from 90 to 340 meters; these are the waters of the Cenomanian and Jurassic aquifers. These are the aquifers, considered as protected from outside influences. It is believed that the water of the Cenomanian aquifer is quite often problematic: it contains a lot of iron, heaviness, and hydrogen sulfide. Water from the Jurassic aquifer usually has an ideal composition: it doesn't contain iron, has the optimal amount of minerals for the human body, and is also crystal clear. But what does the research say?

"Kyivvodfond" checks the quality of water by 11 main indicators once every three months; once a year an extended analysis is carried out according to 56 indicators; according to the regulations, checks are also carried out for 9 more indicators: water turbidity, its color, odors, taste, heaviness, manganese, ammonium, and iron. Basically, the water in these sources meets the declared qualities; the data is in the public domain, and in almost all sources the water meets the standards. Only in some of them, the iron content is exceeded.

The nuance of the water safety isn't in the water itself, but in the communications, i.e. the fountain and pipes through which it's supplied. For example, an exceeded iron norm indicates rust on the equipment; it's even worse when microorganisms unfriendly to humans live in the pipes.

According to Viktoria Yakovleva, director of information policy of the Ukrvodokanalekolohia Association, it's unsafe to drink this water, since the water, drained from the pump rooms, where someone, at best, washed their hands, is drained back into the well and doesn't undergo bacteriological treatment before redistributing. According to her, tap water in Kyiv is much safer than water from pump rooms, because some trace elements of street water, such as iron, can't be disposed of even if this water is boiled.

If you still dare to quench your thirst from street sources, pay attention to such water characteristics: smell, watercolor, insoluble impurities. A cloudy yellowish color indicates a high iron content in the water. An unpleasant odor means hydrogen sulfide, which means harmful microorganisms that produce this smell.

If you're used to collecting water outside from the same source, pour it into a transparent glass container and let it stand overnight. Watercolor change and sediment may appear in the morning; this also indicates poor water quality. The vessel walls can become slippery. It's better not to drink such water.

Also, don't store water in plastic bottles, because they're actually disposable. Harmful microorganisms enter the bottle from the air; in the heat, such a container turns into a greenhouse for the growth of bacteria.

In Europe, water quality is monitored much more carefully, and fountains are regularly updated or new ones are installed. Basically, they're installed in private areas, for example, in a school, but in some cities, the city handles the installation of such fountains. For example, in Vienna, you can find about a thousand 3-meter aluminum pillars, which shine brightly in the sun and sometimes don't fit into the city's authenticity so much that they seem to be something alien. But any Austrian knows these pipes with the inscription "Trinkwaaser" have drinking water. You don't need to boil it before drinking, but pour it into a container and quench your thirst right on the street.

The fact is that the water in Vienna is considered one of the cleanest and best. The city receives 400 thousand m³ of fresh spring water daily through two high spring pipelines from the Schneeberg, Rax, Schneealpe, and Hochschwab districts. In Austria, Viennese water is called "white gold" because it doesn't need additional purification.

As for the water quality in other countries, for example, in the United States, according to research carried out by the Pacific Institute in Oakland, besides the requirements for the technical characteristics of the drinking fountain, such as the height, location, and flow of water, there are no specific rules for the maintenance of fountains at the national or at the state level; there, as in Ukraine, those who want to try water from sources available in the city face the same dangers: noroviruses and rotaviruses, pathogenic bacteria, lead and copper in the water.

During the water crisis in Michigan in 2015-2016, schools across the country checked water qualitative examinations in drinking fountains that showed excessive lead levels. However, it wasn't possible to find out whether the problem lies in the drinking fountains themselves or groundwater. Perhaps the cause is both the first and second reasons. As a result, many public schools have simply removed such fountains from their premises. Several schools in Fort Worth, Texas, replaced hundreds of old drinking fountains after tests showed they were unsafe, but even then, harmful metals were still found in the water, suggesting that the reason may not be outdated technical equipment.

Maintenance of drinking fountains in Kyiv means that the services occasionally check the quality of communication systems and the quality of water. The indicators, used to conduct a more or less regular check, aren't enough to fully determine whether the water is safe. For example, there's no check for viruses and bacteria (which is especially necessary for our time). All this suggests that you shouldn't drink water from street sources, even if it seems safe.