First, understand I’m not looking for a “what’s in my drinking water” type of answer.
It’s this: Let’s say, I’m a developer planning and building a subdivision where I’ll get municipal water - no well/septic here.
Before I can put up homes, I have to do groundwork and infrastructure. Bury utilities, grade the land, stuff like that. Now when I’m getting ready to lay the buried pipe for my domestic water - the water that’s going to come out of faucets someday - I get the pipe delivered to my work site. There it sits, oh say a few weeks while the trench is dug and the pipe gets connected and buried.
While it’s there waiting, it’s exposed to elements, and pretty much anything that falls on, in or around it. Let’s say a vole, or a rat climbs in, gets chased by a cat and dies, or just takes a big vole-dump or something. Then the next day the pipe gets buried and becomes part of the water supply.
With the critter or what have you IN the pipe.
Now, at some point I imagine there’s a process (or I hope there is) where the municipal supply is run through the pipe, and maybe dumped as a way to clear the pipe. Is there? I don’t know, that’s why I’m in GQ with this.
But let’s say there isn’t. The system is a closed loop with who knows how many voles, skunks and piles of cat turd in it. Then a house gets built, the tie in to the home is done, and some poor guy hits the shower one day and without knowing it, gets doused in water passing through pipe that’s all full of nasty stuff.
Someone tell me there’s a way they know to clear or sanitize or at least rinse out buried water supply before it comes out of my tap?
I’m going right now to take a shower then out for the night so an answer won’t save me for now, but I am checking this thread first thing in the morning before I grab a glass of water for my AM drugs.