Drip, Drip, Drip Goes New Orleans

Luckily, this time New Orleans' water problem doesn't involve the kind falling from the sky. Instead, there's concern with the kind that comes out of your tap. I don't know why I never bothered to think about this before, but it turns out that NOLA has some pretty gnarly issues with "consumable" water. The city's drinking water comes straight out of the mighty, murky Mississippi--the great river that lots of the rest of the country uses as a dumping ground. Add to that the trauma of Katrina (broken pipes, backed up sewage, etc) and you've got a recipe for a less that tasty glass of H2O.

This first person dispatch on Grist from Wayne Curtis, who recently moved to the city, breaks it down pretty poetically. I'll give you the results of my own taste test in October, when I'm there for my friend Trina's wedding. Not that I tend to drink much water anyway when I'm down there... my MO is usually to stick with the portable alcoholic beverages (is there anything better than a margarita in a to-go cup??) to help wash down those powder-perfect beignets.