TUCSON (KGUN9-TV) - We expect reliable, clean water at the turn of the tap.
But problems like we've seen in Flint, Michigan are making at least some people think more about their tap water.
Tucson uses a combination of water brought in by canal from the Colorado River, and ground water. Health and water officials say tests show lead is not a concern with Tucson water.
Out of 713 thousand customers, here are the top complaints.
5-Taste and Smell
4- Colored Water
3-Water outage
2-Water quality questions
1-Water pressure.
We wanted to see how Tucson Water responds to customers complaints.
Friday morning Tucson Water specialist Lisa Grijalva was checking out the most common complaint Tucson Water receives: low water pressure.
A knock on the door tells her no one is home but in this case she can check what she needs from outside the house, starting with the water meter.
She opens the meter cover and says, "Everything is on. Valves are all in the on position."
She runs the outside faucet to clear anything that might be in the line, then screws on a pressure gauge.
"We're getting about 56 PSI. We deliver here 50 to 57 so we're pretty much within range.
The wall faucet is where city water enters the house so Lisa Grijalva suspects the problem is inside the house, not in the city's pipes.
If you're having water problems in your house. One of the first bits of troubleshooting you might want to do on your own is the check with your neighbors. If they're having the same sort of low pressure of cloudy water changes are it's a city problem.
Fernando Molina of Tucson Water says there no lead issue here but since lead contamination in Flint, Tucson Water has had a few more questions about lead.
He says lead pipes are rare here except in very old buildings but up to the early 1990s lead was used to connect copper pipe.
"Even though you may have a home with some lead in the pipe joints. The scaling that builds up around that creates a protective coating. So it's not a problem unless you go in and disturb that plumbing."
Tucson Water posts water quality reports on its website.
If you do want to test your water for lead, we found reasonably priced test kits in local hardware stores.
