Hi Micklee. We've been visiting Spain and the balaerics for the last 10 years and have always used the tap water to clean our teeth. We also have ice in our drinks, and have never come down with a bad tummy yet! (touch wood!!!!)

Thanks Elaine for info..been to Majorca several years ago..Bad Tummy......Tennerife..OK Though.

I always use tap water to clean my teeth in Benidorm.

I always have ice cubes in my drinks too. Only get rid of ice cubes from my drink if they look really cloudy.

Never had a dodgy tummy either.

I drink the tap water in Benidorm. I've neve been ill. I think the water quality these days in Spain is nothing like it used to be many years ago. Of course, there will still be bottled water available. Its a money making business afterall. But I've never had a problem from drinking tap water in Benidorm over the past three or so years.

I think the reason people (including the locals) prefer to drink bottled water is because the local tapwater has quite strong "aftertaste" because it has a very high mineral content (just look in the kettles!) I have drunk it on several occasions when the bottled stuff has run out and I've needed an early morning drink after the night before and never suffered any after effects. This is 2006 and Spain is an EU member subject to the same directives on drinking water quality as we are.

Anyone who drinks the tap water in Benidorm is a braver person than me, and I personally, would never recommend drinking tap water, it does have a very high mineral content and this can be clearly seen when running a bath or trying to get a lather from a bar of soap.

Benidorm's water is piped 480 kms from the river Tajo and stored in 2 reservoirs.
The level in these reservoirs plummeted so low this year that at one stage, they had to turn off the pumps because the pumps were in danger of being clogged up with silt and cr@p.

The organisation of consumers and users in Spain, (OCU) has investigated the quality of the drinking water in 50 provincial capitals and they concentrated their investigations on a substance called "trihalomethan" which is a substance that occurs when organic materials come in contact with the chlorine in dams these substances are damaging to the liver and kidneys.
The permitted level is 100 mgs per litre of water and they also investigated the content of salts and the other algae.
According to their report dated March 2006....37% of the cities investigated surpassed the legal limit of 100 micrograms of trihalomethan per litre water and some of the provincial capitals surpassed even 150 micrograms . amongst them were Alicante and Murcia.
Whilst the tests did not extent to the smaller tourist municipalities, they stated that when the results are as indicated for the provincial capitals, they expected that some of the tourist municipalities have water that is not strictly potable.

Benidorm is about to have (or may now have) a new desalination plant, that is expected to return to the sea five cubic litres of slush, via a huge pipe that will discharge its load several hundred metres from the shore"¦ the regenerated water from the plant will be used for agriculture in Benidorm and part of Altea.

You should have no problem cleaning your teeth with it, but using it in a kettle will "fur" up the element and your cuppa tea will have a floating mineral slick on the top.
I would also suggest washing salad and fruit in bottled water .for the price of it, in my opinion, it is just not worth the risk.
The water quality is nowhere like the quality that we take for granted in the UK and in some places clearly falls short of the proposed/acceptable EU directives....it may have improved, but still has a long way to go.

Some people cannot tolerate the unusual high mineral content and this can lead to tummy problems.....I personally know people who are Spanish born and bred, who live in Benidorm and they don't drink the tap water so that should tell us all something!"¦they wouldn't buy bottled water just for the sake of it.!

The quality of bottled water also varies.....the higher the price, then I've found the better the water, and I've proved this by buying a huge bottle for less than a euro and even this has "furred" up the kettle element.
I started buying smaller bottles and paying more...and the kettle was a clean as the day I bought it, subsequently not needing descaling when arriving home....or my stomach.!

The only place that I would even consider drinking the tap water is in Madrid"¦the capital has good quality water that originates from the mountain range in the North of the province, and stored in reservoirs from where is channelled directly to the consumer via the Canal de Isabel 11"¦a waterway sponsored by the queen and therefore named after her.

Sanjiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

According to THIS website, tap water in Spain is safe for drinking purposes, although it may taste different to what you are used to in the UK.

Sanji makes a valid point, but it would seem to all be a matter of personal taste.

here we go again.

Sue

I personally prefer to gain my information from "official" Spanish websites with no vested interest, or from the people who actually live in Spain and not a site that is selling property and therefore promoting the Costa Blanca.

The quality of water can deteriorate rapidly from what is tested in the reservoirs to what actually comes out of the taps in your hotel bathroom.
How do you define "safe"?"¦ whilst it may not cause widespread fatalities, the quality may only just meet standards for human consumption.
The problem in Spain (as I see it) is that the water quality and control is not consistent throughout the country we still have farmers, particularly pig farmers, contaminating the water upstream with nitrates.

Farmers are as important to Spain's economy as tourists, and they (farmers) literally get their water for free, therefore measures to safeguard their supply has seen a massive investment in desalination plants, up and down the country, with little return for the investment when comparing the cost of building and operating desalination plants, and the economy generated from produce by farmers.

There are regional differences from one autonomous community to another, from the point of view of water management, water availability, transfers and laws.
Who owns what from the river basin to the reservoir to the pipeline to the consumer varies from region to region"¦and so does the quality and quantity of water.
Many residents inland still prefer and in many cases have no choice, but to draw their water from underground sources like wells....they obviously become accustomed to its taste, when there are no other alternatives available.

Referring to the report by OCU which is on the Cuidadanos Europeos (European Citizens) website"¦the best drinking water is found in the cities of Madrid, Logrono, Cuenca, Granada, Jaen, Lerida, Oviedo, Teruel and Palma de Mallorca.
OCU complained that the water in Murcia contained algae, that the liquid coming out of the tap in Avila is muddy, and that the water in Ciudad Real, Zamora and Caceres is at the point of becoming "gaseosa", meaning gassy.
As expected, the cities being told that their water is not drinkable, protested....but it proves my point that water quality varies from region to region.

In conclusion, I personally think that despite the investment and infrastructure that has been poured into Spain's water industry since the 90's, the lack of quality and control Nationwide still gives cause for concern and therefore anyone making a sweeping statement that the water in Spain is safe to drink, is IMO giving out dubious information.

Sanjiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

There appears to be a similar thread running on the Costa Del Sol......click HERE

July/August 2005

Yes, I saw the date.....my point was it is a similar topic.

We use the tap water in Benidorm for a cuppa all the time with no ill effects and believe my stomach would play up if there was something wrong with it. When I went to Spain & her islands in the 70's I always bought bottled water, had no ice cubes in drinks and even cleaned my teeth with bottled water but I always got a bad stomach, so bad in Majorca once, that I had to have antibiotics to clear it up, the usual salvacolina tablets that I bought there wouldn't clear it and they usually cleared it after only two tablets.

Here is my own personal opinion, based on 55 years of learning what and what not to put into your tummy The average tummy will have no problem with small amounts, like brushing your teeth, or even ice cubes, as long as they havn't been left in the drink long enough to completely melt. I would not personally recommend drinking large amounts of unboiled Spanish tap-water. It is true what Sanji says, if you boil the water, you will still possibly notice a little bit of scum clinging to the sides of your full cup, although this soon disappears. If you drink a lot of tea or coffee, you may feel better psychologically if you use bottled water. When you boil the water however, any mineral substances which contain bacteria which might disagree with you are neutralised, when I boil the tap-water, I always let it boil for 20 or 30 seconds before I use it. I would wash salad in bottled water.

My advice is aimed at those with a normal tummy and average immune system.

I wouldn't get obsessed with trihalomethane levels. I think the average level found in swimming pools is over 130micrograms/litre (and even breathing the air above the pool water exposes you to about 100micrograms per cubic metre). You probably injest more each time you open the door on your dishwasher than you'd get by drinking Spanish tapwater for a fortnight. Since it is caused by the chlorination process, you could even interpret it as an indication of "safe" water. There may be alleged health risks due to long term exposure but it doesn't worry me to drink a few glasses on holiday.
The furring up on kettles is caused by minerals like calcium carbonate (chalk) which precipitate out when you heat water. Dissolved mineral content is measured by the "hardness" of the water. It is not an indication of "poor" water quality in any way. The purest water you can get is distilled water, which tastes even worse than Spanish tapwater!

Hiya Colin.
I personally won't be getting obsessed with trihalomethane levels because I won't be drinking the tap water, and people can decide for themselves whether to drink it or not.

Trihalomethane occurs when organic material comes in contact with chlorine, so that could also be interpreted that the Spanish are using far too much chlorine in the reservoirs to kill the organic material and cr@p.
The OCU regard this subject as a worthy cause and have put out a statement.
I don't know too many people who drink swimming pool water or who are chemists to analyse the contents of the water coming out of the tap.

The Spanish now rank as the 6th in the world for the consumption and sales of bottled water and that could be because of tourists, as well as the natives, having no confidence in the quality of the drinking water.
http://www.ocu.org/images/25/253331_ATTACH.pdf

Each to their own and just my view.

Sanjiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii