A few years ago, someone drove out here to visit me. Since she was planning on driving anyway, I gave her a little advice. I said “Vegas water is not exactly tasty stuff. And the big hotels will gladly charge you for bottled water. If you are smart, you’ll pull off the highway before you make it all the way to the Strip and buy yourself a cheap flat of water at a grocery store. If you don’t drink it while you’re here, you can always drink it on the way back home.”

Now an official study has declared what many people already knew: even though Vegas water meets Federal safety standards, it’s some of the worst municipal drinking water available in a major city. Vegas water comes from two main sources: underground springs and Lake Mead.

There are a lot of things that you can do to improve your water quality in Vegas without springing for bottled water. First, there’s water softeners. Most households in Vegas already have the “loop” to install one in the garage, if not a pre-installed unit. They work by a chemical reaction where sodium or potassium pulls calcium and magnesium out of the water. The salty “brine” left behind is then flushed as waste water. A common misconception is that you end up drinking salty water, but it turns out that the water softener only adds a very small amount of sodium, far less than you get from typical processed foods.

Many househholds also have filtration systems for their drinking water. These systems can be as simple as a filtering pitcher — or it’s larger undersink filtration cousins — or as complicated as a reverse osmosis system. There are a lot of different kinds of filter systems, each with its own benefits, drawbacks, and costs. In addition to the installation cost, don’t forget to consider the ongoing cost of filter materials. A guide like this one can help you pick the right sort of system before you start talking to salesmen (whose job is to convince you that his system is best!). It is worth noting that most refrigerators with icemakers have filters built into them. It is my personal experience that these filters usually need to be replaced every 6-9 months.

Remember that these filter systems are also very likely to remove chlorine from water. While this will make it taste better, it also means there is nothing left to kill germs in it anymore. So be sure to drink up or stick it in the fridge soon after filtering.

Of course, if you have time and patience, it is possible to cheaply purify your own water at home. This is a skill which will also serve if you are someplace where the water system has been compromised or if you are camping.

To get the most detailed information possible about Vegas’s water, be sure to check out the information available from the Southern Nevada Water Authority.