Before arriving in Philadelphia, I had never heard of the Schuylkill River. Hearing the river pronounced by locals, SKOO-kill, was a great help in not embarrassing myself with an uninformed attempt. But Philadelphians are used to having the Schuylkill in their mouths; it has long been the city’s source of drinking water. 

The tap pours clean, clear, with almost no gas. At first taste, the water is chalky. The chalkiness actually makes the water feel dry and gritty in my mouth. It penetrates my palette as if breathing the dust from clapping erasers on the elementary school walls. But, it tastes like you expect clean water to, except with a hint of chlorine. Maybe, you could say, it tastes like a lightly bleached cucumber. It is swishy with a low viscosity and a bland aftertaste. 

My note on the cucumber flavor is surprising, because upon doing further research, I discovered that Philadelphia had an actual problem with cucumber flavors in their water supply. In 1981, the city reduced the free chlorine content in its water supply, but then a unique cucumber flavor entered its supply seasonally. Upon investigation, scientists and tasters discovered that the cucumber flavor originated 250 miles up the Delaware River in a reservoir that was growing algae beneath its winter ice. (Burlingame) This algae infused the water with something called trans,2-cis,6-nonadienal, a compound that reminds the tongue of cucumber. 

I would assume that Philadelphia has resolved this cucumber issue since the 1992 report. Or perhaps they should have doubled down considering that cucumber water is now all the rage at a number of health food shops. At least the water tasted green. 

Before Philadelphia had a public water system, the residents relied on wells, but a yellow fever problem emerged. An outbreak of the disease in 1793 that decimated the city pushed local politicians to find a clean water solution. 

Luckily, Benjamin Franklin died in 1790. Well, luckily Benjamin Franklin died as a wealthy man, prominent leader, and master scientist. Franklin had realized that the wells of Philadelphia could not sustain growth. His will bequeathed 100,000 pounds to the city for the development of public water infrastructure. The founding father explained the need for a new system: “the covering of the ground-plot of the city with buildings and pavements, which carry out most of the rain, and prevents its soaking into the Earth and renewing and purifying the Springs, whence the water of wells must gradually grow worse.”

The first system was completed in 1801 and used steam engines to pump Schuylkill River water into the Centre Square Works. The original pumps were replaced in 1817 with a high pressure engine and a dam was completed in 1822 with the opening of the Fairmount Water Works. This pump house would serve the city until 1909, when it became apparent that the water was so polluted that the water works were actually harming the water quality. (McGuire)

In the intervening century, the city attempted to regulate pollution in the Schuylkill. Most notably, Fairmount Park replaced large manufacturing along the river as a municipal strategy to prevent industrial pollution. (Holst) The city also constructed sewers to improve sanitation in 1883. dumping eventually made the water undrinkable, though, and the city had to invest in filtration. Filtering facilities were completed in 1899 and again in 1908, when they also began chlorinating the water. 

The city began to pump from the confluence of the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers and implemented modern treatment techniques like ozone treatment in the post World War II years. In 1954, Philadelphia became the largest city in America to use fluoride in their public water supply. (Holst)

The city has had some hiccups in drinking water–the 1773 yellow fever, the pollution of the Schuylkill towards the end of the 1800s, the rogue flavor of cucumber in the eighties–but to its credit, it had one of the earliest public water systems in the States. We can thank Ben Franklin for that (just like we can thank his friend for carbonated water.)