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I Am
Water
I Am
Water
I AM WATER · Public Water Education
I am not a resource.
I am life.
A short, honest guide to drinking better, protecting your water, and understanding exactly what’s flowing out of your New York City tap.
60%of you is water
125 miyour tap water’s trip from the Catskills
<1%of Earth’s water we can actually drink
Part 1
Know water
Before you can protect something, it helps to actually understand it.
2.5%of Earth’s water is fresh — and less than 1% of all water is usable by us. The rest is locked in ice and glaciers.
97 / 3salt water to fresh water — the entire planet’s split, no more, no less.
21 / 37of the world’s largest aquifers are being drained faster than they refill, per gravitational data from NASA’s GRACE satellites.
40 / 50U.S. states expect some form of water shortage within the next decade.
Nearly all of it is the same water that’s been on Earth since the oceans first formed — only a faint trickle arrives fresh each year, as ice from comets entering the atmosphere. — paraphrased from “Blue Gold,” Barlow & Clarke
What’s actually in bottled water
~240,000average plastic particles found in a single liter of bottled water — nine in ten are nanoplastics small enough to cross into your bloodstream. (Columbia/Rutgers, 2024)
90,000 vs 4,000microplastics ingested per year by people who drink mostly bottled water vs. mostly tap.
Where it comes from: independent testing has found traceable plastic particles in most bottled water brands checked — much of it shedding from the bottle, the cap, and the filtration process itself, not the source water.
PFAS — the “forever chemicals”
PFAS — used in nonstick cookware, waterproof and stain-resistant fabrics, firefighting foam, fast-food wrappers, and some cosmetics — don’t break down in nature. They enter water systems through factory discharge, firefighting-foam runoff near airports and military sites, and ordinary washing or disposal of treated products. A 2024 global study found two of the most common PFAS compounds in over 99% of bottled water samples tested across 15 countries, and a separate worldwide analysis of 45,000 water samples flagged the U.S., Australia, and Europe as contamination hotspots. In the U.S. specifically, government testing estimates that nearly half of all tap water contains at least one PFAS compound.
Where it shows up in your body
Blood
88–90% of people tested in recent biomonitoring studies show detectable microplastics in their bloodstream.
Brain
A 2025 study found close to a spoon’s worth of microplastic in human brain tissue samples.
Heart
People with microplastics in arterial plaque were roughly twice as likely to have a heart attack, stroke, or die within three years. (NEJM, 2024)
Before birth
Microplastics have turned up in placenta, umbilical cord blood, and breast milk across multiple studies.
This isn’t about alarm — the long-term health effects are still being studied. It’s about understanding why the closed loop, and what you choose to drink, actually matters.
“I am not polluted. I only hold human pollution. I am your bloodstream, your embryonic fluid. I was here before you existed.”
I AM WATER — Manifesto
Water quality around the world
Leading the world
Austria, Finland, Iceland, Denmark, Switzerland, and Norway consistently top the Yale Environmental Performance Index for water quality — protected watersheds, strict regulation, and modern treatment.
Under the most strain
Chad, the Central African Republic, Niger, Afghanistan, Madagascar, and Bangladesh rank lowest on the same index — a mix of contamination, aging or absent infrastructure, and climate pressure.
The U.S. — and NYC’s supply specifically — sits in the upper tier globally, but not the very top. Aging pipes and emerging contaminants like PFAS are the main reason why.
Decode your water report
TDS — Total Dissolved Solids
Minerals and salts in your water. Matters more than pH.
0Healthy: 120–300 mg/L600+
Hardness
Calcium + magnesium content. Not a health issue — just soap and kettles.
Soft0–180 mg/LHard
pH
How acidic or alkaline. Neutral is the target for drinking water.
Acidic <7Neutral 7–7.5Alkaline >7.5
Part 2
Drink well
Hydration isn’t complicated. A handful of small habits do most of the work.
01
Morning
A cup of water on an empty stomach rehydrates you after a night’s sleep.
02
Before meals
One cup about 30 minutes before eating supports digestion.
03
Through the day
Smaller sips at steady intervals beat chugging a bottle all at once.
04
Before sleep
A small glass ~30 minutes before bed offsets the moisture you lose overnight.
05
Store it right
Didn’t finish your bottle? Refrigerate it so it stays fresh, don’t let it sit warm.
If you’re choosing bottled, know the label
PurifiedRegular tap water, treated for taste and purity.
Natural mineralFrom an underground source, with naturally occurring minerals.
ArtesianFrom a high-quality well, naturally pressurized and mineral-rich.
SparklingAny of the above, with dissolved CO₂ added.
Before you buy: bottled water can run 1,000–10,000× the cost of tap, a meaningful share of it started as ordinary municipal tap water in different packaging, and roughly two-thirds of the plastic bottles never get recycled. Producing a single half-liter bottle takes several liters of water on its own. If your tap tests clean — and in NYC it usually does — a glass or steel bottle refilled at the sink is the simplest upgrade you can make.
Filtering, simply: a carbon filter (pitcher or faucet-mount) handles chlorine taste and most everyday concerns. Reverse osmosis removes more, including minerals, so pair it with a remineralization stage if you go that route. Either way, look for NSF certification.
Part 3
Protect it
There is no “away.” What goes down the drain comes back around.
“What you flush, wash, and discard doesn’t disappear. It returns — to your tap, your food, your blood, your child before birth.”
I AM WATER — The Closed Loop
The loop
1
Daily life
Medicine flushed, synthetic fabrics washed, chemicals used, plastic bought.
2
The drain
Enters pipes, sewers, storm drains, and street runoff.
3
Treatment
Removes bacteria — but not all microplastics, pharmaceuticals, or PFAS.
4
River & aquifer
Treated water enters rivers and groundwater; ecosystems absorb what remains.
5
Back to you
In your tap, your food, your fish, and your blood.
Common source, easy fix
Medicine flushed down the toilet
Return unused medicine to a pharmacy
Synthetic clothing washed
Choose natural fibers when you can
Single-use plastic bottles
Carry a reusable glass or steel bottle
Cleaning chemicals, paint, motor oil
Take to hazardous waste collection
Lawn pesticides & fertilizers
Use natural products; let rain gardens filter runoff
Wet wipes
Flush only the three P’s: paper, pee, poo
The hidden footprint of your clothes
At the factory
Textile dyeing is the second-largest polluter of clean water on the planet — about a fifth of global industrial water pollution. Dyeing one kilogram of fabric can use 30–50 liters of water, and part of every batch, along with heavy metals like chromium and lead, is discharged as wastewater.
In the wash
A single load of synthetic laundry can shed hundreds of thousands to millions of microscopic plastic fibers. Most treatment plants can’t filter them out — textile washing is estimated to account for roughly a third of all primary microplastic entering the ocean.
On the skin
Some dyes and PFAS-based water-repellent coatings can migrate from fabric to skin with heat, sweat, or friction. The longer and tighter the contact — activewear, children’s clothing — the greater the exposure.
Your everyday water footprint
What it actually takes to grow, make, and get everyday things to you.
Cup of coffee
140 L37 gal
Cotton t-shirt
2,700 L713 gal
Pair of jeans
7,600 L2,000 gal
Beef, 1 kg
15,000 L3,963 gal
Chicken, 1 kg
3,900 L1,030 gal
One burger
2,350 L621 gal
One apple
70 L18 gal
0.5L bottle, to make
5.5 L1.5 gal
Toilet flush
4 L1 gal
Canned pet food, 1 kg
13,880 L3,667 gal
Bottle of ketchup
530 L140 gal
Disposable diaper
545 L144 gal
Figures are widely cited UN Water Footprint Network and industry averages — actual numbers vary by farming method, region, and supply chain.
Your household checklist
0 of 12 protected today
Kitchen
Bathroom
Shopping
Part 4
What’s in your NYC tap
New York City runs one of the most tested water systems on Earth. Here’s what’s actually true about it right now.
Source
Most of your water falls as rain and snow in the Catskill and Delaware watersheds, up to 125 miles north of the city, then travels here mostly by gravity. It’s the largest unfiltered water supply in the U.S. — protected instead of filtered, through a watershed program the city has invested well over a billion dollars in.
Treatment
Before it reaches your tap, the water is disinfected with chlorine and UV light, fluoridated, and dosed with a corrosion-control additive that helps keep lead from leaching out of old pipes.
Monitoring
DEP runs over 600,000 water quality tests a year across 100+ contaminants, and publishes results annually in the Drinking Water Quality Report — searchable by ZIP code.
Lead
There’s no lead in the water leaving treatment plants. What shows up at a tap comes from old plumbing inside buildings, mostly ones built before 1986. Citywide levels sit well below the EPA’s action threshold — but in an older building, a certified filter or a home test is a smart, cheap precaution.
PFAS (“forever chemicals”)
Trace amounts have been detected, but consistently far below federal and state limits — NYC’s levels rank among the lowest of any major U.S. city. DEP keeps monitoring closely, given PFAS problems found elsewhere in New York State.
Hardness & taste
Catskill/Delaware water runs soft to moderate; water from the Croton system, used more in parts of the Bronx and Manhattan, is somewhat harder. Neither is a health concern — just a difference in how soap lathers and kettles scale up.
Plastic waste
New Yorkers throw away more than 740 million single-use plastic water bottles a year — about 21 million pounds. Only around 40–47% of that actually gets captured for recycling; the rest is landfilled or incinerated. (NYC Mayor’s Office / DSNY)
Carbon footprint
Producing a single plastic bottle emits roughly 80 grams of CO₂ on average. Scaled to NYC’s 740 million bottles a year, that’s an estimated 60,000+ metric tons of CO₂ annually from bottle production alone — similar to adding about 13,000 more cars to the road. (Our estimate, based on published industry life-cycle figures.)
Tap water here is tested more often, and more thoroughly, than anything sold in a bottle.
The biggest real risk isn’t the city’s supply — it’s what’s inside your own building’s pipes. Filter if you’re unsure, and check your ZIP code’s report.
The biggest real risk isn’t the city’s supply — it’s what’s inside your own building’s pipes. Filter if you’re unsure, and check your ZIP code’s report.
Check your ZIP code → NYC DEP Drinking Water Quality Report
What New Yorkers actually ask
Do I need to filter my water?
Not for safety — DEP’s water meets every federal standard. A basic carbon filter mainly helps with chlorine taste, or is worth it if you’re in a pre-1986 building with old pipes.
Why does it sometimes taste or smell like a swimming pool?
Usually a seasonal uptick in chlorine dosing, or planned aqueduct maintenance — not a safety issue.
Is my building part of the risk?
Usually the only part. The water leaving treatment plants has no lead; what shows up at your faucet depends on your building’s own plumbing.
Where can I see real test results for my block?
DEP’s annual Drinking Water Quality Report, searchable by ZIP code — linked above.
Part 5
Join in
Individual habits matter. So does using your voice.
How I AM WATER works
Education. Inspiration. Restoration.
“Water is the teacher that shows us the way back to the places where we lost connection with the process of life and respect for its divine reality.”
Tanja Andrejašič Wechsler, Founder, I AM WATER
Become an active water citizen
Six habits that turn awareness into influence.
- Know your watershed — find out which river or aquifer supplies your water, and who governs it
- Use your voice — ask your city if your river is swimmable, and your school what it teaches about water
- Pass it on — the most powerful water act is education; tell one person what you learned
- Vote with your wallet — support companies and organizations that protect water
- Reconnect physically — walk to your local river or lake; people protect what they love
- Demand transparency — ask your municipality for public water quality reports
When citizens show up
In 2021, Corsican citizens voted to grant the Tavignano River legal rights — one of a growing number of rivers worldwide, alongside New Zealand’s Whanganui, recognized as legal persons with a right to flow and stay healthy.
When they don’t
The 1922 Colorado River Compact divided the river among seven U.S. states without a seat at the table for Mexico or the river itself — a gap still shaping water fights across the Southwest a century later.
Your city’s water decisions get made in rooms like these too — public comment periods, community boards, watershed councils. Showing up is the point.
The I AM WATER Pledge
“I recognize that water is life — and I am water. I am joining the movement for drinkable tap water, swimmable rivers, and a world free of plastic bottles.”
- Carry a reusable bottle — never buy single-use plastic water again
- Learn where my local water comes from and how it’s protected
- Support the restoration of swimmable water in my city
- Reduce my water footprint in food and lifestyle choices
- Support organizations that protect rivers, aquifers, and access
- Speak up — at home, at work, in my city — for water
Five changes that matter most
Carry a reusable bottle
Learn your tap water
Find your nearest swimmable water
Reduce your water footprint
Talk about water
Learn your tap water
Find your nearest swimmable water
Reduce your water footprint
Talk about water
Go deeper