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subject: A Rusty Story [print this page]

The night I moved into my three-story brownstone in Brooklyn there

was a fire down the street. It was just a little one, and no one was

hurt, but once the fire hydrants were on all my tap water was brown.

So much rust! Many of the pipes in my neighborhood are over a century

old, some of the oldest in America, I think. I had never encountered

rusty water before, and I didn't notice the rust until I had already

drunk half a glass of tap water. Then I looked down into the glass,

and I let out a little shriek and dropped it and rusty water was all

over the carpet. (OK, maybe I was a little prissy back then.) But

once I called the water department, it only took a few hours to get

rid of the rust.

The two water technicians said I wasn't in any

danger even though I drank some of the rust, and they also explained

that when the fire hydrants were turned on the sudden force of the

water caused the iron particles that had been collecting at the bottom

of the pipes to mix in with the drinking water. Usually these iron

particles just sit there undisturbed. Anyway, I've lived in New York

for four years now and I never again had problems with rust in the

water. Problems with my upstairs neighbors screaming in the middle of

the night and problems finding a cab and getting lost and getting

stuck in traffic and strange people staring at me on the subways, yes,

but no more problems with rusty water.

A Rusty Story

By: David Cassell

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