A couple of days ago the reverse osmosis system I’d installed two months ago in our apartment stopped delivering water. Since the manual said there should be no maintenance for 6 months, I called the manufacturer’s help line. The woman on the phone had me swap the pre- and post-filters, which confirmed that the pre-filter was clogged.

Why would that be? She said, “Do you have a water softener?” “No, this is New York City,” I said. “If the hardness is 10 or more, it could be a problem.” I felt a bit of indignation, having adopted the New York City Water is Great attitude, despite my admittedly short residency. “No, this is New York City,” I said. (I even looked it up later, the hardness is about 1. So there.) The reason for the clogging remained a mystery. I figured we’d just have to cough up $40 or so every two months instead of every six months, to have our water the way we wanted it.

The next day, however, I thought that perhaps I could convince the manufacturer to give us a free replacement filter since it hadn’t behave as claimed. I called again and this time talked to a man on the phone who wasn’t going to give me any freebies, conjecturing that it could be due to … something about New York City water having some kind of … he kept hedging because he didn’t seem to be completely certain, he’d only heard about it … some kind of … creature, microscopic, perhaps a crustacean. I wasn’t sure I was getting the picture. I wasn’t sure the guy wasn’t crazy. New York City water doesn’t come from the ocean, it comes from upstate, naturally filtered and all that, at least I thought so. He continued, saying that he’d heard that there was even some group, a religious group, in New York that wouldn’t drink the water because of it.

Okay, I thought, this is too much. Whether this guy is crazy or whether he’s speaking the truth and the truth is crazy, I have a clogged filter and I’m not getting any satisfaction about a replacement. We finished the call.

This of course is what the Internet was invented for, so I started digging around the web. The official New York City water reports and several articles touting the quality of NYC water I found mentioned nothing about microscopic crustaceans in the water that New Yorkers love to brag about. Perhaps the guy was crazy. The mystery remained. But not for long. Further digging. One article mentioned “copepods”. Then another. Then another.

The Wikipedia entry on copepods says that these nearly micropscopic crustaceans live in fresh water too, and sometimes are intentionally added to water supplies to control mosquito larvae, for example, in Viet Nam (in New York, however, they occur naturally since its water is not filtered). It also says that some tropical countries, there is a correlation between copepods in untreated water and cholera (evidently not in New York). It also describes their discovery in 2004 in the New York City water supply and how, since they are not considered kosher, many observant Jews in New York filter decide to filter their water. Also see this and this.

The guy was not crazy. Copepods will continue to clog my RO system. And next time you hear someone make the usual claim that New York City water is the best, you can agree, and say that, even though they might prefer theirs straight up, you’d like your next serving done up Kung Pao.

It has the ambiance and it has the ice cream. You can try the five different types of Dulce de Leche, but really, as far as I’m concerned it’s all about the Chocolate Amargo.