[randomdrake]

This type of response is exactly what is wrong with the world, in my opinion.

The attitude of "Oh that's absolutely demonstrably awful, here's X to subsidize your life," needs to stop.

How about we create societies where the onus of providing clean drinking water to humans is not arguable?

[personjerry]

Not sure if you misunderstood the article.

The article indicates that potassium permanganate is what caused the water to be pink.

The commenter is explaining that potassium permanganate is harmless and usually used as a water purifier anyway.

I have no idea how that can be interpreted as "Oh that's absolutely demonstrably awful, here's X to subsidize your life,"

[randomdrake]

You are correct. I had only read a bit of the article before coming to the comments.

I should have been more diligent and usually am.

I was projecting other feelings from previous arguments and this isn't the place for it and I deserve those down votes as it clearly wasn't a super helpful addition to the discussion.

Sorry and thanks.

[enraged_camel]

>>The commenter is explaining that potassium permanganate is harmless and usually used as a water purifier anyway.

Harmless at what level? Because even the most harmless chemical substance will become harmful at high enough doses.

[theophrastus]

wikipedia: LD50 (median [lethal] dose) 1090 mg/kg (oral, rat)[1] (a gram per kilogram is fairly non-toxic. NaCl (table salt) LD50 is ~3gram/kg)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_permanganate

[hwillis]

The "pink" amount appears to be in the range of 1-3mg/L. So the LD50 for an 80kg man would be ~30,000 liters orally. That would certainly be lethal. The rule of thumb for this stuff is also "If it's pink, it's safe to drink"[1], as in pink is the minimum concentration to ensure safety. The only reason to avoid higher concentrations is that it will stain heavily.

1: http://bluecollarprepping.blogspot.com/2014/08/potassium-per...

[wwer]

Yup. I heard this di-Hydrogen Oxide can be fatal in very high ingestion cases.

[Coincoin]

I don't know why you are down voted. Your comment is the very first thing that went through my mind when I read the article.

Next time, you might want to use Di-hydrogen monoxide, it's a much scarier name. Everybody knows monoxide is dangerous on anything.

[anigbrowl]

Not sure if you misunderstood the poster you replied to. People don't want pseudoscientific rationalizations for why their preferences don't matter, they want the basic as-pure-as-possible H2O that they paid for.

[personjerry]

Trying to understand what you're saying -- I believe when you say "their preferences" you mean that people want "basic as-pure-as-possible H2O that they paid for". However, all water that we drink is purified by a wealth of processes. That's not pseudoscientific, that's real science. Our purification is the reason we don't get cholera, for example.

If you mean that people want non-pink water, I think that's reasonable. But I also think it's reasonable that the reason the pink color is explained by the actual purifying process. I too concede that the water controlling authorities screwed up by using too much of the chemical, but it seems not in a dangerous amount, and they did well to communicate exactly why, and they also conducted tests to ensure safety of the water, thus effectively following up and checking the potential problems with their screw-up.

As far as government mistakes go, I think this one was relatively mild and handled in an adequate manner.

[hwillis]

randomdrake didn't read the article, and saw the top comment was "you can buy tablets to purify water". He assumed, completely incorrectly, that the commenter was suggesting that people should just buy tablets to purify their water. randomdrake was not trying to comment on how essential services should always be held to exacting standards and that any failure. They weren't trying to say that it is unacceptable for water supplies to have even harmless, temporary inconveniences. They just didn't read the article.

[maxerickson]

And when mistakes and accidents still happen?

(the post you replied to is pointing out that the potassium permanganate that turned the water pink is not especially dangerous, not arguing that the people should be given more potassium permanganate)

[spraak]

Yes! :) +1 I feel similarly (outlined in another sibling comment)