[amazingamazing]

Which state is this? Some states such as Massachusetts and Maine, will allow you to have a well, but then you cannot have central water. Thus, the dichotomy is irrelevant since it's not like someone actually has a choose, since it's done on the municipal level.

In fact, generally the places in Connecticut, and New England that have well water are because they specifically cannot have the other.

I don't know much about western USA, but I suspect it's similar.

[potato3732842]

You're being actively misleading. Like on a scale of normal people to politicians to liars you're at least in the politicians range.

The only states with restrictive surface water policies, generally, are the western ones, because every drop of water is allocated according to interstate agreements and letting peasants take what falls on their land is like the toddler version of letting privateers crap on a treaty.

In New England and the east generally, you can either have a well or municipal water, not both, because they don't want to worry about back flows and contamination of the municipal water supply, etc. It's not the big deal you're making it out to be.

[amazingamazing]

> In New England and the east generally, you can either have a well or municipal water, not both, because they don't want to worry about back flows and contamination of the municipal water supply, etc. It's not the big deal you're making it out to be.

this just isn't true. Can you have private well water in Boston, Hartford or Portsmouth? The answer is no. In general in the northeast, those who have well water have it explicitly because they're not served by the municipality. Feel free to give counter examples with specific cities or towns that serve both and actively let you switch between both for a given address that supports both.

There are some towns in New Hampshire for example where the town has municipal water but a given house does not (it has well water), but usually that’s due to specific characteristics of the lot that forbid it from having a municipal without a large cost, so the developer sets up well water instead.

What you're saying doesn't even make sense - municipal water is routed to a treatment plant, so it wouldn't matter anyway.

[ericmay]

> Can you have private well water in Boston, Hartford or Portsmouth? The answer is no

Why do you think that is?