Do You Drink Lawton’s Tap Water?

While the fact that I know enough about pop culture to make this reference might bring on a little self-loathing, the question of whether you drink tap water in Lawton may seem like a District 1 vs District 13 question, but I think it's a universally fair thing to ask. Let me explain why.

I don't remember exactly what year it was, but back in the late 00s I discovered my best bro and his wife watered their dogs with bottled water. Not like the individually packed bottles, but the Sam's Club 5-gallon type bottled water. I thought it was weird, but the story they told me was enough to convince me to stop drinking Lawton's tap water.

They had a love for boxer dogs. At any given time they usually had two. They really were a couple of sweet and gentle puppers. When I questioned why on earth they gave bottled water to their pups, they said it was advised by their veterinarian, who shall remain nameless since they still practice here in town...

My initial thought was to challenge the advice, we're talking about dogs after all, but according to them, it all began with their boxers' bladder and kidney issues.

At some point before then, both of their dogs developed similar issues with their urinary systems. Randomly, those dogs would occasionally have blood in their waste. Sounds horrible, doesn't it?

After a few trips to the vet, they were told to give bottled/purified water to their dogs... This all according to both of them. I know these people, they aren't liars and I'd never suspect they would just make this sort of thing up... They said the vet told them that Lawton's water was so poorly passable to the drinking water standards that it had a tendency to crystalize in the body, at least in the bodies of dogs. The crystals irritated the kidneys and bladder thus making it all bleed from the inside. They swapped to bottled/purified water, the problem went away, according to them.

It really didn't make any difference to me, I grew up in the country where the water was already cloudy with silt and minerals, I kept a Brita pitcher in the fridge and continued to drink the tap water for years... until I made a friend that worked at the City of Lawton water treatment facility.

Boy howdy, you should hear the horror stories from that place over the last decade or so. Years of neglect, people more-or-less "putting in their time," fatbergs, and the white slime... I can't share the stories specifically because it might out my old friend, but it was enough to change my mind about drinking the tap water in city limits. I mean, Lawton conforms to meet the minimum standards for drinking water... but it's the gross-out factor that got me thinking it was only good enough to shower in.

It all came up over the weekend in conversation at a party, and the room was mixed. It turned out the older people were more willing to drink out of the tap, got me wondering what a bigger sample size might reveal... So, do you drink the tap water in Lawton? Yay or nay?