Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Change of plans. I want to test different brands of bottle water to see if they are really safe. What could i test for and how could i preform the tests? thanks for your help.

Hi Justin,
That's quite an interesting topic, and also an extremely complicated one. There are many, many regulated drinking water contaminants. Here is a list of the ones regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency:
http://www.epa.gov/safewater/mcl.html#mcls
Many of the analyses for these potential contaminants are very expensive

One approach you could take would be to focus on a particular contaminant for which you are able to find a cheap analysis method. Microbes and nitrate are some of the more popular tests which are available in some commercial kits (try google for "nitrate test kit").