The D.C. Water and Sewer Authority has some good news to report. After months of recovering from the lead-in-the-water scare, it appears that lead levels have fallen below acceptable levels for the first time in four years, the Post reports. A new chemical to help prevent antiquated lead service lines from leaching into the water system seems to be working. From the Post:

The city’s water treatment plants, operated by the Army Corps of Engineers, began adding orthophospate in August to form a coating inside water pipes and prevent toxic lead from leaching into the water supply. The utility canceled its annual spring flushing with chlorine this year to allow the orthophosphate to do its work.

But authorities are still suggesting that residents should filter tap water.

During the height of the water scare, this DCist was sent a complimentary Brita filter from the water authorities because our dilapidated rowhouse was in a lead pipe hot zone. But we still drank tap water (because the fluoridation is supposed to be good for your teeth, but others say it might give you cancer), so that might explain a few things about DCist, which perhaps puts us on the same level as deranged Roman emperors. From the Environmental Protection Agency’s lead poisoning history page:

Still more alarming was the conspicuous pattern of mental incompetence that came to be synonymous with the Roman elite. This creeping cretinism manifested itself most frighteningly in such clearly degenerate emperors as Caligula, Nero, and Commodus. It is said that Nero wore a breastplate of lead, ostensibly to strengthen his voice, as he fiddled and sang while Rome burned. Domitian, the last of the Flavian emperors, actually had a fountain installed in his palace from which he could drink a never-ending stream of leaded wine.

So do you drink tap water? Are you a Brita fan or is Pur more your style? Or do you avoid water and stick to high-fructose corn syrup-infused sodas?