A salty flavor is an indication of a high salt content (primarily sodium sulfate and magnesium sulfate) in the water. This may have a laxative effect in some situations.

Treatment: Reverse osmosis (RO) has become a common method of treating household drinking water supplies. An RO system is typically installed at the kitchen sink and will treat drinking water only. RO systems use a lot of water. They recover only 5 to 15 percent of the water entering the system. The remainder is discharged as waste water. To learn more, see NDSU Reverse Osmosis Publication AE-1047.

Always have your water tested and base any treatment on those results. Our Water Quality Interpretation Tool will aid you in your decisions.