Minneapolis/St. Paul Make Top Ten List of Cleanest American Cities

The Twin Cities rank ninth on the Forbes.com annual survey of 49 major American cities. We have the lowest ozone level on the survey, boosting us up the list despite average ratings for waste removal spending (no kidding) and water quality (water quality?) That's more disturbing, especially considering we have so much of it in our lakes and rivers.

The Forbes water cleanliness rankings were based on local reports of EPA violations. Violations include incidences of bacteria, chlorine and chlorine by-products, chemicals and metals in the drinking water.

Minneapolis and St. Paul have comparable water quality, unsurprising since much of it comes from similar sources. St. Paul has more lead in the city water, and Minneapolis has more chlorine by-products.

So our air is great - for a big city - but should we be worried about our water? Both Minneapolis and St. Paul's city water is within the EPA standards, comfortably so for most measures. The city of Minneapolis is clearly pleased with it's water quality. This year the city has a $200,000 budget for promoting city water over bottled water. But while there's certainly room for improvement in water quality, couldn't that money be better spent elsewhere?