Yea, potable water is pretty disgusting. I use to tell my kids not to drink the water at school because its the same water they use for the toilets. It seemed to work because they always brought their drinking water bottles to school. I can understand treating acidic water with an alkali base, but I'm not sure why they would use Lye. Some municipals treat their water with chlorine dioxide, which is very good at killing parasites in water. In fact, it works against viruses and is an excellent treatment for malaria.