Mukhande Singh, the founder of Live Water. (Live Water)

A story published last week in the New York Times about a so-called “raw water” movement along the West Coast unleashed a torrent of ridicule online.

The gist: a growing number of people are getting their drinking water directly from natural springs — unfiltered and untreated — having decided that tap water is laden with chemicals and bottled water is stripped of valuable minerals.

The trend has alarmed public health professionals, who point out that water is cleaned for a reason. It can be polluted by agricultural runoff, disease-carrying organisms, and other contaminants that bring on everything from stomach problems to death.

Even so, the Times reported that a handful of entrepreneurs had launched companies to meet the demands of people looking to get off the municipal water grid.

Much of the online reaction to the story has centered on Mukhande Singh, a colorful 30-year-old who told the newspaper he was driven in part by a belief that tap water was laced with mind-control drugs. His Los Angeles company, Live Water, sells glass bottles of raw water in liberal enclaves across California.

But it turns out Singh’s product isn’t as kooky as some might expect.

He gets it from Opal Springs, an underground aquifer in Central Oregon that also happens to be the source of municipal water for thousands of customers in the region.

In an email interview, Singh, 30, said he spent nearly a year scouting the West Coast before settling on Opal Springs. “It has the best mineral report I’ve ever seen,” he said.

The water, filtered by time and volcanic basalt, flows from a huge underground lake at the bottom of a canyon. It’s delivered directly to homes and bottlers — with no filtering or sterilization of any kind.

“That’s because it doesn’t need to be treated,” said Edson Pugh, the general manager of the Deschutes Valley Water District, which operates the system. “The water’s great. It really is.”

So great, he noted, that the district has won multiple contests for Oregon’s best tasting water. Residents served by the district commonly bring jugs of the stuff with them when going out of town, where tap water can carry the faint taste of chlorine.

None of this gets Singh off the hook with medical experts for what they say are his unsupported claims about the health benefits of raw water, or for his encouragement of people to partake from springs along trails and roadsides.

Asked about Singh’s marketing of Opal Springs water, Pugh said it “definitely is out-of-the-box thinking.”

“More power to him, I guess,” he added. “It’s hard for me to fathom because our customers are getting it for normal water utility rates, which is under a penny a gallon.”

Live Water’s price? A delivery of 2.5 gallons goes for at least $12. (Jug is extra).

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