It's not a button, though, it's a complex series of filters and reverse osmosis, which can't particularly be bypassed or "missed." (My brother is a chemical engineer who specializes in water filtration.)

Well, that's good to know. :)
I guess I don't have a problem with that. They used saltwater converted to freshwater at the Monterey Bay Aquarium while I worked there. It tasted the same...

Plus,while there have to be fears of procedural breakdown with any system like this, U.S. municipal water providers have an amazing track record of providing extremely clean healthy drinking water.

Huge parts of the country drink water that prior to going into the drinking system are exposed to all kinds of environmental contaminations (all those fish eating, pooping, and dying up in the Hetch Hetchy reservoir, for example). The industrial waste that goes into the Mississippi at Minneapolis is to some degree in the water when it is sucked out of the river at St. Louis for drinking water.

No matter what environmental things we may or may not end up doing, most OC'ers will be freaked out. I'm with Alex the topic. While some people may be doing things, the prevailing attitudes will render anything nil - or so has been my experience of the last 12 years. Furthermore, I'm consistently disappointed in Southern California and California in general. They bitch and moan about environmental issues, but few are willing to do anything on their own about it. When my gums start flapping about being a better environmentalist, it won't be before I am a better environmentalist.

If they're going ahead and doing it, then it will be an improvement. If it were up for vote, then I'd agree that most people's paranoia would prevent it from going through, but the vast majority of OC residents likely won't ever know that they've started doing this, so I don't think there's much chance that a sudden decrease in use of tap water will result.

All I know is, the tap water in NYC was better tasting than most bottled water I've ever had. If they can make our water taste like that, no matter where it originally came from, many more people would be on board.

I had the same experience with NYC water.
Hawai'i's water is pretty good.
But I think the water I had in Lone Pine, CA was the best tasting water I've had. Rumor has it that the city's water comes from the same well Crystal Geyser uses... :)

Interestingly, I've all three of the aforementioned waters and yes, they are quite tasty straight from the tap!

There are several brands of bottled water that are just filtered tap water.

Aquafina and I think Dasini come to mind.

Next time I visit friends in OC I'm going to ask for a glass of peepee.