Phoenix/Gilbert Water

[housewolf]

I'm a sourdough baker but have been having trouble with my sourdough starter here. It seems that there's something in the water here that's inhibiting the yeast in my sourdough starter - what's happening is that the starter activates as it should but doesn't rise enough to have enough leavening power.

I've experimented for several months using tap water, reverse osmosssis water from a water store, Basha's brand drinking water, Arrowhead drinking water and Arrowhead spring water. The only water that allows the starter to rise correctly is Arrowhead spring water, the rest all seem to contain something that inhibits the yeast in the starter.

I'm thinking it could be too much salt in the water or else too much chlorine. I've thought about the chlorine and tried the usual de-chlorinating measures of boiling the water and/or letting it sit out overnight - doesn't work. I've heard that there is some sort of chlorine that doesn't dissipate, so I'm wondering if that's what's in use here.

So my question here is this - does anyone here know what's in the water here? Is there a lot of salt in the water? Do they use some sort of unusual chlorine?

Thanks for any help...

[bananas]

1. lots of stuff added

I saw a list once of about 30 chemicals added to tap water.
Some places add eel poison to the reservoir to kill eels,
not for any health reason, just so that people fishing in
the reservoir won't catch fish with eels hanging off them.
Various hemicals are added to prevent pipe corrosion for
the various types of pipes used.
In San Diego county, if you have to add water to a fish tank,
you can't just let it sit overnight, there's stuff in there
that doesn't evaporate, it will kill the fish (or so I've been told).