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Message
in a Bottle
Despite the Hype, Bottled Water is
Neither CLEANER nor GREENER Than Tap Water
By Brian Howard
“You drink tap water? Are you crazy?” asks a 21-year-old
radio producer from the Chicago area. “I only drink bottled
water.” In a trendy nightclub in New York City, the bartender
tells guests they can only be served bottled water, which
costs $5 for each tiny half-pint container. One outraged clubber
is stopped by the restroom attendant as she tries to refill
the bottle from the tap. “You can’t do that,” says the attendant.
“New York’s tap water isn’t safe.”
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Customer
Ronald Johnson (right) takes home two packs of bottled
water from a grocery store in Washington, D.C. Twenty
percent of American consumers decline to drink tap water
at all.
© AP Photo / Gerald Herbert
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Whether a consumer is shopping in a supermarket or a health
food store, working out in a fitness center, eating in a restaurant
or grabbing some quick refreshment on the go, he or she will
likely be tempted to buy bottled water. The product comes
in an ever-growing variety of sizes and shapes, including
one bottle that looks like a drop of water with a golden cap.
Some fine hotels now offer the services of “water sommeliers”
to advise diners on which water to drink with different courses.
A widening spectrum of bottled water types are crowding
the market, including spring, mineral, purified, distilled,
carbonated, oxygenated, caffeinated and vitamin-enriched,
as well as flavors, such as lemon or strawberry, and specific
brands aimed at children. Bottled water bars have sprung up
in the hipper districts, from Paris to Los Angeles.
The message is clear: Bottled water is “good” water, as
opposed to that nasty, unsafe stuff that comes out of the
tap. But in most cases tap water adheres to stricter purity
standards than bottled water, whose source—far from a mountain
spring—can be wells underneath industrial facilities. Indeed,
40 percent of bottled water began life as, well, tap water.
A 2001 World Wildlife Fund (WWF) study confirmed
the widespread belief that consumers associate bottled water
with social status and healthy living. Their perceptions trump
their objectivity, because even some people who claim to have
switched to bottled water “for the taste” can’t tell the difference:
When Good Morning America conducted a taste test of its studio
audience, New York City tap water was chosen as the heavy
favorite over the oxygenated water 02, Poland Spring and Evian.
Many of the “facts” that bottled water drinkers swear by are
erroneous. Rachele Kuzma, a Rutgers student, says she drinks
bottled water at school because “it’s healthier” and “doesn’t
have fluoride,” although much of it does have fluoride.
Bottled water is so ubiquitous that people
can hardly ask for water anywhere without being handed a bottle.
But what is the cost to society and the environment?
Largely Self-Regulated
The bottled water industry has exploded
in recent years, and enjoys annual sales of more than $35
billion worldwide. In 2002, almost six billion gallons of
bottled water were sold in the U.S., representing an increase
of nearly 11 percent over 2001. Americans paid $7.7 billion
for bottled water in 2002, according to the consulting and
research firm Beverage Marketing Corporation. Bottled water
is the fastest-growing segment of the beverage industry, and
the product is expected to pass both coffee and milk to become
the second-most-consumed beverage (behind soft drinks) by
2004. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC),
“More than half of all Americans drink bottled water; about
a third of the public consumes it regularly.” While most people
would argue that bottled water is healthier than convenient
alternatives like sugared sodas or artificially flavored drinks,
are the third of bottled water consumers who claim they are
motivated by promises of purity (according to a 2000 survey)
getting what they pay for?
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A
1997 United Nations report concluded that bottled water
has no nutritional advantage over tap water, so why do
so many people think otherwise?
© Brian Fraunfelter |
While the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) regulates the quality of public water supplies, the
agency has no authority over bottled water. Bottled water
that crosses state lines is considered a food product and
is overseen by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which
does mandate that it be bottled in sanitary conditions using
food-grade equipment. According to the influential International
Bottled Water Association (IBWA), “By law, the FDA Standard
of Quality for bottled water must be as stringent as the EPA’s
standards for public drinking water.”
However, the FDA is allowed to interpret
the EPA’s regulations and apply them selectively to bottled
water. As Senior Attorney Erik Olson of the NRDC explains,
“Although the FDA has adopted some of the EPA’s regulatory
standards, it has decided not to adopt others and has not
even ruled on some points after several years of inaction.”
In a 1999 report, the NRDC concludes that bottled water quality
is probably not inferior to average tap water, but Olson (the
report’s principal author) says that gaps in the weak regulatory
framework may allow careless or unscrupulous bottlers to market
substandard products. He says that may be of particular concern
to those with compromised immune systems.
The IBWA urges consumers to trust bottled
water in part because the FDA requires water sources to be
“inspected, sampled, analyzed and approved.” However, the
NRDC argues that the FDA provides no specific requirements—such
as proximity to industrial facilities, underground storage
tanks or dumps—for bottled water sources. That’s looser monitoring
than occurs at the EPA, which requires more specific assessments
of tap water sources. Olson says one brand of “spring water,”
which had a graphic of mountains and a lake on the label,
was actually taken from a well in Massachusetts in the parking
lot of an industrial facility. The well, which is no longer
used for bottled water, was near hazardous waste and had experienced
contamination by industrial chemicals.
According to Olson, the FDA has no official
procedure for rejecting bottled water sources once they become
contaminated. He also says a 1990 government audit revealed
that 25 percent of water bottlers had no record of source
approval. Further, in contrast to the EPA, which employs hundreds
of staffers to protect the nation’s tap water systems, the
FDA doesn’t have even one full-time regulator in charge of
bottled water.
Scott Hoober of the Kansas Rural Water Association
says that although municipal system managers have to pay a
certified lab to test samples weekly, monthly and quarterly
for a long list of contaminants, water bottlers can use any
lab they choose to perform tests as infrequently as once a
year. Unlike utilities, which must publish their lab results
in a public record, bottlers don’t have to notify anyone of
their findings, including consumers who inquire. The FDA has
the authority to ask for a company’s data, although test results
can be destroyed after two years.
Olson adds, “Unlike tap water violations,
which are directly enforceable, if a company exceeds bottled
water standards, it is not necessarily a violation—they can
just say so on the label, and may be insulated from enforcement.”
Further, while EPA rules specify that no confirmed E. coli
or fecal coliform (bacteria that indicate possible contamination
by fecal matter) contamination is allowed in tap water, the
FDA merely set a minimum level for E. coli and fecal coliform
presence in bottled water. Tap water from a surface source
must be tested for cryptosporidium, giardia and viruses, unlike
bottled water, and must also be disinfected, unlike bottled
water. Hoober also notes that food products such as “carbonated
water,” “soda water” and “seltzer water”—in addition to most
flavored waters—are held to even looser standards than “true”
bottled water.
The EPA concludes, “Some bottled water is
treated more than tap water, while some is treated less or
not at all.” Henry Kim, consumer safety officer for the FDA,
asserts, “We want bottled water to have a comparable quality
to that of tap water”—which, of course, runs counter to the
widely held public belief that bottled water is better. The
situation is similar in the European Union and in Canada,
where there are more regulations on tap than bottled water.
That New York restroom attendant would be surprised to learn
that her city’s tap water was tested some 560,000 times in
2002.
Environmentalists also point out that if
a brand of bottled water is wholly packaged and sold within
the same state, it is technically not regulated by the FDA,
and is therefore only legally subject to state standards,
which tend to vary widely in scope and vigor. Co-op America
reports that 43 states have one or fewer staff members dedicated
to bottled water regulation. On the other hand, California
enforces strict regulations on bottled water contaminants,
and Fort Collins, Colorado tests bottled water sold in town
and posts the results online. The NRDC estimates that 60 to
70 percent of bottled water brands sold in the U.S. are single-state
operations. Stephen Kay, vice president of communications
of the IBWA, says he doubts the percentage is that high.
Kay is adamant that “no bottled water escapes
regulation,” and he points out that all members of the IBWA
(which are responsible for 80 percent of U.S. bottled water
sales) must also adhere to the organization’s mandatory Model
Code. This code does close some of the FDA’s regulatory gaps,
including setting a zero tolerance for coliform contamination,
and it requires members to follow certain standards and undergo
an annual, unannounced plant inspection. However, Olson stresses
that, except in a few states, this Model Code is not legally
binding or enforceable. Members of the much smaller National
Spring Water Association follow their own guidelines, and
must get their water from free-flowing springs.
One result of such Byzantine bottled water
standards has been the widespread use of disinfection to reduce
possible contaminants. Although the FDA does not require it,
disinfection is mandatory in several states, including New
York, California and Texas. However, chemicals commonly used
to disinfect water, including chlorine and ozone gas, may
react unpredictably, forming potentially carcinogenic byproducts.
Opponents also argue that disinfection destroys naturally
beneficial bacteria, creating a blank slate. Further, Mark
Johnson of bottler Trinity Springs—which taps a spring in
Idaho so pure it doesn’t need any treatment—concludes, “If
you don’t disinfect, you must protect the source and increase
environmental awareness so the source stays protected.”
What’s Really in that Bottle?
Even with widespread disinfection, consumer
groups have raised numerous warnings about a host of different
microorganisms and chemicals that have been found in bottled
water. In a four-year scientific study, the NRDC tested more
than 1,000 bottles of 103 brands of bottled water. The group
concluded, “Although most bottled water tested was of good
quality, some brands’ quality was spotty.” A third of the
tested brands were found to contain contaminants such as arsenic
and carcinogenic compounds in at least some samples at levels
exceeding state or industry standards.
An earlier NRDC-commissioned study tested
for hundreds of different chemicals in 38 brands of California
bottled water. Two samples had arsenic contamination, six
had chemical byproducts of chlorination, and six had measurable
levels of the toxic chemical toluene. Several samples violated
California’s bottled water standards. In a study published
in the Archives of Family Medicine, researchers at Case Western
Reserve University and Ohio State University compared 57 samples
of bottled water to Cleveland’s tap water. While 39 of the
bottled water samples were purer than the tap water, 15 of
the bottles had significantly higher bacteria levels. The
scientists concluded that although all of the water they tested
was safe to drink, “use of bottled water on the assumption
of purity can be misguided.”
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Plastic
water bottles can take 1,000 years to biodegrade. Nine
out of 10 water bottles end up as garbage or litter, and
that means 30 million per day. A small percentage goes
into recycling bins like the one below.
© Phototake Inc./ Alamy |
Another area of potential concern is the
fact that no agency calls for testing of bottled water after
it leaves its initial packaging plant, leaving some to wonder
what happens during months of storage and transport. To begin
to examine this question, the Kansas Department of Health
and Environment tested 80 samples of bottled water from retail
stores and manufacturers. All 80 of the samples had detectable
levels of chlorine, fluoride and sodium. Seventy-eight of
the 80 contained some nitrate (which can cause methemoglobinemia,
or blue-baby syndrome, in higher doses), 12 had nitrite, 53
had chloroform, 33 contained bromodichloro-methane, 25 had
arsenic and 15 tested positive for lead.
Forty-six of the samples contained traces
of some form of the carcinogen (and hormone disrupter) phthalate,
while 12 of those exceeded federal safety levels for that
chemical. According to Olson, phthalates may leach out of
some plastic bottles into water. “Phthalates are not legally
regulated in bottled water because of intense industry pressure,”
says Olson. Although Co-op America concludes that there is
little evidence of a link between phthalate exposure from
bottled water and any health problems, the group suggests
using glass over plastic bottles as a precaution. Similarly,
if your office cooler is made of polycarbonate, it may be
releasing small amounts of the potential hormone disrupter
bisphenol A into the water.
Idaho’s Pure Health Solutions, a water purification
company, also conducted its own study that concluded certain
bacteria grow significantly in bottled water over a 12-day
period. Bacteria will normally grow in tap water within a
few days if it is kept bottled up at room temperature. Most
municipal water managers leave a residual amount of chlorine
in tap water after treatment specifically to inhibit the growth
of bacteria as the water runs through pipes and sits in tanks.
The IBWA argues that the presence of benign
bacteria in bottled water has no bearing on public health,
since the treatment processes used by manufacturers ensure
the death of any potentially harmful organisms. The group’s
website claims that there have been no confirmed cases of
illness in the U.S. as a result of bottled water. The IBWA
does mention an instance in 1994 in the Northern Mariana Islands,
in which bottled well water was linked to a disease outbreak.
The NRDC argues that no U.S. government agency actively searches
for incidents of illness from bottled water.
On the Internet, one can find testimonials
and news reports about people who claim to have gotten sick
from tainted bottled water. One man writes that he and his
fiancée became ill after drinking bottled water in the Dominican
Republic. The Allegheny County Health Department in Pennsylvania
reports discovering high levels of coliform in bottled water
samples that were taken “after a man reported that he became
sick from drinking the water.”
Misleading Labels
Another complaint commonly levied against
the bottled water industry is that many of the myriad product
labels are misleading. Not long ago, New York-based artist
Nancy Drew began collecting water bottles for a project. She
concluded, “In a culture so inundated with images solely designed
for promotion and profit, water is the most absurd element
to see being used in this context.” Drew’s subsequent art
views water labels’ ubiquitous depictions of pristine landscapes
as a stark contrast to the “gluttonous consumption and sense
of status that they represent.”
The IBWA states, “The labeling requirements
ensure that the source and purity of the bottled water are
identified and that, if the label is false or misleading,
the supplier is subject to civil or criminal sanctions.” Even
so, the FDA technically requires that bottled water labels
disclose only three variables: the class of water (such as
spring or mineral), the manufacturer, and the volume. That
brand of Massachusetts “spring water” exposed by NRDC was
so-named because the source occasionally bubbled up to the
surface in the industrial parking lot.
As ABC News put it, “Ad campaigns touting
spring-fed or glacier-born H2O are winning over a population
increasingly skeptical of taps and willing to shell out big
bucks for what they consider a purer, tastier and safer drink.”
Water bottlers use product names such as More Precious Than
Gold, Ice Mountain, Desert Quench, Pure American, Utopia and
Crystal Springs. The Environmental Law Foundation has sued
eight bottlers on the basis that they used words like “pure”
to market water containing bacteria, arsenic and chlorine
breakdown products.
Co-op America advises consumers “to be wary
of words like ‘pure,’ ‘pristine,’ ‘glacial,’ ‘premium,’ ‘natural’
or ‘healthy.’ They’re basically meaningless words added to
labels to emphasize the alleged purity of bottled water over
tap water.” The group points out that, in one case, bottled
water labeled as “Alaska Premium Glacier Drinking Water: Pure
Glacier Water from the Last Unpolluted Frontier” was actually
drawn from Public Water System #111241 in Juneau. The FDA
now requires this bottler to add “from a municipal source”
on the label. According to Co-op America, “as much as 40 percent
of bottled water is actually bottled tap water, sometimes
with additional treatment, sometimes not.” So-called purified
water can be drawn from any source as long as it is subsequently
treated, which leaves some to wonder how that differs from
good old tap water.
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Young
scavengers in the Philippines sort through a mountain
of plastic bottle waste.
© J.Tanodra / UNEP / Peter Arnold Inc. |
The number one (Aquafina) and two (Dasani)
top-selling brands of bottled water in the U.S. both fall
in the category of purified water. Dasani is sold by Coca-Cola,
while Aquafina is a Pepsi product. As U.S. News & World
Report explains, “Aquafina is municipal water from spots like
Wichita, Kansas.” The newsmagazine continues, “Coke’s Dasani
(with minerals added) is taken from the taps of Queens, New
York, Jacksonville, Florida, and elsewhere.” Everest bottled
water originates from southern Texas, while Yosemite brand
is drawn from the Los Angeles suburbs.
In June, a lawsuit was filed against Poland
Spring, the nation’s largest bottled spring water company.
Poland Spring is a brand of Nestlé Waters North America, which
used to be called Perrier Group of America. Nestlé Waters
is owned by the Switzerland-based Nestlé S.A., the world’s
largest food company. Nestlé’s 14 other brands of U.S. bottled
water include Arrowhead, Deer Park, Aberfoyle, Zephyrhills,
Ozarka and Ice Mountain.
The plaintiffs charged that Nestlé duped
consumers by advertising that Poland Spring water comes from
“some of the most pristine and protected sources deep in the
woods of Maine.” The lawsuit alleges that ever since the original
Poland Spring was shut down in 1967, the company has used
man-made wells, at least one of which is in a parking lot
along a busy road. “Poland Spring is exactly what we say it
is—natural spring water,” responded a Nestlé spokesperson.
Mistrusting the Tap
Despite all the hype, the NRDC concludes,
“While much tap water is indeed risky, having compared available
data, we conclude that there is no assurance that bottled
water is any safer than tap water.” Scientists at the University
of Geneva arrived at the same conclusion, and add that, in
50 percent of the cases they studied, the only difference
between tap and bottled water was that the latter contained
added minerals and salts, “which do not actually mean the
water is healthier.” In 1997, the United Nations Food and
Agriculture Organization concluded that bottled water does
not have greater nutritional value than tap water.
So why do so many of us trust and prefer
bottled water to the liquid that is already piped directly
into our homes? For the price of one bottle of Evian, a person
can use 1,000 gallons of tap water in the home. Americans
spend around $10,700 on bottled water every minute, reports
Co-op America, and many consumers think nothing of paying
three times as much per gallon of bottled H2O as they do for
gasoline.
Kay says the IBWA does not intend to promote bottled water
as a replacement for tap water, except maybe during emergencies.
“Since bottled water is considered a food product by law,
it doesn’t make sense to single it out as needing more regulations
than other foods,” says Kay. He also stresses that IBWA guidelines
strictly prevent members from trying to capitalize on fears
over tap water, or from directly advertising that their products
are more pure than municipal water.
Bottled water’s competition is soft drinks,
not tap water, says Kay. Karen from Ames, Iowa posted on the
2000days web diary: “In the summer I buy bottled water more
often so I’ll have something to drink that’s not loaded with
syrup and stuff.”
Some critics have also found it ironic that
many people who purchase bottled water end up refilling the
containers from a tap. Clearly, some consumers may be more
interested in buying the product for its packaging than for
the water itself—or they impulsively purchased a bottle where
there was no immediate access to a tap.
The Green Response
More and more environmentalists are beginning
to question the purpose of lugging those heavy, inefficient,
polluting bottles all over the Earth. The parent organization
of the World Wildlife Fund, the Switzerland-based World Wide
Fund for Nature, argues strongly that the product is a waste
of money and is very environmentally unfriendly. Co-op America
concludes: “By far the cheapest—and often the safest—option
is to drink water from a tap. It’s also the most environmentally
friendly option.” Friends of the Earth says, “We might as
well drink water from the tap and save all this waste.”
The WWF argues that the distribution of
bottled water requires substantially more fuel than delivering
tap water, especially since over 22 million tons of the bottled
liquid is transferred each year from country to country. Instead
of relying on a mostly preexisting infrastructure of underground
pipes and plumbing, delivering bottled water—often from places
as far-flung as France, Iceland or Maine—burns fossil fuels
and results in the release of thousands of tons of harmful
emissions. Since some bottled water is also shipped or stored
cold, electricity is expended for refrigeration. Energy is
likewise used in bottled water processing. In filtration,
an estimated two gallons of water is wasted for every gallon
purified.
When most people think of bottled water,
they probably envision the single-serve plastic bottle, which
has exploded in popularity and is now available almost anywhere
food products are sold. The WWF estimates that around 1.5
million tons of plastic are used globally each year in water
bottles, leaving a sizable manufacturing footprint. Most water
bottles are made of the oil-derived polyethylene terephthalate,
which is known as PET. While PET is less toxic than many plastics,
the Berkeley Ecology Center found that manufacturing PET generates
more than 100 times the toxic emissions—in the form of nickel,
ethylbenzene, ethylene oxide and benzene—compared to making
the same amount of glass. The Climate Action Network concludes,
“Making plastic bottles requires almost the same energy input
as making glass bottles, despite transport savings that stem
from plastic’s light weight.”
Andrew Swanander, owner of Mountain Town
Spring Water, says, “I’m embarrassed and appalled to see my
bottled water products discarded on the side of the road.”
In fact, a considerable number of used water bottles end up
as litter, where they can take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade.
A 2002 study by Scenic Hudson reported that 18 percent by
volume of recovered litter from the Hudson River (and 14 percent
by weight) was comprised of beverage containers.
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Nestlé’s
Perrier built a $100 million bottling plant in Michigan,
but residents worry that it will take an unreasonable
toll on regional ground and surface water.
© Pat Owen / Michigan Land Use Institute |
Pat Franklin, the executive director of
the Container Recycling Institute (CRI), says nine out of
10 plastic water bottles end up as either garbage or litter—at
a rate of 30 million per day. According to the Climate Action
Network, when some plastic bottles are incinerated along with
other trash, as is the practice in many municipalities, toxic
chlorine (and potentially dioxin) is released into the air
while heavy metals deposit in the ash. If plastics are buried
in landfills, not only do they take up valuable space, but
potentially toxic additives such as phthalates may leak into
the groundwater. “It’s ironic that many people drink bottled
water because they are afraid of tap water, but then the bottles
they discard can result in more polluted water,” says Franklin.
“It’s a crazy cycle.”
Franklin also acknowledges that although
her group is a strong advocate of recycling, the very concept
may encourage people to consume more plastics. Replacing used
water bottles with new containers made from virgin resources
consumes energy and pollutes the air, land and water. CRI
estimates that supplying thirsty Americans with water bottles
for one year consumes more than 1.5 million barrels of oil,
which is enough to generate electricity for more than 250,000
homes for a year, or enough to fuel 100,000 cars for a year.
Big Footprint
Despite such a sizable environmental footprint,
the push to recycle plastic water bottles has not been as
successful as many consumers might like to think as they faithfully
toss their used containers into those blue bins. As Utne magazine
recently reported, “Despite the ubiquitous arrow symbol, only
five percent of plastic waste is currently recycled in America
and much of that must be fortified with huge amounts of virgin
plastic.” One limitation is that recycling plastic causes
it to lose strength and flexibility, meaning the process can
only be done a few times with any given sample.
Another problem is that different types
of plastics are very difficult to sort, even though they can’t
be recycled together. Common plastic additives such as phthalates
or metal salts can also thwart recycling efforts as can too
high a ratio of colored bottles (such as Dasani’s blue containers)
to clear bottles. Because of the challenges, many recycling
centers refuse to accept plastics. In fact, a fair amount
of America’s plastic recycling is done in Asia, where laxer
environmental laws govern polluting factories and fuel is
spent in international transport.
According to a report recently released
by the California Department of Conservation (CDOC), more
than one billion water bottles are ending up in the state’s
trash each year, representing enough plastic to make 74 million
square feet of carpet or 16 million sweaters. Darryl Young,
the director of CDOC, says only 16 percent of PET water bottles
sold in California are being recycled, compared to much higher
rates for aluminum and glass. “It’s good people are drinking
water, but we need to do more outreach to promote recycling,”
says Young.
Franklin says one potential deterrent to
recycling may be that water bottles are often used away from
home, meaning they aren’t likely to make it into curbside
bins. Young advises people to ask for recycling bins in retail
and public spaces.
Industry analysts point out that demand
exceeds supply in the market for recycled PET plastic, which
is used in a range of goods from flowerpots to plastic lumber.
Franklin says deposit systems, or so-called bottle bills,
would go a long way to improving the collection of used water
bottles, especially since only half the country has curbside
recycling available. But only a few states have bottle bills,
largely because of strong opposition from the container, beverage
and retail industries (and their front group, Keep America
Beautiful). While Kay stresses that the IBWA urges consumers
to recycle, he says his organization opposes bottle bills
because “food retailers shouldn’t have to devote any money-making
floor space to storing and sorting recyclables, especially
as that may lead to unsanitary conditions.”
The WWF says alternatives to bottled water
such as boiling and filtering are cheaper and more sustainable
in areas that have contaminated tap sources. Co-op America
and CRI advise consumers to fill their own bottles to take
with them on the go. Glass doesn’t leach chemicals, and sturdy
plastics can be repeatedly washed, so consumers don’t have
to worry about breeding bacteria. For a lessened environmental
impact, spring and other specialty waters can be purchased
in bulk. But as BBC News concluded, “The conservationists
are fighting an uphill battle. The bottled water market is
booming...and shows no signs of drying up.”
Battling the Bottlers
Numerous environmental and social activists
have recently begun to put up a fight against the expanding
bottled water industry, which they claim threatens local wells,
streams, wetlands and ways of life. Bottling companies may
pump up to 500 gallons per minute, or even more, out of each
well, and many wells run 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Such operations have drawn intense opposition in Florida,
New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Texas, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Many residents of these states depend heavily on groundwater
for residential, agricultural and fishery use. In Wisconsin,
for example, three out of four homes and 97 percent of municipalities
obtain their water from the ground.
“Resistance against water bottlers is a
classic NIMBY (not-in-my-backyard) issue,” says Kay. The IBWA
claims bottlers wouldn’t pump aquifers to depletion because
that wouldn’t make good business sense. But civil engineer
and hydrologist Tom Ballestero of the University of New Hampshire
cautions that surrounding wells and the environment can be
negatively impacted before an aquifer is severely depleted.
“The groundwater they are pumping and exporting was going
somewhere where it had an environmental benefit,” says Ballestero.
Geologist David Bainbridge of Alliant International University
also points out that there are scant few penalties against
users who draw down water tables or deplete aquifers. Due
to the long amount of time it takes to naturally replenish
aquifers, most scientists consider groundwater a nonrenewable
resource.
Much of the opposition to water bottlers
has been directed at Nestlé Waters North America, which taps
around 75 different U.S. spring sites. A spokesperson for
the corporation, Jane Lazgin, says most communities welcome
the jobs and revenue brought by bottling operations. Even
so, Nestlé lost several bids to set up bottling plants in
the Midwest due to intense opposition. Eventually, for its
Ice Mountain brand, Nestlé built a $100 million plant capable
of bottling 260 million gallons of water a year from an aquifer
in Michigan’s rural Mecosta County, which is about 60 miles
north of Grand Rapids. Nestlé paid around $150 for permits
and received substantial tax breaks.
Local activists, mobilized by the newly
formed Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation, protested
the plant on the grounds that the facility would take too
heavy a toll on the surrounding environment and quality of
life. Although Nestlé claims it conducted “exhaustive studies
for nearly two years to ensure that the plant does not deplete
water sources or harm the ecosystem,” the activists pointed
out that the state has no authority to limit the amount of
water that is actually removed.
Three Native American tribes sued the state
on the basis that rivers, and ultimately, the Great Lakes,
would be affected. Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation
and a few local residents also filed a lawsuit, claiming that
the Mecosta operations violate state and federal water rights.
The controversy became a hot topic during the 2002 gubernatorial
election. As Grist reported, “Both major party candidates
publicly and repeatedly expressed their resolve to modernize
state water policy to block other multinational corporations
from privatizing, bottling and selling hundreds of millions
of gallons of Michigan’s groundwater annually across state
lines.” A ruling on the case is expected soon, and is believed
to have far-reaching ramifications.
In Florida, Nestlé angered many people,
including the group Save Our Springs, when it took over Crystal
Spring, which is near Tampa. The company fenced out the public,
which had enjoyed the water for generations. After five years
of bottling operations, the spring level has dropped. Some
officals are worried, since the spring feeds the source of
Tampa’s water. Nestlé blames the change on dry spells and
local development.
Local residents have also fought Nestlé
in rural northeast Texas, where they complain that a well
across the street from the company’s bottling site went dry
five days after Nestlé began operations. Nestlé’s Lazgin claims
that well dried up because it was old and shallow, and that
it was not on the same aquifer as the bottling plant. Critics
counter that aquifer geology is a fairly subjective science.
The Texas Supreme Court ruled in favor of Nestlé under the
state’s “rule of capture.” Save Our Springs President Terri
Wolfe told The Northwestern, “The poor people whose wells
run dry because of [bottlers] can’t afford that water.”
What’s the Quencher?
A host of environmental groups are joining
resource managers in the call for Americans to cut back on
bottled water and instead look to tap systems to provide our
daily needs. As the NRDC points out, incidents of chemical
or microbial contamination in tap water are actually relatively
rare. In a recent review of the nation’s public drinking water
infrastructure, researchers at the Harvard School of Public
Health concluded, “Reasonably reliable water is currently
available to nearly all 270 million U.S. residents.”
Writing in The Kansas Lifeline, Scott Hoober
expresses frustration on the part of municipal water managers,
who are increasingly shackled with negative reputations despite
their actual accomplishments. Hoober advises managers sarcastically,
“What are you waiting for? Turn a few valves, install a bottling
plant and begin to make the big bucks. You could sell your
water for half of what the other bottler down the road is
charging and still make a bundle. With no meters or mains
to maintain, no monthly billing, lower lab bills, why, you
could afford a top-dollar advertising campaign telling folks
how much better your water is than the stuff that used to
come out of the tap.”
It’s true that tap water does face numerous
threats, including possible contamination from the potentially
harmful byproducts of chlorination, the specter of pollution
and a lack of adequate funding. Stresses from global warming,
urban sprawl and population increase also must be factored
in, as well as the looming threat of terrorism. The WWF argues
that governments should focus their limited energies on repairing
current tap water infrastructures and on protecting watersheds
from harmful farm, industry and urban pollutants. Many public
water supply advocates feel that tax dollars should be paying
to deal with tap water’s challenges. We certainly need to
think twice before handing off the public water trust to private
companies that put it in attractive bottles at a high price.
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