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Message in a bottle: despite the hype, bottled water is neither cleaner nor greener than tap water
E: The Environmental Magazine, Sept-Oct, 2003 by Brian Howard
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.
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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. Coop 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.
