Drinking Water

by James Salzman

  Bottled water manufacturers have sought to fill this regulatory gap through private certification. The industry’s trade association, the International Bottled Water Association, has created a set of inspection standards that all members must satisfy. These include submission of daily samples for independent laboratory testing and surprise inspections by a third party. The trade association covers 85 percent of the bottled water sold in the United States, so this might well be sufficient to ensure product safety. Studies of what is actually on the market, though, give one pause.

  A study in the Archives of Family Medicine compared fifty-seven samples of bottled water in Cleveland with the local tap water. While thirty-nine of the samples were cleaner than the tap water, fifteen bottles (almost 25 percent) contained higher bacteria levels. So much for Fiji’s boast that it wasn’t bottled in Cleveland. The study concluded that the “use of bottled water on the assumption of purity can be misguided.” A four-year study by the environmental group NRDC of more than a thousand bottles of water from more than a hundred different brands concluded that while most of the bottled water was fine, overall quality was “spotty.” About one-third of the bottles contained arsenic and other carcinogenic compounds that, in some cases, exceeded state or industry standards. A report by the California state assembly similarly found cases of bottled water that contained excessive arsenic, benzene, chloroform, nitrates, and other nasty compounds. Analysis of eighty bottled water samples gathered by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment found levels of chlorine, fluoride, sodium, nitrites, chloroform, arsenic, and lead, among other compounds. The FDA does not require disclosure on the label for any of these materials.

  To be fair, similar analysis of tap water might also reveal instances of nasty compounds in excess of regulated standards. Indeed, as described previously, there are very real problems with our drinking water infrastructure—from treatment plants badly in need of upgrades to spotty enforcement to leaking or contaminated pipes. The key difference, however, is that we require extensive testing and recordkeeping for tap water on a regular basis precisely because we want to ensure the safety of our tap water. We can’t know it’s unsafe if we don’t look.

  Yet the same is not true for bottled water. Much of it may in fact be cleaner than tap water and perhaps safer to drink, but we have no way of really knowing. Compared to tap water, bottled water is subject to weaker regulations, much less frequent monitoring, largely meaningless labeling, and broad exemptions. And the few large studies that have been conducted suggest there are plenty of examples where bottled water is more contaminated than tap water, sometimes significantly so. Assuming bottled water is safer than tap water may make us feel better, but there is little reason to think this is necessarily so.

  STILL, IT IS NOT CONCERNS OVER WATER PURITY THAT HAVE STARTED to turn the tide against bottled water but rather the environmental impacts. While PET bottles are well suited for storing water and cheap to make, they come at a cost. Resource consumption is one concern. It takes three to four liters of water to make a liter PET bottle. While hard to imagine, PET bottles are generally made out of petroleum, roughly one ounce for every liter bottle. What bothers most consumers, though, are the waste issues. The Container Recycling Institute estimates that thirty million bottles are discarded daily in trash cans (later taking up landfill space or burning in incinerators) or simply dropped and forgotten as unsightly litter. California receives about one billion water bottles in its trash every year.

  Seeking to counter these concerns, Pepsi’s Aquafina launched in 2009 the Eco-Fina bottle, which it claimed was the lightest bottle on the market, using 50 percent less plastic than the liter bottle sold in 2002. As Robert Le Bras-Brown, Pepsi’s vice president of packing innovation and development, boasted at the time, “Consumer research confirms that we achieved our desired objective, which was a ‘sustainable design trifecta’—a bottle that looks better, functions better, and is better for the environment.”

  It is true that PET bottles are recyclable (hence the number 1 on many bottles to show the recycling code). Plastic recyclate enjoys a second life in mattresses, fleece jackets, and other popular products. But few bottles actually are recycled. The overall recycling rate for plastic is 25 percent, and water bottles fall well below that. The California Department of Conservation estimates that only 16 percent of PET water bottles are recycled. This is not surprising when one realizes that water bottles are exempted from most bottle legislation. After a long battle, New York state extended its deposit requirement to water in 2009, making it just the sixth state to do so.

  Yet energy concerns go beyond the packaging. It takes energy to filter and purify the water, package and transport it from source to store, and chill it at the point of sale, not to mention the energy required for transporting and recycling the bottles that are collected. It goes without saying that drinking a bottle of Fiji Water, shipped from halfway around the world, results in a lot more greenhouse gas emissions than filling a glass from the tap in the other room. The NRDC has calculated that bottled water imports from France, Italy, and Fiji to California account for 9,700 tons of carbon dioxide, the equivalent of 1,700 cars on the road for a year.

  To counter this charge, Fiji Water launched a major campaign to burnish its environmental credentials. Its website lists a series of initiatives, including dedicating 1 percent of its profits to environmental causes, partnering with Conservation International for forest restoration projects, and claiming “carbon negative” status by purchasing greenhouse gas emission offsets for 120 percent of its emissions. The public radio program Marketplace, however, gave Fiji Water top billing in its 2008 “Greenwashes of the Year” list. In the reporters’ view, a pig is still a pig whether it wears lipstick or not.

  Finally, as we saw in the story of McCloud, there are battles underway around the world over water withdrawals from local aquifers. Until recently, concern over the environmental impacts of bottled water was limited to communities directly affected by the bottling operations and a handful of environmental and consumer groups. A broader-based coalition, though, is starting to take shape. At the vanguard have been religious groups. Given the historic origins of bottled water in the holy relics market, perhaps this is fitting.

  In 2006, the General Council of the United Church of Canada declared that congregations should avoid purchasing bottled water where possible. Soon after, the National Coalition of American Nuns similarly voiced disapproval of the bottled water culture promoted by multinational corporations and urged its members to avoid buying bottled water “unless absolute necessity requires such a purchase.” As we’ll see later, much of this opposition goes beyond selling bottled water to the more fundamental idea of privatizing the delivery and sale of water at all.

  An increasing number of “locavore” restaurants have taken stands against bottled water, as well. The high priestess of the local food movement, Alice Waters, has barred the sale of commercial bottled water from Chez Panisse, her restaurant in Berkeley, California. A few other leading restaurants, such as Del Posto in New York and Poggio in San Francisco, have taken similar actions. Given the markup on bottled water, though, it’s not clear whether this will be widely adopted. As Geoffrey Zakarian, the chef and owner of the restaurant Country in New York City, bluntly put it, “Alice is very commendable and extraordinary, and we look to her, but I think she gets carried away sometimes. … You have to make a profit.”

  Money talks, and the more significant threat is coming not from restaurants but from institutional purchasers, particularly government purchasers. In a time of tight and shrinking budgets, a number of mayors and city councils have looked at their bottled water bills and identified a cost-cutting opportunity they can feel good about. Thus St. Louis, Vancouver, Toronto, San Francisco, and other cities have reduced or outright banned the use of public funds to purchase bottled water. The mayor of Salt Lake City, Rocky Anderson, went so far as to call bottled water “the greatest marketing scam of all time.�
�� It makes a nice sound bite, and the potential savings can be significant. At least twenty universities, such as Penn State and Washington University, have similarly restricted purchases of bottled water as part of a “Take Back the Tap” campaign. Taken together, these initiatives and changing attitudes may be having an impact. Following years of double-digit market growth, since 2009 sales of bottled water have flattened while the water filter and reusable container markets are taking off.

  IN THE FINAL ANALYSIS, BOTTLED WATER ACTS AS A PROVOCATIVE mirror reflecting back on us. Attitudes run the spectrum. Strong opponents to the sale of water would go thirsty before buying the offensive product. Others simply regard bottled water as a commercial product no different than Coke or Pepsi. But there are many consumers, indeed a growing number, that feel conflicted. There is no simple response to put them at ease.

  We seem to have a particular blind spot when it comes to bottled water. The environmental impacts surely give cause for concern, but that can’t be the whole story. Soft drinks pose almost identical concerns—packaging in PET bottles, energy impacts from transportation and cooling, huge appetites for extracted groundwater—yet the only major backlash or worry in this segment is over obesity.

  Nor, on the flip side, can the strong demand for bottled water simply be concern over the quality of our tap water. The very same people who swear by the safety of bottled water don’t give a second thought to the ice cubes they drop in their glasses or the water they use to boil pasta or make soup. Yet this water that comes straight out of the faucet seems so harmful when poured in a glass.

  For many, bottled water strikes a dissonant chord, yet identifying the particular wrong note is hard to do. Is it that bottled water stands as an embarrassing symbol of our throwaway culture, that we are just too lazy to fill a reusable water bottle or drink from the tap? Does it lay bare our increasing distrust of institutions and their ability to protect our health? Does it encapsulate our fear that the public goods we have taken for granted are being sold out to the highest bidders?

  Some can take solace that the University of Central Florida did eventually decide to install fifty water fountains in its football stadium. And somehow this seems reasonable. Yet it seems unreasonable to demand that a convenience store provide a water fountain beside its stock of bottled water. Why do we have such different intuitions for what, on their face, seem similar situations of public water provision in private spaces?

  In the end, perhaps bottled water remains troublesome precisely because it symbolizes so starkly the privatization, the creation of a marketable product, of something that just feels should be ours by right.

  SHOULD RESTAURANTS SERVE BOTTLED WATER DURING A DROUGHT?

  The Piedmont region of North Carolina experienced a serious drought from 2007 to 2008. During this time, a number of higher-end restaurants in the region stopped serving tap water. As a waiter patiently explained to a patron one night, “We are doing our part by serving you bottled water at cost.” He was not amused when the diner suggested the restaurant would serve its part even better if it put stones in the holding tank of its toilet. Nor was this restaurant alone. A number of New York City’s trendiest restaurants, such as Lure, Park Avalon, and Blue Fin, served bottled water instead of tap water during the city’s 2002 drought, and often not at cost. Many Atlanta restaurants did the same in its drought of 2007. So who was right, the waiter or the customer?

  The more cynical, perhaps, might suggest that altruism is less important here than greed, since bottled water represents one of the highest-margin items on a restaurant menu. But let’s assume the best in our restaurateurs and their well-intentioned efforts to play their part in reducing water usage in times of drought. If their goal is to minimize water use, is serving bottled water instead of tap water worthwhile?

  In terms of pure numbers, banning tap water is more symbolic than effective. Assuming a restaurant with twenty-five tables that turn over twice in an evening, an average of three diners per table, and six glasses of water per group (i.e., each diner’s glass is refilled once in addition to beer, wine, and soda), then the restaurant saves about fifty-six gallons of water. Not bad—about the water used to fill a large bathtub. But they would be better served by taking pasta off the menu (thereby saving the gallons needed to boil noodles); using disposable plates, cups, and cutlery (saving even more gallons needed for the dishwasher); or, as was brazenly suggested, putting stones in the toilet holding tank (saving gallons from flushing). A low-flush toilet would be even better, since that can save up to four gallons per flush compared to older, traditional bowls. While glasses of drinking water do add up and every little bit helps, there are other measures, both more and less obvious, that would achieve even greater savings.

  This is not to say that the restaurant’s gesture is meaningless. Far from it. Beyond the diners’ feel-good glow from easy self-denial for a worthwhile cause, refusing to serve tap water can be an effective means to highlight the seriousness of the drought. This uses conspicuous consumption as a teachable moment. Their consciousness raised, diners may think twice about how they use water at home. Perhaps this will lead to taking shorter showers instead of baths, not hosing down the driveway, and modifying other personal behaviors that consume large amounts of water during times of drought. It appears the waiter and diner are both right.

  7

  Need Versus Greed

  HIGH IN THE ANDES, THE BOLIVIAN CITY OF COCHABAMBA rests in a fertile valley astride the banks of the Rocha River. Bolivia is the poorest country in South America. Two-thirds of its population lives below the poverty line. The simplest things can be difficult and, as in many developing countries, more than 40 percent of Cochabamba’s residents lack access to a water faucet. And even those who do get piped water cannot depend on reliable service. The poor often live in squatter settlements on the outskirts of town, relying for their drinking and domestic water supplies on private vendors. In a cruel irony, the poorest end up paying more for their water than wealthier citizens connected to the city’s water mains. Sometimes up to ten times more.

  As part of a nationwide project to improve city services, the government of Bolivia launched a major privatization reform effort in the late 1990s. Guided by financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, the government actively sought out private investors to manage Cochabamba’s water and sewage services. Bringing in companies to run the systems, it was widely argued, would bring multiple benefits. Private capital would improve the water supply system infrastructure and delivery. Private management would ensure greater efficiencies. And the market would ensure increased attention to customer needs.

  In the end, a forty-year concession for water and wastewater services in Cochabamba was granted to a private consortium. Headed by the giant international construction company Bechtel, the group was known as Aguas del Tunari. In the national law passed to facilitate this transaction, water was declared the property of the state, available for licensing to private companies for distribution.

  Aguas del Tunari immediately set about laying new pipe, as well as digging the new reservoir and hydroelectric dam required by local politicians as part of the deal. To cover its costs, the company raised the price of water and waste services charged to consumers. Just how much the prices went up remains disputed. Some residents claimed they had to spend more than 20 percent of their household income on water alone.

  What is not in dispute is that the public’s reaction was swift. Just four months after the privatization scheme commenced in 2000, protests began. These soon mushroomed into street demonstrations and violence. In the face of property damage approaching twenty million dollars, dozens of injuries, and mass unrest, the government terminated the privatization concession. The city has since taken back control over the water supply system in Cochabamba. The poorest still buy their water from vendors.

  During the heady days of protest, grassroots organizations met and issued a common statement to the press.
They called it the Cochabamba Declaration, and their view of the conflict was clear. Drinking water should not be a market commodity. They were fighting for a basic, inalienable entitlement. As the Declaration pronounced:

  Water is a fundamental human right and a public trust to be guarded by all levels of government, therefore, it should not be commodified, privatized or traded for commercial purposes.

  In their eyes, selling the concession to Aguas del Tunari had been a fundamental breach of the government’s responsibility to safeguard the public trust.

  The ringing prose from Cochabamba was a response not only to the politicians of Bolivia but to the international community, as well. It could not have contrasted more starkly with the recommendations of water experts at the International Conference on Water and the Environment held a few years earlier in Dublin, Ireland. Known as the Dublin Statement on Water and Sustainable Development, the consensus statement had declared in 1992 that “water has an economic value in all its competing uses and should be recognized as an economic good.”

  As the saga of McCloud suggested, Cochabamba’s conflict over who should control water was not a unique event. Similar protests have played out in Paraguay, South Africa, the Philippines, and elsewhere. Cochabamba, however, remains the best-known example and has become the rallying point for opponents of water supply privatization in developing countries. It serves as a perfect morality play. Rights versus markets. Human need versus corporate greed.