Here is someone seriously tone deaf to the growing backlash, in the U.S. and Canada, among other places, against bottled water. Michael Gerbitz has just introduced Genesis: Living Waters of Israel – bottled in Israel and shipped to the Americas, with a portion of profits benefiting Israeli “victims of terror.”

“Americans drink lots of bottled water – especially in the summer,” Gerbitz is quoted in a news release that I was hoping is a hoax intended to embarrass easily provoked bloggers. “Why not buy water from Israel and help Israel economically, socially and politically at the same time?” Let me ask: is it really in Israel’s interest to export a totally unnecessary product in bottles derived from a resource—oil—that likely comes from Israel’s enemies, and then send them around the planet using even more of that oil? (And yes, reader, I know that I buy and burn my own share of Middle East oil, and I realize the amount of oil consumed by bottles and their associated production and transport is minuscule in the larger scheme of things, but still: we’re talking about a totally unnecessary product!)

The Genesis website offers a rationale for the business:  “In the Book of Jeremiah, the Creator is called the Source of Living Waters. Just as water continuously flows, the Creator showers us with endless streams of kindness and blessing. We gratefully acknowledge the Creator as the ultimate Source of life’s blessings and believe it is our role to emulate His kind ways by giving to others and sharing life’s blessings.” Leave aside the fact that Gerbitz is selling this water, not giving it away (it wouldn’t be the first time blessings are sold), and let’s ask if the Creator would really want all those bottles winging their way around the world and ending up… oh, just about anywhere. (The vast majority of water bottles in the U.S. are not recycled.)

Around the world, religious leaders are working to apply biblical principles of stewardship to the environment– in a movement known as Creation Care — and many communities of faith have pledged to eliminate or reduce consumption of bottled water. Mr. Gerbitz: you might want to rethink your business plan.

This is a really important question. I don’t know the answer for sure, but microbiologists I’ve asked say it’s unlikely (see my comments and other responses to my post on the ten rotating water stations in New York, from July 6, 2010).

Here’s a photo of a fountain in Bundanoon, Australia, a town where merchants voluntarily quit selling bottled water. If you were a germaphobe, would you drink from this?

And if you wouldn’t, would you refill your bottle from a spigot dedicated to bottle refilling (that is, a spigot from which sipping is impossible)?

Yesterday, New York’s Department of Environmental Protection announced it would be rotating ten portable water fountains around the city this summer, to high-traffic areas like parks, green markets, and special events.  (Here’s a schedule of where the fountains will be, in case you’re planning your day around low-cost, healthful hydration. )

I’m all for fountains, as anyone who’s read my blog, my books, or my other babblings well knows. And I applaud this experiment: who wouldn’t want more places to drink cold, clean water for free? The fountains have spigots for sipping and spigots for refilling bottles and even a spigot for watering pets. Bravo. But why bother placing them in parks, which already have fountains? I’d argue that we need fountains most in our vast deserts of concrete (there will be one in Times Square now and then — that’s a perfect place to leave a fountain in place year-round). And we need exponentially more of them. The DEP’s “water on the go” fountains are hooked up to fire hydrants, which are already fixtures on our streets, plumbed and nearly ready to burble. Why not make the fountains — with a smaller footprint, handicapped accessible, and frost resistant — permanent as well?

I realize the installation and maintenance of fountains costs money, but WotG has many partners, and surely there are many more organizations willing to buy some naming rights to become associated in the public imagination with the city’s greatest natural resource, with health, a generosity of spirit (have a drink!) and a smaller environmental footprint (less bottle waste, fewer water trucks on the road).

I’m thrilled by this advance, don’t get me wrong. But I wonder, also, if these fountains are a pilot project, an experiment to measure how many people will actually drink tap water from a public fountain. The city’s past reluctance to embrace a more widespread fountain program — installing thousands of fountains throughout the boroughs– has long made me wonder: does the mayor know something about our water that we don’t? (Read my book Bottlemania for the straight dope on the city’s water quality report, plus some obscure B sides that go above and beyond. I concluded the water’s fine. Mike Bloomberg: anything else I should know?)

If you’re in the city this summer, I urge you to drink up and get counted. Let the fountains go forth and multiply.

There was a piece in the NY Times yesterday about U. C. campuses in San Francisco and Berkeley spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on bottled water (Nestle’s Arrowhead brand in five-gallon bottles) despite the system’s budget cuts and budget threats. The reporter, Scott James, asked some smart, commonsensical questions, like “So what’s actually wrong with the water supply in these places?” (A: nothing)  “Are there contaminants of concern in the local pipes?” (A: Actually, the person who ordered the water hadn’t even read any test reports) “Don’t these buildings already have sinks with faucets?” (A: I’m not even going to answer that one.)

To me, the piece says Let’s not drink bottled water for bad reasons. Do a little research. Read your utility’s consumer confidence report (they come out annually; you can find yours online); do further testing at the tap (send a sample to an independent, state-certified lab. You can find one through this EPA website). Problems with your water? Work with others on solving them (replacing aging pipes, cleaning up pollution). I know, it’s not as easy as grabbing a plastic bottle from the store shelf. But what choice do we have in the long run? For reasons economic, environmental, and social, we can’t all rely on bottled water all the time.

(The piece quotes the ever excellent Peter Gleick, of the Pacific Institute, whose new book, Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water, is now on sale. Check it out.)

not through force but through persistence.” (Ovid)

I’m reporting this waaay late (no one should expect timeliness from this blog), but there are hints of movement on the pro-fountain front in my neck of the woods.  Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer last month released his FoodNYC: A Blueprint for a Sustainable Food System report, which includes a section on water (see pg 29).  Stringer’s recommendations include “Increase access to drinking water fountains while reducing the consumption of disposable plastic water bottles in New York City.” His goal is tripartite: Reduce Bottled Water Consumption; Increase the Number of Water Fountains;  Encourage the Sale of Water Canteens.

I couldn’t have said it better, but it remains to be seen if the mayor will adopt and implement Stringer’s recommendations. Same goes with the report, out on February 1, of the New York City Green Codes Task Force, which convened at the request of Mayor Bloomberg and City Council speaker Chistine Quinn to recommend changes to the laws and regulations affecting buildings in New York and identify impediments to green practices. The report inspires all manner of “who knew?” moments. (If doors on stairways were transparent and were left open, do you think more people would use the stairs? It’s certainly worth a try, if we could rejigger the building codes to allow it.)

As a nonarchitect, and someone who’s never had to think about building codes, I found the report thoroughly interesting. Especially (you knew this was coming) the part about water, a short bit that appears on page 23. “Issue: People buy and consume bottled water and sugary drinks, in large part, because there are not enough easily accessible water fountains. All bottled drinks stress the environment by wasting materials, using energy for transportation, and creating waste. Also, sugary drinks can contribute to chronic diseases. Recommendation: Increase the number of required drinking fountains, and also require that they include faucets for filling
bottles. Do not allow bottled water to substitute for fountains.”

This last part is important, because in some places it’s perfectly legal for bottled-water vending machines or kiosks to take the place of water fountains (sports arenas in Ohio and Florida were clobbered in the media for going with vendors rather than fountains).

So yes, these recommendations are just recommendations. Ellen Honigstock, a friendly neighborhood LEED architect who worked on two committees of the Task Force, told me,  “Various city agencies will incorporate items that can be changed without changes to laws, and various city council members will champion other measures to get them through.”

Drinking fountains aren’t hugely expensive, and private companies may be willing to sponsor either their construction or maintenance. It’s in the mid-50s here today: the thirsty season is nearly upon us.

The following stories show a range of bottled-water activism on college campuses.  In Ontario, Ryerson University will ban sales of bottled water by 2013. Why the lag? It takes a long time, apparently, to get new fountains up and running (and to run out vending contracts). Still, it’s a brave move. According to The Eyeopener Online, “The ban will impact the university’s contract with Coca-Cola, which allows the corporation exclusive rights to sell beverages on campus. In return, Ryerson gets $765,000 a year if enough products are sold, with the bulk of the money going to scholarships, bursaries and athletics.”

At Humboldt State, reports The Lumberjack, Captain Reducer, who’d recently seen the anti-bottled water documentary Tapped, stood in the quad and railed against bottled water.  Here’s his picture:

The administration asked him to lower his mic, a student suggested he use more facts.  Everyone’s a critic.

At Wesleyan, students are discussing ways to reduce bottled water use on campus, including the use of a filtered-water dispensing machine. The filtered water would cost half as much as bottled, so campus caterer Bon Appetit would still see some revenue from water. But I wonder about students’ mental calculus: one of the attractions of bottled water is that you don’t have any responsibility toward the bottle. You drink your beverage, and you throw the bottle into the recycling bin. That’s what the industry calls convenience (that, and not having to carry a reusable around with you). How would you feel about paying 50 to 75 cents for a half liter of water and then still having to carry and wash it? All of a sudden, it’s not looking so convenient. So much easier and cheaper to just drink (or refill) from a fountain.

My question: What’s wrong with the tap water at Wesleyan? It makes more sense to me to actually find out (through independent lab testing), and then, if there’s anything to worry about, to install filters in existing fountains and install more of them, the same as other institutions (Google) and schools (Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Winnipeg, etc. etc.)

Anne Rosenthal, ’10, Wesleyan’s Environmental Organizers Network co-coordinator and representative to the dining committee, has it right. From the Wesleyan Argus: “The crux of this campaign is the awareness issue, because when kids get off campus there’s going to be bottled water everywhere,” Rosenthal said. “We just want them to get in the habit of thinking about the impacts of their purchases and getting used to alternatives.”

Ben Firke, ’12, chair of the dining committee, is being cautious: “We want to be good stewards of the earth,” Firke said. “But we also want to make sure that if there’s something that Wesleyan students really become reliant on, we’re not going to deprive them of that for what they would interpret as being arbitrary reasons.”

Arbitrary reasons? Please, listen to Rosenthal’s economic, health, and environmental arguments. And just because we’re reliant on something — coal-burning power plants, slaves, the trade in whale blubber — doesn’t mean we can or ought to stick with it for all time.  What do you think the class of 1980, or ’85 or even ’90 drank when they were thirsty for water?

New York City’s Dept. of Environmental Protection has partnered with Aveda to provide tap water – for free! – during Fashion Week at six fountains around the city. Here’s a picture of one water rig.

I don’t think it’s lovely. But I’m glad if the fountains will depress sales of bottled water and spur New Yorkers and visitors to think about the ubiquity and quality of tap water. The fountains will stay put for a week: how I wish a sponsor would step in to support them permanently. And so long as I’m asking, why not design something more attractive, something that inspires confidence in the output? (Fire hydrants put me in mind of dog urine).
There are plenty of cool designs out there – fountains with dual spigots: one for sipping and one dedicated to hygienically refilling bottles.

Here’s the press release from the DEP:

DEP, Aveda to Promote NYC Tap Water During Fashion Week “NYC Water on the Go” Stations in Manhattan Will Help Reduce Use of Plastic Water Bottles Environmental Protection Commissioner Cas Holloway was joined by Aveda’s Creative Director Antoinette Beenders today to announce a partnership to make New York City tap water (NYC Water) available for free at Manhattan locations throughout Fashion Week. New Yorkers and visitors to the City will be able fill their own reusable bottles with NYC Water from one of six “NYC Water on the Go” stations around the City. The goal of the initiative is to raise awareness about the waste that plastic bottles generate, and engage the fashion community to eliminate it. “New York City tap water is among the highest quality and best tasting in the world,” said Commissioner Holloway. “We are thrilled to work with Aveda, an environmental leader, to remind people that there is a great-tasting alternative to bottled water and the waste it generates — and it comes right out of the tap.” “Aveda is an activist brand at heart, so we are thrilled to partner with the New York City Department of Environmental Protection in being a force of change in helping to raise awareness of water issues,” said Chuck Bennett, vice president of Aveda Earth and Community Care. Working collaboratively to help reduce Fashion Week’s environmental footprint, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) will set up “NYC Water on the Go” stations promoting NYC Water as an environmentally friendly alternative to bottled water. The stations will be installed at the following locations: SoHo (Broadway and Prince Street) – In front of Dean & Deluca Union Square (15th Street) – In front of Staples Chelsea (19th Street 5th Avenue) – In front of Aveda Store Herald Square (6th Avenue and 36th Street) – In front of Manhattan Mall Times Square (Broadway and 47th Street) – In front of Starbucks Rockefeller Center (5th Avenue and 49th Street) View an online map of these NYC Water locations.

I just heard about a new participatory sensing campaign, called WeTap, that’s mapping drinking-water fountains around San Diego and making the information available through portable telephone apps. According to the group’s website, participatory sensing systems “enable people with mobile phones to systematically observe, study, reflect on, and share their unique world.” Other phenomena being subjected to observation: invasive plants, bike routes, and noise.

It’s a cool idea, and quite similar to Kylie Harper’s brilliant TapIt program, which directs thirsty people with empty bottles, via its website and a telephone app, to water fountains, cafes, and other venues willing to provide free access to their water. (The venues put a sticker in their window announcing same). So far, TapIt’s network includes more than 400 locations across 10 states.

I look forward to the day when public water fountains are so ubiquitous (and well-maintained) that we won’t have to map them. (Now all I need is a map of functioning pay phones, nationwide.)

Shit happens (and I hate to gloat), but I can’t resist pointing out that the FDA has given a stern warning to the Sweet Sommer Spring Water Company for violating Processing and Bottling of Bottled Drinking Water regulations. This particular water is bottled in Sweet Springs, West Virginia, an area described on the company’s website as “a natural oasis to abundant wildlife and fauna.” The violations? Dead mice, live salamanders, a live frog, apparent rodent droppings and rodent nests in the waters of the spring or near/inside the housing surrounding the spring. In a January 19 letter, the agency wrote, “These violations cause the bottled water produced in your facility to be adulterated … in that they have been prepared, packed, or held under insanitary conditions whereby they may have become contaminated with filth or rendered injurious to health.” The violations were documented during inspections on September 15, 16, 18 and 22 of 2009. My question: what happened to the water bottled during that period of violation? (Or even before? Underfunded and understaffed, the FDA doesn’t inspect bottled-water plants more than once a year, if that.)

I’m not generally squeamish about live animals, but the dead mice and droppings give me pause. Of course, my tap water comes from a watershed in which many animals make their living (and die), but my water is inspected more frequently than bottled water, it’s chlorinated to deactivate bacteria, and my utility is required to let me know when regulations have been violated. Not so with bottled water…

A little late to the party,  I just started watching some non-privatization-related Poland Spring videos on YouTube. Here’s one (called Poland Spring: For a Man) spoofing the portability (and disposability) of those five-gallon jugs. Others (here and here) have some fun with the stalwarts at 1-800-4SPRING: “Is it okay to drink Poland Spring if you’ve had a tracheotomy? Because I drank some Dasani and it hurt like a mother.” “My hamster, Liberace, loves your water. Is it okay to put it in his bowl?” Unsurprisingly, the phone workers stay strictly on script.