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Drink up -- it's
safe
By Jamie Rogers
On-line Forty-Niner
At the Outpost
on the Cal State Long Beach campus, a one-liter bottle of
Crystal Geyser water costs $1.50. A 16.9 ounce bottle of Palomar
Mountain Spring bearing the CSULB label costs $0.90. Long
Beach city tapwater costs less than a quarter of a cent per
gallon.
That is the price to pay for clean, pure, tasty water. Right?
Maybe.
Maybe not. When Sam Sabzehza, a senior interdisciplinary studies
major visited his mother in Palos Verdes recently, he found
an alarming report posted on her refrigerator.
The 1999 survey by the Natural Resources Defense Council announced
that out of 103 brands of bottled water tested, nearly a third
of them had detectable traces of contaminants, including arsenic.
"I wasn't shocked," Sabzehza said. "Humans
do a lot of destruction to this planet. I was upset that this
was not common public knowledge."
While the report was highly publicized when it was first issued,
little has been done since then.
"The FDA should set strict limits for contaminants of
concern in bottled water," the Council report stated.
"The FDA's rules should apply to all bottled water distributed
nationally or within a state, carbonated or not, and bottled
water standards must be made at least as strict as those applicable
to city tap water supplies.
"Water bottles should be required to disclose their water
source, treatments and other key information as is now required
of tap water systems," the report said. "A penny-per-bottle
fee should be initiated on bottled water to fund testing,
regulatory programs, and enforcement at both state and national
levels. State bottled water programs should be subject to
federal review."
The Food and Drug Administration, which is the agency that
regulates bottled water, has not taken the recommendations
made by the council.
"There have not been any changes in regulations in reaction
[to the report]," said Stephen Kay, vice president of
the International Bottled Water Association, a group that
works with the FDA and bottled water companies to maintain
high standards. "Bottled water products at that time
were and continue to be of high quality. We continue to work
closely with the FDA to ensure that [high] quality."
The Association contended that the Council's study was biased
and, if read thoroughly, actually says that bottled water
is safer than tap water.
"In a further effort to document alleged weaknesses in
the bottled water system of quality in late 1997 and early
1998, the Council undertook a product survey and analysis
in which more than 1,200 bottles of 103 different brands were
tested for contamination," the association stated in
a response to the Council survey. "While the Council
attempts to portray its survey results as documenting contamination,
in fact the results show that none of the bottled waters tested
contained contaminants that would be considered unsafe."
However, the Council published its results in comparison to
California's standard of water safety, not the national standard.
Nationally, levels of arsenic may reach up to 10 parts per
billion. In California, in accordance with Proposition 65,
the level of arsenic in water can not be above 5 parts per
billion.
The Council product survey found Crystal Geyser water and
Palomar Mountain Spring water were among the brands that had
levels of arsenic above 5parts per billion.
Crystal Geyser was sued by the California public interests
group, Environmental Law Foundation following the release
of the Councils report. Subsequently, they lowered the arsenic
levels. Both companies are members of the Association, which
requires its members to adhere to strict standards of cleanliness
Officials for Palomar water unequivocally denied their product
was ever contaminated.
"We have no arsenic in the water," said James Hardy,
quality control manager at Palomar.
Hardy said the water goes through three filters, is treated
with ultra violet light and goes through ozonation, which
he said has the same effect of chlorine but breaks down quickly
and is safe for consumption.
In addition to the filtration and water treatments, the water
is tested 16 times a day for various contaminants, runs through
85 tests every three months, including a test to make sure
the source water on the Palomar mountain is not compromised.
Hardy said the company did a series of tests for arsenic in
the water after the Council's report was issued. They all
came back negative.
"When the report came out we started checking every three
months," Hardy said. "We never found any [arsenic].
We are trying to get [the council] to redo their analysis
to make sure they are correct. I believe they are incorrect
... I drink three liters a day so I believe in it."
Concern still remains however, due to what appears to be a
lack of federal regulation. While the FDA sets regulatory
standards, some activists and consumers are concerned that
they are not necessarily followed.
"'Voluntary compliance' and 'industry self-regulation'
seem to be the watchwords for the bottled water industry,"
the Council report stated. "While such an approach can
be effective with motivated members of an industry ... it
[is] clear that this approach leaves plenty of room for unscrupulous
or careless members of the industry to provide substandard
products, with little chance of being caught or subject to
penalties."
Even the Association supports the call for further regulations
by the FDA.
"We are in favor of standards that are based in sound
science," Kay said. "[We support] anything we can
do to in the industry to continue to raise the bar of quality."
According to Kay, the FDA has inspection authority over bottled
water plants. The Association also conducts inspections annually.
"At any time during the year, the auditing agency shows
up to make sure the plant is reaching the federal, state and
association standards," Kay said. "If a product
was found to be substandard it would be subject to recall.
"There is an entire industry that wants to critique another
industry if it is successful," he continued. "The
CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] has never
confirmed an outbreak, a disease or a fatality due to bottled
water. We stand by our track record."
However, according to the city of Long Beach, strong track
record or not, bottled water is a waste of money.
"You should know that the standards for public water
supplies are much stricter than for bottled water; bottled
water companies are not required to screen for a long list
of toxic chemicals ... ," officials stated on the city's
Web site. "There is no reason to buy bottled drinking
water or install a home water treatment device for safety
purposes."
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