Sealed doesn't always mean safe
By CHRISTINA LEE / Aggie Features Writer
Posted 11/16/2005
Water bottles are like iPods.
Whether riding the bus or strolling around on campus, it seems like everyone is carrying one around. Like the iPod, water bottles also come in mini sizes and attractive colors complete with appealing advertisements.
Whereas songs on an iPod come from a definitive location, the source and composition of bottled water isn't always known, accurate or safe.
Rudimentary regulations
Complaints concerning the safety of bottled water among UC Davis students are few. Some students say that they think bottling companies would have to strictly adhere to regulations because of bottled water's widespread distribution.
Senior Naomi Zaul said she feels "pretty safe" drinking bottled water.
"I would hope their regulations are giving us safe water," Zaul said.
When it comes to regulation, tap and bottled water are not necessarily on the same page.
Tap water is relentlessly reviewed and constantly monitored by the Environmental Protection Agency. All tap water is required to test for parasites such as Cryptosporidium and Giardia, which are diarrheal diseases. Bottled water, on the other hand, is not required to test for such diseases.
According to the Berkeley School of Public Health, bottled water is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration only if it is shipped across state lines or is imported. This also means that unlike tap water, testing for harmful substances in bottled water is neither as frequent nor required.
"When it comes to water, [regulation] is not as rigid," said Kymron deCesare, staff research associate for the UC Davis department of chemistry.
Experts say there is no concrete way of telling whether bottled water is really safer than tap water due to the lack of comparable databases.
While the EPA requires that tap water quality reports be available to the public, such reports are hardly available or released by bottled water companies.
Water companies' chemical analyses or hardness levels are, for the most part, either unavailable or refused for public viewing.
Comparing Davis tap water to bottled water, then, is a nearly impossible task without the cooperation of bottled water companies.
What "pure" really means
Water is only truly pure when it is distilled. When distilled, water is boiled, allowing the vapor to leave behind contaminants. The virtually contaminant-free vapor is then condensed back into liquid form, or "pure" water.
But distilled water is not what is usually found in bottled water.
Even if bottled water were distilled and free of all impurities, drinking "pure" water can hardly be considered a healthy idea.
"Putting distilled water into your body will allow it to work as a leeching agent," deCesare said. "Pure water that has no ions is going to want to get ions by demineralizing your body."
Some bottled waters contain substances that have been added after certain filtration processes to create a distinct flavor. Other brands attribute their waters' taste to where the water was pulled from.
Fancy tap water
To those who swear that bottled and tap water differ, Reuters says this: Two out of every five bottles of water sold around the world is tap water that has been "purified."
Bottled waters like Dasani and Aquafina, among others, take municipal or tap water and "purify" it by running the water through specific filtration systems.
Arrowhead and Crystal Geyser retrieve their water directly from springs before being treated.
Many companies vary in their choice of filtration, but reverse osmosis and ozonation are two of the more common processes that eliminate most harmful substances in the water.
Most bottled water companies prefer disinfecting water by ozonation over chlorination, since ozone-type treatments do not leave behind a smell or aftertaste.
In a blind taste test administered by the Berkeley School of Public Health, most people were not able to tell the difference between bottled and tap water.
If people feel that bottled water is "better" than tap water, it is due largely to the media, said Phillip Shaver, department chair of the UC Davis department of psychology.
"It's good advertising on the part of bottled water makers," he said. "I also think that people think good things about bottled water because it is something mobile that is with people all the time."
All in the mind
So is bottled water better for you than tap water?
What's "better" for your health, deCesare said, is all relative, especially since most people don't take the time to investigate what their bodies really need.
"I think 90 percent of Americans don't want to read and decide carefully what is necessary for their bodies," deCesare said. "We've all been talked into believing that what we need is what the media chooses to tell us."
City of Davis water
Source: 22 ground wells
Treatment: Disinfection by chlorine
Hardness level: 100-620 mg/l total count.
Calcium 16-59 mg/l and Magnesium 15-120 mg/l
UC Davis water
Source: six ground wells
Treatment: Disinfection by chlorine
Hardness level: 92-150 mg/l total count.
Calcium 18 mg/l and Magnesium 23 mg/l
Aquafina water
Source: Municipal water
Treatment: Personalized seven-step filtration system called Hydro-7ô
Hardness level: Information unavailable.
Arrowhead water
Source: Spring water
Treatment: Micro filtration with ultra violet light
Hardness level: Calcium 6-53 mg/l and Magnesium 1.5-20 mg/l
Crystal Geyser Alpine Spring Water
Source: Spring water
Treatment: Ozonation, micro filtration
Hardness level: Information unavailable. Requests for water are available at 1-800-4-GEYSER.
Dasani water
Source: Municipal water
Treatment: Reverse osmosis and added selected minerals for taste.
Hardness level: Analyses and records refused for public notice.
CHRISTINA LEE can be reached at features@californiaaggie.com.
