Before Aquafina, Crystal Geyser and Deja Blue there was
something else: tap water. In today’s health-conscious society,
where even McDonald’s offers bottled water, and an entire
generation swears by their flats of Arrowhead, is the hype really
true? Is bottled water really better?
Before Aquafina, Crystal Geyser and Deja Blue there was something else: tap water. In today’s health-conscious society, where even McDonald’s offers bottled water, and an entire generation swears by their flats of Arrowhead, is the hype really true? Is bottled water really better?
The answer depends on the label. Bottled water has little regulation when it comes to what can be sold under the title of “drinking water,” according to a water bottler himself. Keith Nance, owner of Hollister Quality Water, said quality could vary broadly within the industry.
The same can be said for what comes from the tap depending on a community’s water source, from the pristine spring waters that feed some mountain communities to the mish-mash of sources that large cities drink from.
Communities must follow federal guidelines, but the water’s quality can vary within those guidelines, from just a few particles per million of dissolved solids to more than 600.
“Public water systems have to meet a whole host of standards for a rather extensive list of possible contaminants,” said Robert Miller, a spokesman for the state Department of Health’s Department of Drinking Water.
And many areas seek to exceed federal and state standards, according to Angela Cheung, a senior engineer for the Santa Clara Valley Water District.
“Everybody meets and exceeds with a lot of buffers,” said Cheung. “If we don’t meet standards, you hear about it for sure. We’re required to send out public notification, and that hardly ever happens anywhere in the country. We don’t cut so close to have those boundaries crossed.”
Still, bottled water may taste better, she said, for now.
To cleanse the municipal water supply in areas like the city of San Jose, cities that collect runoff water often use what is called conventional processing. Chemicals are added to get impurities to conglomerate.
Groupings that get too heavy simply drop to the bottom of processing stations and others are filtered out. Then the water is chlorinated to kill microbes and bacteria that may still be living in the water.
The result is water that is generally safe for drinking, but can still retain strong odors from previous exposure to things like algae blooms.
By contrast, bottled water purveyors generally purify tap water further using reverse osmosis membranes and carbon-based filters, which remove tiny sediment and offensive odors as well as chemicals like chlorine, salt and boron, said Victor Magno, owner of Hollister Pure Water.
After that, water softeners are added to reduce the mineral content, and ozone, the same combination of oxygen molecules that makes up our atmosphere, is injected into the water supply, acting as a natural anti-microbial.
“Ozonation provides disinfection that’s about 600 times stronger than chlorination,” said Magno.
That is especially important for bottled water, which must stay fresh despite it exposure to less than ideal circumstances – plastics that can leave residual tastes in their water and sunlight.
“Sunlight is one of the worst enemies of bottled water,” said Nance. “It causes bacteria growth.”
Nance recommends buying straight from the supplier and skipping waters that may have been sitting on warm loading docks and display pallets for hours or days.
“It’s going to be freshest from me,” said Nance, who claims to have several loyal customers among the employees of the San Benito County Water District.
San Jose’s municipal water supply is moving one step closer to competing with bottled alternatives, however, transferring two of its large water processing stations into advanced treatment facilities.
Both will use newer technology to kill bacteria with less chemical treatment of the water, and the addition of ozone-based purification will allow the city to remove tastes and odors consumers associate with the notion of polluted drinking water while achieving optimal disinfection of the supply.
Unfortunately, the south end of the county will see none of those changes as the water supplies for Gilroy and Morgan Hill come directly from ground water supplies rather than runoff.
As water travels down through the earth toward the ground water basin, many of its impurities are removed by nature, gradually sticking to the layers of dirt and sand it passes through on its way down.
In most cases, this is actually a preferable source of water, but some contaminants can seep down into the ground water supply, contaminating it with manmade chemicals.
“In South County, the biggest concern is nitrate,” said Mike DiMarco, a spokesman for the Santa Clara Valley Water District. “Because of the nitrates, a couple of the municipal wells in Morgan Hill have problems, so they mix their water supplies to get that level down. Of course, the newest thing is perchlorate. It’s an example of the whole host of chemicals that can actually get down that far that we have to study and deal with.”
DiMarco said the water district was not so much involved with the treatment of the water supply as the protection of local residents, regularly testing public wells and blending water from a variety of sources to safe levels. But those using private wells don’t have that benefit.
“There is no state, local or federal agency responsible for making sure that their water is safe,” said DiMarco. “A lot of people don’t know that. They just assume someone is taking care of it.”
It generally costs around $100 to get a well tested by private laboratory companies, said DiMarco. He recommends yearly testing for outlying water users.
Representatives of the Sunnyslope County Water District, which administers tap water in San Benito County, did not return phone calls in time for the publication of this article.
