One by one, customers stroll up and down the tiled lanes like ants. Smooth songs from the 1980s quietly fall from the overhead speakers and a slow, steady tone beeps from cash registers as groceries are scanned. Everything is clean, bright and lined up in perfect rows. In aisle seven, a man stops and stares blankly at numerous shelves of bottled water, not sure which brand to buy. Sparkling or natural, lemon or cherry flavored, liter, half-liter or gallon, the possibilities are endless. Some people buy only a single bottle, while others buy multiple cases.

Consumers in California drink the majority of the bottled water sold in the United States, with women age 15-33, concerned about health and appearances, leading the trend. They can be seen in supermarkets, health food stores and other locations making a profit for bottled water.

The water that comes from the tap in Deidre Frazier’s San Francisco apartment is brown, and as she says, “disgusting.” She has been buying bottled water for years at a cost of roughly $25 a month.

“I buy the cheapest bottled water I can find, but it still adds up,” says Frazier. “I have no choice, the tap water in my apartment is horrible.”

Millions of Americans turn on their faucets everyday to bathe, cook and clean with water from public systems, yet they consistently buy bottled water for drinking. Most believe it’s because bottled water is purer than tap water. They could be wrong. In fact, a large portion of the bottled water being sold in the U.S. is actually equal to tap water – and sometimes worse.

Bottled water is considered a packaged food product and is therefore regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. Tap water, on the other hand, is considered public and is regulated more often and with higher standards by the Environmental Protection Agency. FDA standards lag behind EPA regulations. Beyond that, the FDA standards are only applied if the bottled water in question is transported over state lines. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), an average of 60 to 70 percent of bottled water is pumped, packaged and shipped within the state.

Figuring out where that bottle of Crystal Geyser or Calistoga water is actually from might not be that easy. Have you ever looked at the labels and wonderd where exactly the glacier that supplied that “pure glacier water” is? Does every bottle labeled “Alpine Spring Water,” come from the Alps? The mislabeling of water using descriptive terminology is customary. These misleading labels suggest the water is extraordinarily pure or uncontaminated. Although the FDA has implemented labeling restrictions to prevent this, the problem persists. In a study done by the NRDC, research found that a quarter of the bottled water sold in the United States is equivalent to tap water that may or may not have been filtered, meaning beverage companies could be packaging water from your kitchen sink and selling it to you at great profits.

Profits from bottled water sales in the United States have skyrocketed in the last decade. Public perception that bottled water tastes better and is cleaner than tap water is due to advertising and false labels, says the NRDC. The cost of tap water is, give or take, half-a-cent per liter, yet a single serving bottle is typically a dollar. Most of that dollar goes to cover the cost of packaging and the remainder is profit.

In recent years, the fastest growing segment in beverage sales has been bottled water. Since it became trendy and convenient in the last decade, the variety of bottled water and “water like” beverages has exploded, filling shelf upon shelf in stores across the country.

So why are we paying so much money for a product that is free from every faucet in our home? Good question, since California has one of the largest supplies of fresh water being pumped directly to residents.

The Hetch-Hetchy reservoir in the Sierra Nevada near Yosemite is a pristine water source owned by San Francisco. Situated in an unpopulated area at high elevation, it almost guarantees the water to be virtually perfect, according to Jon Merkell of the EPA. It has many barriers along its 167- mile route to the city, being tested along the way to ensure it remains perfect for consumption upon its arrival.

If the water from your faucet is less than appealing, it might be the pipes in your building that are at fault, not the water itself, says the EPA. Old buildings often have old pipes, which can lead to the leaching of other contaminants, such as rust and lead, making the water ugly and unpleasant to taste. They suggest a one-time purchase of a quality filter. That will likely fix the problem and cost a fraction of what you might spend in a year on a questionable bottled product.

In the last few weeks, Frazier has been searching the internet, comparing filters and reading the city’s yearly report of tap water, posted every July on the city’s website: www.sfgov.org. She’ll need a filter
capable of removing the type of contaminants found in her area like e-coli, chlorine and lead.

“They have some highly-rated filters on the market,” says Frazier. “For what I spend in a few weeks in bottled water from the store, I can have a quality filter. But the true test will be how the water tastes.”