Bottlemania - Elizabeth Royte [56]
In 2000, a peer-reviewed university study compared fifty-seven samples of bottled water to Cleveland tap and found more than a dozen had at least ten times the bacterial levels found in the city’s water. (It is possible that the water started with a low count but the numbers went up as microorganisms happily multiplied in the warmth of closed containers.) A 2000 study by the Consumers Union confirmed what the NRDC had discovered: some brands had elevated bacterial counts. In 2004, the American Society of Microbiology tested sixty-eight types of mineral water and found that 40 percent contained bacteria or fungi, while twenty-one samples could support bacterial growth in lab cultures. Dangerous bacteria? Not necessarily: all the samples were safe to drink under government standards. If you are healthy, that is. The young, the old, and the otherwise infirm are warned to steer clear of such risks.
The message from water testers is loud and clear. Most bottled water is safe, by government standards. Almost always, the FDA sets levels for chemical, microbial, and radiological contaminants no less stringent than those of the EPA. It sounds good, but if you think you are buying pure, natural water from a pristine fount—and why wouldn’t you, based on the labels’ pretty pictures and on the amount of money you spent?—you might be disappointed to learn the FDA allows in bottled water the same complement of disinfection by-products, pesticides, heavy metals, and radioactive materials the EPA allows in tap. The only difference is that public water utilities are required in their annual reports to let you know, while the bottled-water industry has spent millions to make sure you don’t, lobbying hard to keep such information off its labels.
Until recently, bottled water didn’t contain fluoride—a selling point for many consumers wary of the compound. Now, however, some dentists worry that children who drink only bottled water are at risk for cavities. In response, a few bottlers have added fluoride to their products and marketed them to children. Nationwide, 67 percent of the population drinks from a fluoridated water supply, but the trend seems to be shifting away from the practice (most of Europe doesn’t fluoridate, yet it’s seen a sharp reduction in cavities). Some people consider fluoridation mass medicalization and the compound toxic (which it is, in doses far higher than what utilities serve up). The American Dental Association wants us to use fluoride (unless we’re younger than two), but acknowledges we can get it from toothpaste, mouth rinse, fluoride supplements, and biannual fluoride treatments.
Another difference between bottled and tap: the EPA requires public water supplies to be disinfected and tested for crypto, giardia, and viruses. But because springwater comes from underground and isn’t expected to harbor those organisms, the FDA doesn’t require bottlers to test for them. (“Purified water,” of course, starts from the tap, so it’s already assumed to have met EPA standards.) And just because bottling companies have fancy filtration equipment doesn’t mean they maintain it; dirty filters can put schmutz into water, instead of removing it.
While utilities test tap water hundreds of thousands of times a year and report their results to state and federal agencies, bottling plants self-test (Nestlé claims to test one hundred times a day; DS Waters, the biggest home-and-office water-delivery company in the nation, tests four times a year), and they host an FDA inspector infrequently. The plants have low priority, says the agency, because the industry has a good safety record. When inspectors do show up, they test only for selected contaminants, depending on the reason for the sampling. A scolding July 2007 report on general food safety by the House Energy and Commerce Committee states, “FDA has no rules governing testing protocols, record retention . . . manufacturing, quality assurance and control, or the right to examine any records that a food-processing