Bottled Water

Two teachers on their lunch break scanned a refrigerated shelf inside a Manhattan coffee shop lined with drink bottles: Naked Juice, Perrier, Smartwater, New York City tap water. "Tap water?" said Alison Szeli, 26, picking up the clear plastic bottle with orange letters: "Tap'd NY. Purified New York City tap water." She studied the description: "No glaciers were harmed in making this water." She compared prices: Smartwater cost $1.85. Tap'd NY was 35 cents less.

Three years after Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said city departments should not spend taxpayer money on bottled water, several municipal agencies have increased their purchases of it, according to a report released Tuesday. City Controller Laura Chick found that 13 city departments spent more than $184,000 last year on water sold by such companies as Sparkletts, Danone and Arrowhead. Chick said she was alarmed to see the city's bottled water consumption jump since 2005 -- despite a memo on the topic sent by Villaraigosa to each of his department heads.

If L.A. tap water can win an international taste test, why can't it get any respect? Maybe, in part, because the stuff that pours into your sink at home isn't exactly the same as that tested in Berkeley Springs, W.Va., last weekend. The Metropolitan Water District, not L.A., won the 18th annual Berkeley Springs International Water Testing.

Randy Wilhelm, along with the 10,000 or so other residents of this isolated agricultural crossroads, is caught in a hygiene dilemma. Dirty dishes are piling up in his apartment. He dares take only the briefest of showers, and he has sprouted an unkempt goatee because he hasn't shaved for a week. And, starting today, he can't use municipal water for any purpose other than to flush his toilet. No laundry. No dishes. No coffee. "How do you not shower?" said Wilhelm, 40. "I can't wash my dishes.

California's largest tourist attractions are trying harder to be green, and a 2004 law that requires large venues to reduce and recycle solid waste has helped. But let's face it, the amount of bottled water consumed at our amusement parks, sports facilities, movie theaters and other attractions is an environmental Tunnel of Terror. Bottled water would leave a heavy carbon footprint even if, miraculously, every single polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic bottle were recycled.

IN 2006, Americans consumed, per capita, more than 25 gallons of bottled water -- twice as much as in 1997 and almost five times as much as in 1987. And what ignites Elizabeth Royte's reportorial spark in "Bottlemania" -- at least initially -- is the ecological cost of all those plastic empties: We discard between 30 billion and 40 billion bottles of Poland Spring, the most popular brand, in a year.

Tap water is making a comeback. With a day's worth of bottled water -- the recommended 64 ounces -- costing hundreds to thousands of dollars over a year depending on the brand, more people are opting to slurp water that comes straight from the faucet. The lousy economy may be accomplishing what environmentalists have been trying to do for years -- wean people off the disposable plastic bottles of water that were sold as stylish, portable, healthier and safer than water from the tap.

Question: I want to know if we can carry our own sealed bottled water through airport security checkpoints yet. I really resent having to pay $3 for water at the airport. How can we get this policy changed? Brenda Streater Answer: When I received this e-mail, I thought to myself, "Yeah! This is really ridiculous. Why should I be the victim of price-gouging swindlers charging me to slake the thirst I work up running the gantlet of stupid security measures imposed by our government?"

Those ubiquitous plastic water bottles have been increasingly vilified in recent years. Los Angeles, San Francisco and Santa Barbara, among others, have banned them from purchase with city funds. A few trendsetting restaurants, and even some markets and hotels, have banned them too. The trend has left many consumers wondering: Isn't bottled safer than tap? "Bottled water isn't any safer or purer than what comes out of the tap," says Dr.

Tests on bottled water turned up a variety of contaminants often found in tap water, according to a study released Wednesday by an environmental advocacy group. The findings challenge the idea that bottled water is purer than tap water, the researchers said. All the brands in the study met federal health standards, but two violated a California standard, said the Washington-based Environmental Working Group.