Page 419 - Environment: The Science Behind the Stories

tHe SCIeNCe BeHINd tHe StoRy

Is It Better in a Bottle? tions, but the agency is overworked
and understaffed as it is.
Which is safer and healthier for you to So, to find out what’s in bottled
drink, tap water or bottled water? water, scientists have had to do some
If you said bottled water, you’re not detective work. In 2008, research
alone. Most people think bottled water scientists at the EWG sent samples of
is safer and healthier, which is why 10 major brands of bottled water to the
sales have doubled each decade for University of Iowa’s Hygienic Laboratory
the past 20 years. But is bottled water for analysis. The lab’s chemists ran a
really as pure and clean as its market- battery of tests and detected 38 chemi-
ers want us to think? each year, 30–40 billion plastic water cal pollutants, including traces of heavy
It’s hard to know the answer, bottles are thrown away in the united metals, radioactive isotopes, caffeine
because companies are not required to States. and pharmaceuticals from wastewater
tell us anything about the quality of the pollution, nitrate and ammonia from
water in their bottles, or even where the D.C., surveyed the labels and websites fertilizer, and various industrial com-
water comes from. of 188 brands of bottled water. Only pounds such as solvents and plasticiz-
Municipalities that provide tap two of these brands disclosed infor- ers (Figure 1). Each brand contained
water to their residents need to submit mation comparable to that required of eight contaminants on average, and
regular reports to the Environmental municipal tap water providers. The FDA two brands had levels of chemicals that
Protection Agency describing their told Congress it would step up inspec-
sources, treatment methods, and con-
taminants. In contrast, bottled water is Industrial chemicals
regulated much more lightly because Radioactive contamination
it is classifed as a “food” by the Food
and Drug Administration (FDA). Bottling Fertilizer pollution
companies do not have to inform the Fluoride
public or the government where their Disinfection products from
water comes from or how it is treated, water treatment
and they are not required to test sam- Bacterial contamination
ples with certified laboratories or notify Pharmaceuticals
the FDA of contamination problems.
In 2009, Congress held a hear- Boron
ing on this discrepancy after the U.S. Arsenic
Government Accountability Office and 0 2 4 6 8 10
the nonprofit Environmental Working Number of brands with contamination
Group each published reports detailing Figure 1 of 10 leading brands of bottled water tested, most
how consumers cannot get basic infor- contained industrial chemicals, radioactive isotopes, and fertilizer
mation about the bottled water they pollution, as well as other contaminants. Source: Naidenko, O., et
purchase. The Environmental Working al., 2008. Bottled water quality investigation: 10 major brands, 38 pollutants.
Group (EWG), based in Washington, Environmental Working Group, Washington, D.C.

Canada have banned the sale of bottled water or restricted the to riverbanks for their water supply and for the flat topography
use of plastic water bottles on campus. Similarly, major U.S. cit- and fertile soil of floodplains. But if one lives in a floodplain,
ies including New York City, San Francisco, and Seattle prohibit one must be prepared to face flooding. Flooding is a normal,
using government funds to purchase bottled water, in part due to natural process that occurs when snowmelt or heavy rain
the cost savings of drinking tap water instead of bottled water. swells the volume of water in a river so that water spills over
the river’s banks. In the long term, floods are immensely ben-
People build dikes and levees eficial to both natural systems and human agriculture, because
to control floods floodwaters build and enrich soil by spreading nutrient-rich
sediments over large areas.
Among the reasons we control the movement of fresh water, In the short term, however, floods can do tremendous
418 flood prevention ranks high. People have always been attracted damage to the farms, homes, and property of people who

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