Whistle-Wetting Figures

If Southern Californians think that bottled water tastes great compared with tap water, that is fine. If they believe there is more safety in drinking bottled water than water from their public system, they may be allowing themselves to get ripped off. After all, one water official notes that a gallon of bottled water costs more than a gallon of gasoline, even though much of the bottled variety came directly from the tap in the first place and was much less costly than gasoline to refine.

A recent survey conducted by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power indicated that more than half the city agency’s customers buy bottled water for drinking and other consumption uses at a cost averaging $14.40 a month, in addition to their DWP bills. Nineteen percent run their city tap water through special filters installed in home before they drink it. Some do both. The study showed that 54% of those who have bottled or filtered water buy it for better taste. But 40% do so for safety reasons. And of all the bottled water marketed in the nation, an astounding 36% is sold in California.

The point must be made clearly: Water distributed by Los Angeles is safe. It meets all federal and state health standards. So does water wholesaled by the Metropolitan Water District to an area of 14 million Southern California residents. Sometimes tap water is cloudy, but only because of air, not because of impurities or contaminants. In a taste test conducted a couple years ago, blindfolded experts often picked Los Angeles city water over bottled water.

To many, bottled water tastes better, but paying 800 times the cost of public supply water does not necessarily buy any safety.