By Andy Anderson

Browsing the bottled water selection at any local grocery or convenience store, consumers are confronted with refreshing adjectives like “pure,” “pristine” and “natural,” coupled with fairytale depictions of rolling glaciers, snow-capped peaks and crystal blue streams. Last year alone, such fanciful imagery prompted Americans to spend almost $11 billion on more than 8 billion gallons of bottled water. Funny, when you consider that in many cases around the country, the same stuff (or better) is flowing for free right out of the tap.

According to the Beverage Marketing Corporation, the average adult guzzles more than 25 gallons of plastic-bottled H20 annually, spending nearly $200 a year for the privilege — a consumption rate second only to carbonated soft drinks. Ironically enough, despite our nation’s often hostile debate over oil consumption, Americans are paying more per gallon for bottled water than for gasoline. The cost difference between bottled and tap water is even more shocking. In a city like Chicago, residents can buy 1,000 gallons of tap water for the price of one bottle of water. Yet watchdog group Corporate Accountability International (CAI) estimates that one in five Americans drinks exclusively bottled water.

High price isn’t the only cost of America’s bottled water habit. You’ve heard the numbers: The bottled water industry consumes 1.5 million barrels of oil to produce the 28 billion (yes — billion) bottles of water manufactured annually. Eighty percent of those bottles end up clogging the landfills, highways and byways of America. Not to mention the additional energy consumed during bottling, distribution and storage. Concerns have also been raised that the chemicals in plastic bottles are seeping into the water they contain. When reused again and again, bottles made from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) — the most commonly used plastic on the market — have been found to leach dangerous chemicals such as antimony.

Is what comes out of the tap really bad enough to warrant the economic, health and environmental costs of America’s bottled water obsession? Probably not. Deborah Lapidus, a national organizer with CAI’s Think Outside the Bottle campaign, believes that aggressive corporate marketing ($158 million worth in 2005) has paid off in creating a public that not only thinks bottled water is better, but regards tap water with squinty-eyed suspicion.

“These corporations have identified water as a commodity, and through their marketing they undermine confidence in public water supplies,” Lapidus says. “The more they identify it as a commodity, the more it threatens universal access to water.”

Let’s be crystal clear: several studies have confirmed the presence of contaminants in municipal tap water. But while there aren’t as many similar studies focusing on bottled water supplies — probably due, in part, to our unwavering trust in the stuff — the few that have been conducted have found similar levels of contaminants. “There is no assurance that just because water comes out of a bottle it is any cleaner or safer than water from the tap,” concluded a study of 1,000 samples of 103 brands of bottled water, conducted by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in 1999. Nearly one fourth of the brands tested by the NRDC were found to have contamination on some level.

And then there’s the question of water quality monitoring, far more rigorous and regular for municipal tap water supplies than for bottled. While tap water is regulated by the EPA, bottled water is mandated by the FDA. The EPA tests tap water more often and for more contaminants than the FDA does for bottled water, including tests for coliform bacteria, E. coli and pathogens such as cryptosporidium and giardia.

“In addition to the human testing, we have certain labs that are running 24-7,” says Alan Stark, head of Water Quality for the City of Chicago.

City water supplies must be filtered, disinfected and tested in government labs, none of which are required of bottled water. And brands that are bottled and sold in the same state (some 60 to 70 percent) are regulated by state programs, not the FDA — with state regulations varying widely.

The International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) — the trade organization for the bottled water industry — assures consumers that all of the EPA’s contaminant regulations are enforced in the IBWA’s Model Bottled Water Code. Unfortunately, not all bottled water manufacturers are members of the IBWA, and the model code is not legally enforceable.

“We actually don’t know very much about the water we drink out of the bottle,” Lapidus says. “We don’t have access to quality reports like we do for our tap water.”