We're with Cleveland on this

We've never been able to work up the required civic hatred of Cleveland. Yes, we want the Steelers to crush the Browns, and the Brownies' Dawg Pound is a blight on civilization. But really, folks, Pittsburgh is a nice city, Cleveland is a nice city. Besides, The Morning File believes in Rust Belt solidarity, rather than the bottom-rung sniping encouraged by those condescending coastal sophisticates. So it is in this spirit that we present this delightful story from the Mistake on the Lake -- I mean, Cleveland.

Fiji, not just an island but also a precious bottled water that fancies itself the thirst-quencher of the stars, clobbered Cleveland with the same sort of tired humor that galls Pittsburghers. A full-page ad in national magazines boasts: "The label says Fiji because it's not bottled in Cleveland." Ha, ha.

An aroused Cleveland Water Department went into action. It ran tests comparing Fiji to Cleveland tap water and other national brands. Fiji Water took top spot in arsenic and other contaminants, the Plain Dealer reported. It wasn't enough to make Fiji unsafe to drink, but Cleveland tap water along with Aquafina, Dasani and Evian had no measurable arsenic. Fiji said the tests were rigged and made no move to change the ad.

Fiji's next ad can say it did better with Men's Health magazine than it did with Cleveland. The magazine deemed Fiji the best among nine brands.

How did all this start?

In 1977, Orson Welles, fresh from serving no wine before its time, cooed on television about a place in the south of France where "there is a spring, and its name is Perrier." Thus was launched one of the most baffling and pervasive cons in modern consumerism: People were persuaded to pay 1,000 times the price for something available in their kitchens, something with little or no demonstrable safety, health or taste advantage. From the days when Perrier's green bottles were a curiosity, the American bottled water market has grown into the world's largest. In 2005, we drank nearly 8 billion gallons of bottled water -- 26 gallons per person -- and paid more per gallon than for gasoline. Our $10.1 billion annual tab for bottled water is higher than the gross domestic product of Malawi and Liberia combined, The Washington Post reports. Nestle, Pepsi and Coca-Cola control what is the fastest-growing segment of the beverage market.

The critics

Dr. Marion Nestle, a critic of food marketers: "First of all, water is water is water. Second, tap water in the developed world is not only cleaner than bottled water, but it has fluoride, which most bottled water does not. Mostly, you are paying for the convenience of the bottle."

Menno Liauw, Dutch founder of the Neau Foundation, which raises money for drinking-water projects in poor countries: "More than any other product, the buying and selling of water is an industry based on nothing. Two thousand liters of tap water cost less than one liter of Spa," a popular Dutch mineral water.

Plus, it's environmentally crazy

Water is heavy. Moving large quantities of it, for example, 8,000 miles from Fiji to New York, requires burning massive quantities of fossil fuels that emit pollutants. Tap water, by contrast, is distributed through an energy efficient infrastructure. A British study calculated that transporting bottled water in the U.K. generated carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to the annual energy consumption of 6,000 homes.

The bottles are even more problematic. The plastic they're made of is PET, polyethylene terephthalate, which is made from crude oil. The invention of PET in the 1970s made the portable water bottle possible. According to the Container Recycling Institute, 90 percent of PET bottles end up in landfills, at a rate of 30 million a day, where they take 450 years to break down.

Is it safe?

Municipal water is regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency, which does frequent testing as do local authorities. The Food and Drug Administration monitors the labeling of bottled water, but the bottlers are responsible for testing. Few problems have been reported from either kind of water in recent years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In February, The New York Times submitted six bottled waters (a mix of domestic and imported, natural and purified) and one sample of New York City tap water for chemical analysis. Minerals like magnesium, calcium and even arsenic in trace amounts are expected in water, and nothing out of the ordinary turned up. In a bacteriological examination, six came back with results well within the parameters defined by the EPA. But one bottled spring water showed much higher levels of unspecified bacteria and was labeled "substandard for drinking water." Because only one bottle was tested, the brand was not named.

A taste test

In a blind tasting, The Times sampled nine still waters: New York tap; Biota, a new Colorado spring water in a biodegradable bottle; Poland Spring from Maine; Aquafina, from Pepsi, the country's best seller; Dasani, from Coca-Cola; Saratoga, a natural mineral water from upstate New York; Smartwater, "vapor-distilled and electrolyte-enhanced"; our old pal Fiji, artesian water from the South Pacific (artesian water comes from a deep underground source, such as an aquifer, that has no contact with surface air); and Penta, an "ultrapremium" water. None was universally disliked. One was the clear winner: Dasani.

An offensive development

Restaurants have increasingly taken to the hard sell with water: "Would you like still or sparkling?" They might as well just ask for a $5 bill.

The correct answer is, "I prefer regular water." Particularly if you're in Cleveland.

First Published: July 20, 2006, 4:00 a.m.