Tobacco Documents Online

Post Frederick, Md. JAN 8 %3 Water From a Bottle 0 J A LL YOU CAN really say about bottled water is that it is water in a bottle. Most consumers assume it's tastier, healthier ,-and safer than tap water. But that's not necessar- ily so. In fact, a quarter of it comes not from , primordial mineral-rich springs but from munici- „pai water pipes. .... The Food andnnuQ Administration has been -monitoring bottled water since 1975, the same year Congress asked the Environmental Protec- t3oa Agency to ensure the safety of drinking ~water. The agency screens for contaminants ' identified as unsafe by the EPA, but it lags in setting standards for content and quality. Not all bottled waters, therefore, are as pure as plain old tap water. In fact, there aren't any standards at a11 for mineral water-an oversight that dis- mayed few until traces of benzene, a carcinogen, was discovered in Perrier, forcing a highly publi- -cized recall two years ago. That episode led a congressional subcommittee to take a closer look at'the various specialty waters consumers buy for more than twice the price of what comes out of the faucet. The insistent accusations of regulatory com- placency-and persistent petitions for uniform rales from the bottled-water industry itself- finally led the FDA this week to propose a truth-in-labeling law that should put an end to whatever confusion there is among spring, selt- zer, artesian, mineral and sparkling water drink- ers. The FDA will define those terms and require manufacturers to name the source of the water they're bottling. Mountain spring water must come from a mountain spring, not from the tap at the bottom of the mountain. These rules should put an end to some of the misperceptions about bottled water, which is the beverage of choice for one out of three families in certain parts of the country (California and the mid-Atlantic states in particular). The market for bottled water, domestic and imported, has over- flowed, more than doubling in the past decade or so. Infants on formula are among those consum- ers-one additional reason to regulate more strictly the levels of lead and residues from pesticides. The bottled-water industry maintains-and others concur-that ill health is more likely from tap water than from bottled water. Still, label disclosures and revised safety standards are nec- essary. If the FDA hadn't done something, Con- gres surely would have.