Bottled water difference is often a few steps

'A lot of bottled water is no better than tap water,' bottling chief executive says

Is bottled water really worth the extra cost? At 50 cents for 20 ounces, it costs more than 1,000 times the price of a glass of tap water.

"A lot of bottled water is no better than tap water, and the people bottling it know it," said Jerry Smith, chief executive officer of LeBleu, a bottled water company in Davie County, which sells water in 16 countries. "If you can sell somebody something without spending money, and they'll buy it, you sell it to them. I'm just being honest."

Smith said that LeBleu, which is marketed as "ultra pure," distills its water to remove impurities in addition to several filtration and disinfection steps, making it a superior product. "There is not a trace of a chemical in our water."

But like other large brands of purified drinking water, LeBleu starts with treated municipal water it buys from Davie County or draws from a well. Pepsi Bottling Ventures in Garner, maker of Aquafina, purchases water from the city of Raleigh, then puts it through additional steps to produce its product. Coca-Cola makes Dasani from Charlotte city water that it further treats.

Consumers buy bottled water for convenience, as a healthful refreshment or because of concerns about the quality of tap water. Bottled water sales have increased about 10 percent a year for a decade, and two years ago they passed sales of coffee, beer and milk in the volume that Americans buy annually, said Gary Hemphill, managing director of Beverage Marketing Corp., a research firm that focuses on the beverage industry. The cost of bottled water varies, depending on the quantity purchased.

Consumers who buy bottled water should get a product that doesn't contain the powerful chemical disinfectants that city systems add to keep water from growing bacteria as it flows through hundreds of miles of underground pipes, said Smith of LeBleu.

"I wouldn't say municipal water is unsafe, but there are chemicals there," Smith said. "They try to do the best they can do. They can't charge you $30 a month and supply pure water. They supply you with good utility water that is not going to make you sick tomorrow morning."

Bottled water is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration as a packaged food. The minimum standards for the quality of bottled water are generally the same as those established by the Environmental Protection Agency for public drinking water systems.

Clearwater Springs of Caswell, a family-owned business north of Mebane, started selling water from a spring on the family farm by the truckload to other bottlers in 1991, and under its own label in the mid-1990s.

"Let's face it: To buy water is a luxury," said Keith Whited, president of Clearwater Springs. "The only reason there is a market for bottled water is our culture has been so reckless with our water supplies. We have grown too fast to ensure that our public supplies are clean."

Standards

The state inspects the 30 in-state bottled water plants twice a year; the bottlers are supposed to test their water for disinfection daily and perform weekly tests for bacteria. State inspectors sporadically test water bottled out of state and sold in North Carolina, relying on the states where the water is produced to ensure its quality.

"The standards for bottled water aren't different from drinking water," said Jessica Miles, chief of the Public Water Supply Section of N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

Beyond meeting minimum standards, bottlers may purify water by putting it through more steps so that it exceeds the minimum standards.