As part of WebMD’s investigation into the safety and purity of bottled water versus the safety and purity of tap water they commented briefly on the following question posed by a number of their viewers/members: If I Drink Tap Water, Should I Use a Filter?

If you live in a home with older pipes, have odor or taste issues with your tap water, or just want an extra level of protection, a filter may be a good idea. But you have to get the right one for your specific problem, Janssen says.

“It is important to know what you are trying to filter out before you spend the money,” she says. “A reverse osmosis filter will get rid of most contaminants, but charcoal may be enough for odor and taste problems.” (source)

You may use the following links to find information on the benefits of using:

• Reverse Osmosis drinking water filtration systems
• Activated Carbon drinking water filtration systems
• Cation-Exchange Softener drinking water filtration systems
• Distillation drinking water filtration systems
• Ultraviolet Disinfection drinking water filtration systems

Given the increase in concern over the purity and safety of bottled water, many people have asked the following question: How Can I Tell if the Water I Purchased Started Out As Tap Water?

The folks over at WebMD explored that question recently and had this to say:

Roughly 45% of the water sold in single-serve bottles comes from a municipal water source.

By law, bottled water that comes from a municipal water supply has to disclose this on its label unless the bottler takes steps to further purify the water, which most do. In this case, the label will say “purified water” or “purified drinking water,” but the original source is probably tap water.

Water labeled “spring water” comes from an underground water spring, but it may be piped to the bottling plant.

“Mineral water” comes from an underground source and must contain no less than 250 parts per million total dissolved solids, such as salts, sulfur compounds, and gasses. No minerals may be added to the water by the bottler.

“Artesian water” or “artesian well water” must come from a well that taps a confined aquifer. (source)

What happened to the days when you could TRUST a company not to misrepresent a product they touted as ‘pure’?

Our opinion: Those days died with the dinosaurs or they never really existed!

Looking for ways to cut back in these tough economic times? An environmental group suggests skipping the bottled water and drinking from the tap. It might even be healthier.

The Environmental Working Group says its tests how 10 popular U.S. bottled water brands contain mixtures of 38 different pollutants, including bacteria, fertilizer, Tylenol and industrial chemicals, some at levels no better than tap water.

Wal-Mart’s Sam’s Choice at several locations contained contaminants exceeding California’s bottled water quality standards and safety levels for carcinogens under the state’s Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, according to the group’s laboratory tests. Giant Foods’ Acadia brand consistently retained the high levels of cancer-causing chlorination byproducts found in the suburban Washington DC tap water from which it is made.

Overall, the group says the test results strongly indicate that the purity of bottled water cannot be trusted.

“It’s buyer beware with bottle water,” said Jane Houlihan, Vice President for Research at EWG. “The bottled water industry promotes its products as pure and healthy, but our tests show that pollutants in some popular brands match the levels found in some of the nation’s most polluted big city tap water systems. Consumers can’t trust that what’s in the bottle is anything more than processed, pricey tap water.”

“For years the bottled water industry has marketed their product with the message that it is somehow safer or purer than tap water,” said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of the non-profit consumer advocacy group Food & Water Watch. “This new report provides even more evidence that the purity of bottled water is nothing more than a myth propagated to trick consumers into paying thousands times more for a product than what it is actually worth.”

EWG said that laboratory tests it commissioned at one of the country’s leading water quality laboratories found 38 contaminants in ten brands of bottled water purchased from grocery stores and other retailers in nine states and the District of Columbia.

The pollutants identified include common urban wastewater pollutants like caffeine and pharmaceuticals, an array of cancer-causing byproducts from municipal tap water chlorination, heavy metals and minerals including arsenic and radioactive isotopes, fertilizer residue and a broad range of industrial chemicals. Four brands were also contaminated with bacteria.

Unlike tap water, where consumers are provided with test results every year, the bottled water industry does not disclose the results of any contaminant testing that it conducts, EWG said.

Americans paid $12 billion to drink 9 billion gallons of bottled water last year alone, EWG said. Yet, the tests show several bottled waters bore the chemical signature of standard municipal water treatment–a cocktail of fluoride, chlorine and other disinfectants whose proportions vary only slightly from plant to plant. In other words, some bottled water was chemically almost indistinguishable from tap water.

The only striking difference, the group says, is the price tag. The typical cost of a gallon of bottled water is $3.79–1,900 times the cost of a gallon of public tap water. (source article)

So what can YOU do to help make sure the water you consume does not contain harmful chemicals? Simple: Learn everything you can about the source your water comes from. If it comes from a bottle, read the bottle label and research the company that did the bottling. By law they must divulge the source of their water and you may find out that they merely take water from their own local (municipal) water supplier, run it through an activated carbon filter, bottle it, and ship it to you.

• For those of you using well/spring water: click here for at-home drinking water testing options

• For those of you on municipal water systems: click here for at-home drinking water testing options

Little known fact: Some bottled water companied simply take tap water from their local water source (municipal or otherwise), “filter” it, and bottle it. Always read the labels on the outsides of the bottles to see where the water really came from — especially if you find yourself buying an ‘off-brand’ of bottled water.

Some of the items we found in our impromptu testing of various bottled water products included nitrates, nitrites and trace levels of heavy metals.  While none of the levels exceeded Primary Drinking Water Standards, it did cause us to scratch our heads and say, “Weren’t these things supposed to get removed at the bottling plant?”

So in conclusion, we suggest learning as much as you can about the water you drink whether it comes from the tap, from the ground, or from a plastic bottle with a ‘pristine-looking’ label.

At this time the staff of Water Testing Blog does not know of a simple testing method for bromates. This does not mean companies who bottle water cannot have their product(s) tested for bromates.

“MWH Labs has received accreditation for testing of bromate by EPA Method 317 under the Stage 2 Disinfection/Disinfection Byproducts (DDBP) Rule. Method 317 is, a very accurate and very precise analytical method for bromate, that avoids many of the problems with false negatives and false positives that are associated with the existing analytical method (EPA 300.1). Additionally method 317 is capable of detecting bromate as low as 1 ppb (vs 5 ppb for method 300.1), helping clients to more accurately assess their bromate treatment options. Bromate is regulated in bottled water and potable water at a level of 10 ppb.”(source)

A while back the newspapers and television reports filled up with reports that some bottled water contained high levels of bromates and everyone agreed that bottled water ought not contain bromates. But how many of you ever stopped to ask where the bromates came from in the first place?

“Bromate is a chemical that is formed when ozone used to disinfect drinking water reacts with naturally occurring bromide found in source water. EPA has established the Stage 1 Disinfectants/Disinfection Byproducts Rule to regulate bromate at annual average of 10 parts per billion in drinking water. This standard will become effective for large public water systems by December 2001 and for small surface water and all ground public water systems in December 2003.” (source)