The city of Aspen is preparing to spend about $20,000 on reusable water bottles and another $9,400 on filling stations in an effort to promote the drinking of municipal tap water over the plastic-bottled variety.

City of Aspen environmental health staff will make a presentation at tonight’s Aspen City Council meeting updating their efforts in the “Aspen Tap” campaign, to which council gave the green light in March.

The city is planning to order 4,000 stainless steel water bottles at a cost of around $5 each. After giving away about 1,000, the city plans to sell the bottles at the Saturday Market for between $5 and $6, according to a city memo, and at local stores for around $10.

“Local retailers have expressed concern that by selling bottles for $5, or a similarly low price, the city will undercut local businesses’ sales efforts and will make local prices appear inflated,” says a memo from city environmental health specialist Ashley Cantrell.

The city expects to make about $15,000 back on its investment in the water bottles.

The city also plans to roll out specially-designed filling stations that would be strategically placed around town, where locals and tourists can fill up their water bottles. One such station would be placed near the restrooms at Wager Park; another at Conner Park, which is next to City Hall and the Saturday Market; and another station would replace existing drinking fountains at Rio Grande Park.

The filling stations would be equipped with consumption-monitoring meters to help city officials gauge the success of the program. The city also plans to ask local grocery stores for data on the amount of bottled water sold, and keep track of those estimates to see if they decrease with the new program.

The city takes its water from snowmelt-fed Maroon and Castle creeks, giving Aspenites one of the purest high-mountain water supplies anywhere.

The city also plans to “continue working with local grocery stores to develop a bottle and messaging campaign that could be available in the bottled water aisle at local stores.” The city hopes to one day have reusable bottles for sale in the grocery store in the bottled water aisle, alongside an Aspen tap filling station.

Aspen City Councilman Torre encouraged the city to get in the game of cutting back on bottled water after a January trip to the Caribbean left the councilman shocked at the amount of discarded plastic water bottles that were floating in the otherwise pristine blue waters. He initially encouraged city staff to research an outright bottled water ban.

The city, through its ZGreen events program, encourages events to cut back or eliminate bottled water. The city also is looking to eliminate bottled water from government meetings and conferences.

The city is eyeing more bottled water filling stations at the Aspen Recreation Center, the base of Smuggler Mountain Road, gondola plaza and the municipal golf course.

Source: Aspen Daily News

May 1- 7 is National Drinking Water Week

Did you know?

- In the United States, water utilities treat nearly 34 billion gallons of water      every day

-  In the United States and Canada, the total miles of water pipeline and aqueducts equal approximately one million miles; enough to circle the globe 40 times

- Americans drink more than one billion glasses of tap water per day

- Children in the first six months of life consume seven times as much water per pound as the average American adult

Drink Tap!

That bottled water you’re drinking could have come from a faucet the next town over or from a company with a history of bacterial contamination.

But you wouldn’t know that from the label, according to an environmental group that examined 173 different brands of bottled water on the market.

Last week, the Environmental Working Group, a Washington, D.C., advocacy outfit, released its Bottled Water Scorecard, a rundown of the data displayed or not on the containers of one of the nation’s most popular retail beverages.

The group found that only three water bottles had three key pieces of data the water’s source, how it’s purified and the results of any tests for contaminants. The brands were: Gerber Pure Purified Water, Nestle Pure Life Purified Water and Penta Ultra Purified Water.

The 170 others lacked at least one of the three pieces of information; but many had none. In contrast, municipal water purveyors must provide data on where their supplies originate, treatment methods and any violations of drinking water standards under federal law.

Read the whole story at SFGate.com

Bill would tell state how much of its water goes to bottlers

Does the state have a right to know where its water is going?

Major multinational corporations such as Nestle are allowed to siphon it up for free�only to sell it back to Californians and others in energy-guzzling plastic bottles likely to end up in landfills or floating off our lovely coastlines. Profit margin: Up to 10,000 percent.

Bottled water is increasingly controversial for these reasons. And while you may not believe that the occasional Dasani or Aquafina is a Class A environmental felony, it would certainly make sense to have companies pay the state something for the millions of gallons of water they remove from the public’s groundwater supply.

A state bill sponsored by Felipe Fuentes (D-San Fernando) will soon get a floor vote to eliminate on part of the scandal: It would require water bottlers to report how much water they take from public aquifers. The governor vetoed the bill last year in a skirmish over the budget.

Also last summer, the City of Sacramento made a deal with Nestle that is stricter than most: It charges the company 65 centers per 100 cubic feet of water, instead of giving it up for free. But the city didn’t limit the Nestle’s total draw, even as local residents faced water restrictions. And the 65 cent price is 10 cents lower than the generic commercial rate, although Nestle will make a 10,000 percent profit on the water.

Fuentes’ bill wouldn’t undo sweetheart deals like this one, but it would force water bottlers like Nestle to report their water use to the state � which would empower officials to consider this significant source of commercial use in determining how best to handle California’s contentious water issues.

Ask your representatives to support the bill by signing this petition.

In January, Washington DC added a $.05 tax on plastic bags in order to attempt to reduce plastic waste. The tax ended up having 2 great outcomes – 1) the number of plastic bags used dropped from a monthly average of 22.5 million to an astounding 3 million! 2) The tax generated $150k� in revenue that will be used to clean up a nearby river.

This is great! A small tax that will help change consumer thinking and an astronomical drop in plastic bag waste. Hopefully other locations will see these results and make the change as well…maybe a tax on bottled water??

Read the full story here

The American Water Works Association (AWWA) held a Best of the Best – Tap Water Taste Test yesterday at their annual conference in Chicago.� This is the 5th year that the AWWA has held the competition in an attempt to prove that tap water is better than bottled water.�There were a total of 21 municipal water sample finalists.� The 2010 winner was the Stevens Point Water Department in Wisconsin, 2nd place was awarded to New York City with Lincoln, NE and Silverdale, WA tying for 3rd!

A couple interesting facts about the competition:

• Silverdale, WA uses water from a 1,000-foot-deep aquifer that is so pure the water is pumped directly to homes without the utility treating it
• Stevens Point town motto is “City of Wonderful Water”
• The competition had 3 judges from the AWWA Taste and Odor Committee, with the same taste standards applied to the water as wine and beer taste competitions. This is serious stuff!

Read more here

Hamilton, Ontario, a city with nearly 700,000 residents in Canada is considering banning the bottle. Well not quite. But the city is at least trying to start campaigns aimed at curbing bottled water sales.

The strategy is aimed at encouraging Hamiltonians to tap into the city water supply as much as possible while reducing reliance on bottled water.

Bottled water is big business in Canada. Sales of bottles of water less than 18 litres in size have soared to $430 million in 2006, up from $280 million in 2002.

But to address environmental concerns over waste and the loss of confidence in municipal tap water, some 39 Ontario municipalities have posted restrictions on bottled water in municipal facilities.

As well, in cities such as Toronto and London, Ont., where bottled water is banned from municipal premises companies have found a way around the prohibition by selling flavoured water products instead.

Read the full article here: http://www.thespec.com/News/Local/article/751866