Still Drowning

A short addendum to “Drowning in Hype”....

My local newspaper ran a piece a few days ago on the “bottled or tap” water debate.

The writer assumed that no one would drink water right out of the tap, so the choice she presented was between filter-equipped water pitchers, hook-to-the-faucet devices and bottled water. Fair enough, especially since she gave a cost-per-hundred gallon comparison that I found useful.

The water pitcher was $25, with six replacement filters costing $27. The cost per hundred gallons, as estimated by this writer, was $35. The cost for the hook-to-the-faucet device? $34 per hundred gallons.

So far, so good. But then I read the next paragraph and started laughing.

The writer suggested that if someone wanted to “splurge” on their water, they should buy a certain “natural artesian water” that comes in “pretty square bottles bearing tropical flower designs.”

Cost for 100 gallons? More than $ 670.

Oh, yeah. You pay almost twenty times as much to get a pretty label.

But, Cathy, you say, this is natural artesian water. It’s got to be twenty times better, right?

Really? Artesian simply refers to water that’s pumped from a hole in the ground, instead of out of a river or lake. There’s no guarantee that such water is pure. (In fact, in my part of Texas right now, there’s a lot of worry about pollution leaking from both natural gas and waste injection wells into our underground water tables)

As for “natural”.....I hate to say this, but I have a large pile of manure back behind my barn that I could, in good conscience, label as “100% natural.”

Neither term—natural or artesian— guarantees that the water is clean.

Clean water should be your goal. Pure water is what you should drink...and you can get it for a lot less than $6.70 a gallon!