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Group Organizes Tap Water Taste Test Challenge
Oregon Public Broadcasting -- March 21, 2006

By Kristian Foden-Vencil

PORTLAND, OR--In a world filled with hunger, poverty and war you might be forgiven for not listing bottled water among your top ten concerns. But the Oregon chapter of the Corporate Accountability Project joined with locals at Portland State University on Tuesday to protest what it's calling "the commercialization of water." Kristian Foden-Vencil attended the groups' taste test and filed this report.

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Kristian Foden-Vencil: "Have you any idea what you're signing up for?"
Emma Dalton: "I'm signing up for something that has to do with OSPIRG and it's water conservation and the National Forests and what else was it?"
Kristian Foden-Vencil: "I think you're going to be shocked by what you just signed up for."
Emma Dalton: "Am I really?"

Emma Dalton is an international affairs student at PSU. She's got a paper to hand in by noon, but has been waylaid by Corporate Accountability International. The group is staging a taste test where consumers try different brands of bottled water to see if they can tell the difference between those and tap water. There's Dasani by Coke, Aquafina by Pepsi, Arrowhead by Nestlé, and tap water from PSU.

Jen Dinah: "So here's your first cup."
Emma Dalto: "Okay, you're not going to tell me what this is?"
Kristian Foden-Vencil: "So what does it taste like?"
Jen Dinah: "Here's B."
Kristian Foden-Vencil: "Does that taste any different?"
Emma Dalton: "A little bit, it taste a little bit more wet. I can taste the difference but I can't explain it. Oh, I don't like this one. That third one had to be PSU's probably."

After her blindfold is taken off, Dalton is asked to match each water sample with each brand.

Jen Dinah: "So here are the results."
Kristian Foden-Vencil: "She got it right."
Emma Dalton: "So what does this mean?"
Jen Dinah: "It means that you can kind of taste the difference I guess between tap water and bottled water "

About half of those tested can tell the difference between tap and bottled water, but Corporate Accountability International isn't here to gauge the taste buds of Oregon students. They're kicking off a campaign to challenge the marketing muscle of the bottled water industry.

After the test, Dalton is given four postcards to sign. They tell Coke, Pepsi and Nestlé that water is a basic human right and that corporations are contributing to the inaccessibility of water by turning it into a profit driven commodity. Mary Nichol is a field organizer for Corporate Accountability International.

Mary Nichol: "Bottled water is less regulated that tap water and in fact one fourth of all bottled water is just tap water so corporations are really turning a huge profit of what should remain a human right."

In the 1970's Corporate Accountability International organized a boycott against Nestlé's powdered infant formula. During the 1980's it targeted General Electric's involvement in nuclear weapons, and the group recently battled the tobacco industry, alleging it advertises to kids. Nichol says despite appearances, bottled water raises a number important issues, from the empties that end up in landfills, to basic public health.

Mary Nichol: "Because of the mass advertising they're able to convince people that its safer and cleaner, which is just not the case."

She says that's in part what's driven up the number of bottled water consumers. Half of Americans drink bottled water, but more disturbing, she says, is that one 6th drink ONLY bottled water.

Whatever the reasons, the industry is doing a $55 billion dollar a year business. It even has its own trade group. Stephen Kay, with the International Bottled Water Association, says they're not trying to compete against tap water, or give tap water a bad name.

Stephen Kay: "This industry does not advertise or market in an effort to diminish public trust or disparage public tap water. The bottled water industry's competition are the other beverages that consumers have a choice of when they're on the go or at home. Bottled water offers consumers an alternate when they want to avoid or moderate calories, alcohol, sugar, artificial flavors, et cetera."

Kay says sometimes bottled water can be essential - for example, after Hurricane Katrina inundated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. He also says bottled water containers can be recycled --a practice the industry encourages.

Back at Portland State University, communications major Samuel Wilson failed his taste test - he couldn't tell the difference between tap and bottled water. He has mixed emotions on the industry.

Samuel Wilson: "I mean if they're like actually purifying it, I guess it's better than drinking out of the tap so it's better. I don't know if it's worth a dollar, but Coke's not worth a dollar anyway, so ..."

The battle over bottled water has been running since businesses first decided to market the essential liquid. This event at PSU is one of several around the nation leading up to the United Nation's World Water Day.

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