Bottlemania: Big Business, Local Springs, and the Battle over America's Drinking Water

But crisis for one was opportunity for others. The bottled-water juggernaut was in motion, Nestlé bought the wounded (but affordable) Perrier, and sales of non-Perrier water took off like, well, carbonated liquid squirting from a tiny hole.

United States pays the lowest tap-water rates, an average of $2.50 per thousand gallons.

In 2007, half the nation didn’t have access to clean water. Flash floods during the rainy season lead to outbreaks of typhoid, leptospirosis, and dengue fever. During these events, Fijians are advised to boil their water or drink from the bottle.

if bottled water is packaged and sold within the same state, it’s exempt from regulation by the FDA.

For example, we can build new homes with “dual plumbing”

the water footprint of a four-ounce hamburger produced in California is 616 gallons. A cotton T-shirt is backed by 528.3 gallons of water, a single cup of coffee, 52.8.

In 2006, ads for Fiji Water stated, “The Label Says Fiji Because It’s Not Bottled in Cleveland.” Annoyed, Cleveland officials tested the import and found 6.3 micrograms of arsenic per liter. City tap had none. (The EPA’s maximum allowed level is 10 micrograms per liter.)

for eight glasses a day, about forty-nine cents a year. Buy that water in bottles and you’d be spending $1,400.

Drinking too much water can, though, be dangerous. In January of 2007, a Sacramento County, California, woman trying to win a Nintendo Wii on a radio program drank almost two gallons of Crystal Geyser without a bathroom break. She left the radio station with a headache, didn’t win the Nintendo, and died that afternoon in her home.