Posted on 03/21/2008 8:01:48 AM PDT by SmithL
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, a restaurateur turned politician, called on his former colleagues in the restaurant business Thursday to stop selling bottled water to customers and start serving local tap water instead.
The mayor made international headlines last year when he banned city government from spending tax dollars on bottled water for its employees, saying the containers clog landfills and pollute the environment. But his new request that restaurants make the switch is just that - a request.
"Not every restaurant is going to be able to afford to do this," Newsom said, noting that restaurants make a significant profit on bottled water sales and conceding that even some of the restaurants he once owned still offer the bottled variety to customers.
"They still don't necessarily get it. I'm working on that as well," said Newsom, who was required to sever financial ties to the local restaurants, bars and wine shops he owned when he became mayor in 2004.
In a press conference at the Ferry Building - a hub of gourmet food shops and restaurants - Newsom and representatives of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which delivers water to 2.4 million Bay Area customers, announced the campaign to urge restaurants to serve San Francisco tap water piped in straight from the Sierra.
Earlier this month, the American Waterworks Association Research Foundation tested 20 of the nation's water systems for compounds typically used in medicines, household cleaners and cosmetics and found San Francisco's water almost alone in being free of contaminants. And blind taste tests have also shown that the city's water tastes as good as, and in some cases better than, bottled water.
"Bottled water is a con job and scam," said Wenonah Hauter, . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
I agree with the guy.
I do too.
Considering a lot of bottled water is basically just bottled tap water, I have no problems with this. That said, I am now sitting here with my 1.5 liter smartwater in front of me.....
Isn’t a glass of water with a meal free?
Wow, a liberal having a moment of lucidity.
When, and why, did it become the job of the mayor to tell businesses what kind of water to serve ? If the government doesn’t have anything more important to do, they should just all resign, and save the rest of us the money.
Whoo hoo! Standing ovation!
Is the mayor admitting that San Francisco is so inept that City Hall can't recycle PEEK containers? Or does he want to deprive the city subject to earthquakes of a portable store of potable water?
Considering a lot of bottled water is basically just bottled tap water, I have no problems with this.The point is it's really not the government's business.
-Eric
I invite you to drink tap water in Indianapolis or Cincinnati. It is disgusting.
Yes, San Francisco’s tap water (from the Hetch Hetchy reservoir in the Sierras) is very good compared to most cities.
“Pristine San Francisco Water Sources Protect Drinking Water from Trace Pharmaceutical Residues
Published: 03/10/2008 | Updated: 03/11/2008
Published By: Communications and Public Outreach
Zero Treated Wastewater – the Major Source of Trace Pharmaceuticals – is Discharged into SFPUC Water Sources at Hetch Hetchy, Crystal Springs
San Francisco, CA: The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) today reaffirmed that the tap water it delivers to more than 2.4 million San Francisco Bay Area residents in San Francisco, San Mateo, Alameda and Santa Clara Counties is among the safest, highest quality and rigorously tested in the nation.
The major source of trace pharmaceutical compounds in drinking water is from the discharge of treated wastewater and stormwater runoff containing these compounds into source waters – lakes, rivers and other sources. San Francisco is fortunate to have tremendously high quality source waters in protected watersheds like Hetch Hetchy, Crystal Springs and Upper Alameda Creek/Calaveras Reservoir where there is zero discharge of treated wastewater. The SFPUC has a far lower level of concern about these compounds reaching our water supplies than many other U.S. or California cities with less protected or pristine source waters.
SFPUC water supplies are tested more than 100,000 times a year and meet or exceed all state and federal standards. The SFPUC shares concerns about trace amounts of pharmaceuticals in drinking water, which is why we participated in a first-of-its-kind study last year with other utilities to look at whether these compounds exist even at very, very low levels in our water supplies. The presence of one naturally occurring compound called estradiol, which is naturally produced in the bodies of mammals, was found at an almost undetectable level — 48 parts per quadrillion — in one sample. This is the equivalent of finding less than a single grain of sand in an Olympic-sized swimming pool. This could be naturally occurring, or an anomaly, and is considered to be of no health concern.”
48PPQ; now’s that’s the first popular use of parts per quadrillion I’ve seen.
Wait until the EPA applies that level of measurement to the air itself.
“But his new request that restaurants make the switch is just that - a request.”
You make it a law, then it crosses the line. This is just asking for a little common sense.
As a resident here, I can tell you that SF water is crap. It tastes bad. I bet the mayor doesn’t even drink it.
I’m surprised that nobody has considered the obvious alternative: glass bottles.
Restaurants have long used glass bottles for carbonated “mineral” water, so why not offer it to their customers for purified water? This is common practice elsewhere.
An important twist is that restaurants can *themselves* offer cash back for *their* glass bottles, then clean, refill and seal them with plastic shrink wrap. Again, this is common practice elsewhere.
If customers are leaving the restaurant, and prefer plastic, another angle is for them to redeem their empty bottles for a discount on their next bottled water, *or other items*. While it won’t eliminate plastic bottle waste, it will reduce it considerably.
Creativity and capitalism solves the problems that government thinks it can solve. The difference is that it actually *solves* problems, and doesn’t just think it can.
Check out Penn and Teller serving tap water to gullable
restaurant customers for ten dollars a bottle.
And it only took them 20 years to figure that out. Brilliant!
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