QUALITY-CONTROL OF BOTTLED AND VENDED WATER IN CALIFORNIA - A REVIEW AND COMPARISON TO TAP WATER

Current regulations and compliance for quality control Of bottled and vended water in California are compared with that of the tap water ind ustry in this research. Over 35% of the bottled water sold in the U.S. is consumed in California where a third of the residents use such wat er as a primary source of drinking water. California is one of several states that regulates bottled water more rigorously than the federal government. In California, water quality standards for the two industr ies are comparable except that many of the organic standards for bottl ed water are applicable only to the source water, a concern due to pot ential organic contamination during processing. Reporting requirements , significantly less stringent for bottled water, allow considerable l atitude in assessing risks and make assessment of compliance difficult . Based on available statistics, compliance for the two industries is comparable; the majority of violations posed no health risks. For both industries, small systems comprised the majority of violations wherea s large systems had excellent compliance rates.