Unlike bottled water, municipal water systems must notify their customers of test results showing contamination that could pose an immediate health risk, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, which regulates tap water. And the public must be alerted, such as through the media or by mail, when contamination is found in their tap supply. For the most serious violations, like potential waterborne diseases, municipal systems must notify the public within 24 hours; with other contamination issues, they have up to 30 days.
The EPA routinely cites tap water suppliers for not meeting the requirements: More than 3,000 community water systems, servicing 2.9 percent of the U.S. population, violated the Public Notification Rule during the most recent quarter for which EPA data is available. But tap water suppliers at least have a legal requirement to quickly inform the public “whenever this is an acute health risk,” Olson said. “It appears for bottled water that type of notification is not being done. That’s really worrisome.”
One of the pitfalls of the FDA’s policing policy is that it relies on bottlers to diligently record their test results and to act quickly when contamination is found—but beyond the failure to notify customers about water quality issues, bottlers also don’t always carefully review their own test results.
Take the case of SweetSommer, another West Virginia bottler. In September 2009, an FDA inspector visited the company’s plant for a review. The inspector discovered that over a year earlier the company’s tests for already-bottled water revealed positive samples of E. coli. When asked, the executives said they were “unaware” of the results, according to a copy of the inspection report.
West Virginia’s state health department also participated in the inspection. FDA spokesperson Turney said that, while the FDA did not request a recall, the state agency ordered the seizure of all finished bottled water in the facility and asked the firm to conduct a voluntary recall. But according to the inspection report, the voluntary recall pertained only to products distributed in 2009—not the time frame when the positive E. coli sample was taken.
The FDA issued SweetSommer a warning letter in January 2010 about violations found during the inspection, including the failure to test for microbiological contaminants on a weekly basis and to keep two years’ worth of test records on file, as required. But the agency didn’t mention the positive E. coli sample. The company doesn’t appear to have notified the public about the issue, according to a review of news archives. A municipal water system operator that discovered a positive E. coli sample would have had to notify the public within 24 hours. SweetSommer went out of business several years ago, Adler said.
In a 2011 case, an FDA inspector cited a Colorado bottler, Deep Rock Water Company, after a review of test results showed the company had produced water with 20 parts per billion of bromate—a possible human carcinogen—which is twice the legal limit. But an official at the company tasked with reviewing the tests “had not noticed the result was too high,” according to the FDA’s inspection, even though the test said “Fail” and “exceeds FDA limits for bromate.” (Deep Rock was purchased by DS Services of America, a bottling company, in late 2011.)
The FDA’s Turney said only that the firm “appeared” to have corrected the bromate contamination, though the agency did not collect any samples to test and confirm. No recall was conducted. Turney said the water had been distributed for sale to consumers. A spokesperson for DS Services said the company can’t comment on what happened as a result of inspections that occurred before it had acquired Deep Rock.
In some cases, the FDA said it doesn’t crack down on companies because, though the test results may be above the official cutoff, they aren’t high enough to pose a serious health risk. Two years after the DS Services case, the FDA cited an Ohio bottler, Magnetic Springs Water Company, whose test results for bottled spring water showed 14 ppb of bromate, but it didn’t push for a recall, even though the FDA’s report noted that the contaminated product had been distributed to stores. Jeff Allison, president of Magnetic Springs, said the company didn’t notify consumers about the results because it was not required by the FDA, and a follow-up test completed two weeks later showed levels of bromate within the allowable limit.
Yet other bottlers have recalled water with bromate levels similar to what the records for Deep Rock and Magnetic Springs showed. In 2005, Starbucks recalled 4.1 million bottles of Ethos, the company’s water brand, after discovering that a supplier’s tests showed levels of bromate above federal limits. A year later, Wegmans recalled its private-label bottled water brand after tests revealed as much as 25 ppb of bromate. FDA records show at least eight bottled water recalls have been issued in the last 15 years for exceeding the 10 ppb bromate limit.
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The FDA Knew the Bottled Water Was Contaminated. The Public Didn't. - ConsumerReports.org
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