By Mitch Tobin
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
For Tucsonans who suffered through the botched debut of Colorado River water, memories of the debacle are as fresh as their water was foul.
In the early 1990s, frustrated residents spent millions on bottled water and in-home treatment systems to overcome the taste, odor and corrosion problems that accompanied Central Arizona Project water.
But as the city prepares to try CAP again on Thursday, bottled-water purveyors and water-treatment companies say they're not being inundated by worried customers.
"We haven't seen a major jump at all," said Rex Ruddick, general manager of Culligan Water Conditioning, 4045 E. Speedway. "I don't foresee the major problems like we had before. But one never knows until you turn that switch."
Already, 67 percent of Tucsonans avoid drinking water straight from the tap, according to a recent University of Arizona study. The survey also revealed that many Tucsonans - especially Hispanic residents - worry about the quality of their water.
Tucson Water officials insist their product is safe and they don't expect their 675,000 customers to notice any immediate differences once a blend of recharged CAP and Avra Valley ground water enters the system.
James S. Wood / Staff
Don Hebert fills up his water bottles a few times a month at the Water Street Station at East Grant and North Country Club roads. Sixty-seven percent of Tucsonans avoid drinking water straight from the tap, according to a recent University of Arizona study.
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At first, the blend will be more than 95 percent ground water and make up only about 15 percent of Tucson's water supply. It will slowly change to a roughly equal mix of CAP and ground water within eight to 10 years. By 2003, it will satisfy about half of Tucson's demand.
Tucson Water has also replaced nearly all of its water mains and taste-tested the CAP blend in four pilot neighborhoods with apparent success.
But despite the assurances of utility officials, many Tucsonans - like many Americans - are wary of their water, even when it has no connection to the mineral-laden Colorado River.
In a telephone survey of 1,180 Tucsonans conducted last year, UA researchers found that about one-third of residents drink bottled water, one third filter their water and one third drink straight from the tap.
That's roughly in line with national polls. The Beverage Marketing Corp. found in 1999 that 35 percent of Americans drink bottled water. And a study released last week by the Water Quality Association, a trade group for the water treatment industry, found that 41 percent of Americans treat their own water and 39 percent drink bottled water.
The Water Quality Association's telephone survey of 1,021 adults also found that 66 percent of respondents were concerned with their tap water's smell, taste, hardness or appearance, while 51 percent were troubled by health risks.
In the UA's Tucson study, 38 percent of people said some Tucsonans have become ill from drinking tap water, while 71 percent said South Side residents are at greater risk of receiving contaminated water.
Water wells on Tucson's South Side were contaminated for years by TCE, an industrial solvent that was freely dumped on the soil by airport-area manufacturers before its cancer-causing properties were well-known.
The legacy of TCE could explain why Hispanics are less apt to drink tap water, said Dr. Bryan Williams, an assistant professor of public health who led the study.
Williams' survey found that Hispanic Tucsonans are nearly five times as likely to drink bottled water as non-Hispanics. They're 53 percent less likely to say their water's taste or smell was acceptable.
"They're afraid of what might be in their water," Williams said.
Other researchers have noted that Hispanics are subject to aggressive marketing by bottled and vending-machine water companies. There's also a tradition of buying bottled water in Latin America that follows many to the United States.
The UA study, which has been accepted for publication in two academic journals and was funded by the school's College of Public Health, didn't look at actual water quality differences across town.
While many people think bottled water will be healthier than what flows from their faucet, some researchers sound a note of caution.
Charles Gerba, a UA water quality expert, said bottled water "isn't unsafe," but it's also less regulated than tap water.
"A lot of bottled water just comes out of your tap and they bottle it," Gerba said. "In my view, tap water, which has to be treated and monitored all the time, has a greater assurance of safety than bottled water."
The International Bottled Water Association, however, contends that its members - which account for 85 percent of the market - conform with even stricter standards than the federal regulations that apply to all bottled-water makers.
At the Water Street Station drive-through at East Grant and North Country Club roads, employee Don Plunk said his water goes through ion exchange, granulated active carbon, reverse osmosis, another round of carbon filtration and then ozone treatment. The water is tested quarterly for about 90 contaminants - "mostly stuff you can't pronounce," he said.
Bill, a regular customer who didn't want to give his last name, said Tucson's water tastes worse than the desalinated water he made while aboard a Navy ship in the late '60s.
"I wouldn't shower in it if I could get around it," he said.
The CAP's debut from 1992 to 1994 forced Bill to spend several hundred dollars replacing pipes and valves in his house. He thinks the problems will repeat this time and said he doesn't trust Tucson Water.
"You shoot me in the foot once and I won't give you a second chance," he said.
But at the Starbucks at North Oracle and West Ina Roads, Alan May, a 50-year-old contractor, said the CAP's return was "wonderful" since it will help restore dwindling ground water supplies.
"They've got to do something with it," he said. "It's already here."
* Contact Mitch Tobin at 806-7739 or by e-mail at tobin@azstarnet.com.
