Tap water versus bottled water. Can you tell the difference?
Alberta’s Environment Week kicked off Sunday at the Kerry Wood Nature Centre with a special focus on H2O.
Take Back the Tap is the theme of this year’s Environment Week. To honour that the centre was conducting a water taste test.
Visitors to the centre, including the crowd gathered there for the Red Deer River Cleanup Sunday, were invited to sample two mystery stainless steel jugs of water.
“I liked jug B better,” said Asha Sanders, 16. “It was colder, fresh. Sample A tasted almost stale or something.”
The water taste test is to spread awareness about tap water and clear up some long prevailing myths, said Kathryn Huedepohl, special events co-ordinator and public programmer with the Waskasoo Park Environmental Education Society.
“What we’re showing here is that tap water tastes just as good — if not better, in my opinion — as purchased bottled water,” said Huedepohl. “People sometimes have the idea that if they’re paying for water, it has to be better water. That’s not so.”
The water from your tap here in Red Deer is good, safe water, continued Huedepohl, and it’s always available for free.
Water samples from the municipal treatment facility are sent to provincial health labs each week for bacterial testing to make sure the treatments are effective.
According to the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Resource Development, Alberta was the “first province and remains one of only a few that requires stricter rules for drinking water quality than those outlined in the Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality.”
Alberta requires all operators of municipal drinking water systems to be are certified by Alberta Environment. It’s also required that all waterworks, regardless of size, meet the same treatment design and performance standards for drinking water quality.
Meanwhile, the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s requirements are based on the size of the population served by a waterworks system.
Huedepohl herself said she prefers the tap water from Penhold, which she fills her own stainless steel water bottles with daily.
“First off, I think tap water tastes better . . . Maybe because of minerals in it that you just don’t find in bottled water. Tap water is just so alive, not that you want your water to be alive, but there’s something more to it,” she said. “Secondly, I don’t feel guilty because I’m refilling my own bottles and not buying one and then another and then another and contributing to an endless pile of plastic.”
Amy and Kaylin Berlinguette were shocked when Huedepohl told them their preference, Sample B, was actually bottled water.
“We don’t like to spend money on water so we drink tap water on a regular basis,” said Amy, 17. “Weird. I thought A tasted like something was in it, though.”
Huedepohl hopes the test gets people talking about water and recognizing the benefits of switching to tap water.
rfrancoeur@www.reddeeradvocate.com