Stop the presses! City Hall is giving up bottled water. There is no telling what can happen from this. The money they could save makes me salivate. Could we raise enough money to build an A’s stadium? Or build a second Santana Row downtown? How about more high-density housing or connect the light rail across the city? If they plan on saving upwards of millions of dollars from simply deciding to drink cloudy tap water, there is no stopping this city!
In all seriousness, the announcement that City Hall was giving up bottled water came at a strange time for me. After a wild weekend, I drank myself out of bottled water in my home. When going to bed, I had to rehydrate, so I filled up with a nice glass of fresh San Jose tap water. At first, the particles and white milky look took me by surprise, but I was really, really thirsty, so I decided to let it settle and watch it like a bad science experiment. To my surprise, it turned completely clear (or was it that I turned out the lights in my room?) and tasted pretty good. I have no idea what sort of chemicals I put into my body, but what was I so afraid of? Once I heard that Dasani was tap water anyway, I decided that my tap couldn’t be that bad.
The point here is not to poke fun at the city council and City Hall for making this change. (OK, well maybe it is.) However, there are a few other issues raised by this decision. Is it pointless to save on water if we don’t actually spend the savings on anything of note? What good is buying clothes from the sale rack if you don’t actually invest any of the money you save? Another way to look at it is that trying to pinch pennies on water in City Hall (because this is an extremely small matter compared to the budgets on other projects) is so far beyond the point here. It’s like an airline deciding to save money by purchasing one-ply toilet paper for one of their multi-million-dollar luxury airliners. It’s too little in the overall scheme of things.
Not that I don’t appreciate the effort. Maybe in the time that it takes our city council members’ water to uncloud, they can think about other ways to make changes in our city that have more of an impact.
That is good stuff it made me smile, and for that I thank you (hehe)
I going to say this must be Pierluigi’s Idea to stop all this crazy bottled water waste.
He just works so hard and on such important things.
What a moron ! Thank you S/G for making me laugh…
Single Gal, I don’t see it so much as an issue of saving the city money as it is an effort to be more environmentally friendly. The energy that goes into bottling, transporting, etc that bottle of dasani as well as the waste that unrecycled plastic bottles creates is all completely avoidable. By looking only at the savings to the city budget you are really missing the forest for the trees.
it doesn’t really seem as though the scant money saved has to be earmarked to go anywhere- there appears to be enough of a deficit to take care of that.
there are lots of easy ways to reduce your environmental impact that are pretty much painless; resuable grocery bags, turning off tap water while brushing your teeth, not driving with extra weight in your trunk, using cfls. I think that while there are far weightier issues in front of council that it’s great that they can take a small stand on this one issue, cut some decidedly unnecessary spending at city hall and try to lead by example.
imagine if every citizen of san jose used ten percent less bottled water this year- that’s a lot of water bottles taken out of circulation, a lot less gas used to transport them, and more money in the pockets of those citizens. a small, attainable goal. seems like a slam dunk to me.
The, “U.S. FDA” says,” Companies that market bottled water as being safer than tap water are defrauding the American public”.
Bottled water has become big business, Big companies like Nestle, Coca Cola and Pepsi control this industry.
Plastic containers are manufactured by using dangerous chemicals that can be harmful to humans.
San Francisco, Mt. View, Palo Alto, Berkly and other California cities are way ahead of San Jose on this issue. Mt. View began this process of elimination of food stored in plastics in togo products from restaurants years ago. Mt View only allows paper storage food and beverage containers to be used by restaurants.
Filtered water is best for us. San Francisco restaurants some six months ago went voluntarily to Filtered water, doing away with bottled water. S F is now moving to ban the nursuries from using plastic containers for the sale of plants. Many wholesale nursuries have begun to move in this direction too.
Cloth bags, canvas bags are becoming common place in our grocery stores. Recycled paper bags are being offered by many chain grocers and independants. Safeway is still pushing plastics, “it`s cheeper for them, helps their bottom line. Plastics can last hundreds of years in city disposal grounds before decomposing. Compostable food containers made from corn are now on the market.
San Jose City council is working in the right direction. Plastics are dangerous to our health. San Francisco is following the European Union in their approach to plastics. Baby Food is sold in Glass jars as a FDA requirement. Storing food in our refrigerators is better than in plastics. It`s just a smart thing to do.
I get my water from the dispenser on my refrigerator. It’s filtered so the chlorine smell is eliminated, among other things. You don’t realize how much chlorine is in the tap water until you stick your nose in a glass of it and compare it to the filtered stuff.
SG: please tell me that this is a weak attempt at sarcastic humor.
“Is it pointless to save on water if we don’t actually spend the savings on anything of note?”
Last time I checked (and I’ve heard you bemoan it yourself), THE CITY IS IN THE HOLE. We don’t need to *spend* money to make saving money worthwhile, especially when we’re already millions in debt. Duh.
I won’t elaborate on the various costs and effects of “privatizing” our drinking water supply. There is enough commentary on that elsewhere.
From a leadership perspective, the absence of bottled water at the tables of city leaders will communicate a broad message about the worthiness of our public water supply: “If it’s good enough for Chuck, it’s good enough for me!”
From a city policy perspective, prohibiting public employees from procuring bottled water on the city’s dime might serve to de-stimulate demand and maybe acclimate those employees to drinking tap water at home, since they won’t be so used to it at work. For the record, we have bottled water at my office in San Francisco. Why should I drink that when I have Hetch Hetchy in the tap, which tastes better anyway?!
At home, I use a Brita filter pitcher, which also keeps the water cold in the fridge. I do get some of those Crystal Geyser water bottles from time to time when I need water on the go. And then I refill them despite the warning on the label: “DO NOT REFILL.” So I’ll admit that I’m not 100% pure green, but 90+% of what I drink comes from the tap. When I eventually dispose of the bottles, they all go to recycling, unlike roughly *75%* of the bottles consumed in this country.
The milky look in your water is air in the pipes (or from the aerator on your sink!) It is nothing to be afraid of. If you have sediment, it’s probably also from your pipes, and you should get a filter. It’s still better, and cheaper, and more environmentally conscious than the filtered water you buy from Pepsi and Coca-Cola.
Remember, little costs accrue at scale, like Crandall’s olive. (Crandall was the head of American airlines who thought up the idea to eliminate one olive from every salad back when they served salads. It saved AA millions, and most customers did not care.)
Eliminating/reducing bottled water is a good first step in eliminating waste in SJ government, and hopefully one of many to come.
Budget deficits annually; streets that are postively third world; not enough cops; thugs taking over downtown on weekends; personnel costs/retirement benefits/lifetime health care breaking the bank…and all the council can do is debate the relative merits of bottled water versus tap water. It just shows how incapable they all are of attacking the real problems in this town.
Sam Fiddles while Rome burns!
The cloudy “particles” you see are just bubbles. The water is aerated by your faucet.
The chloramine used to sanitize tap water will evaporate if the water is left sitting for a few hours—I leave it in a pitcher in the refrigerator.
Otherwise, tap water must pass rigorous safety standards, even if these standards have been weakened by the Bush EPA. Bottled water meets no safety standards.
America’s water systems are a wonder of the world. Most of the world would give anything to have them. They are a big part of what makes the living conditions of most Americans materially better than those of kings and emperors in epochs past.
If you regularly drink bottled water, you’re dumb.
Richard, thanks for reinforcing my behavior of avoiding Safeway. I also noticed that they are the only supermarket that will not offer paper, and when you request it, you get cheap bags without handles to discourage you from ever requesting paper again.
SF enjoys Hetch Hetchy water, which tastes excellent right out of the tap. Why that town ever allowed bottled water in the first place I don’t know.
It’s good to see the issue of bottled water being raised across the country. It’s a major scam, with the vast majority of it being nothing but treated tap water. The only bottled water I buy is sparkling. They can keep the rest.
#6. JMO,
Very well said. I agree totally.
San Jose is the unfinished city, and thank God, I left that place. San Jose was mentioned on the Nov. 3rd of London’s Financial Times as being a ghost town. The article is called “High tech with low key lifestyle.” The money, if you guys have brains, should be spent on finishing the city. You guys should save yourselves from embarrassment and move to San Diego, which everyone knows it’s a complete city with all the respects from around the world.
The last time I went to Happy Hollow, I saw no less than 6 employees helping to change a rain-bird lawn sprinkler head.
These things are only slightly more difficult than Legos. You certainly don’t need 6 people, each of them making over $20 per hour and earning a full pension.
Oddly enough, I never a private work site with 6 people doing a one man job. I’ve seen it more than once with city employees.
Contract out park maintenance, and you’d save millions. You just have to be willing to buck the union bosses.
#10 “smurf in San Diego” Good fake name.
The last thing San Jose needs to do is follow San Diego`s example, we have a Mayor that applied the brakes just in time. San Jose still has a choice, clean up our financial act or become another San Diego!
San Diego is in a serious state of paralsis, a real financial crisis. The problem so serious the Mayor resigned.
Press Release;” …the past 18 months have taken a great toll on our city”,…“by now you are aware of the gravity of our financial crisis faced by our city”,…“the suspension of the City`s credit rating… to the criminal investigations into the violation of public trust by the city officals of San Diego”. ” The city faces more than a financial crisis; it faces the crisis of confidence”.
The new mayor said;” My goal is to recreate government, both in form and function”….I intend to keep my promices of streamlining city operations, making government accountable, making ethics and customer service the foundation of a new city hall…a new path of financial stability, transparent decision making, and a esstoration of public trust in City government”.
Maybe you should read your local newspapers, or you could read the New York Times, to get updated on the conditions in the City of San Diego.
San Jose has the right Mayor ant the right time. Lucky us!
Single Gal:
Now that this pressing issue is resolved, perhaps we can get back, or should I say, get started on, repairing the city. That council is something else! Recently, a few of them flew out to Austin, Texas to try and learn something about…Austin, Texas, I suppose. I would like to invite the members of the city council to go visit Mitty Way in West San Jose. I’d like them to see for themselves the poor (and unsafe) condition of the street. I would like them to contemplate how it is that the city government for one of the wealthiest cities in the world, can’t even deliver the most basic levels of city services. The time and attention of the city council should be directed at solving the problems that face our city. Let’s fix San Jose first, and worry about the planet later!
Pete Campbell
Dear Single Gal,
“Get with it!”
What is all this nonsense by which you dance around the issue?
Do you really think that City Hall’s address on bottled water is slowing us down?? As city managers, I hope that we can manage both the big and small issues together and make a better way of life. We do this at home and in our personal life, so why should City Hall be different? Put your feet on the ground, Gal, and don’t be walking on clouds.
All these senseless things in your life that you collect and which you think are important… are they really valuable? Or do they just take up valuable time, resources and money? I’m not saying you have to be “Plain Jane,” Gal, but, could you really strip all these things away and get down to the REAL you?! Maybe it’s true, that life in Silicon Valley can often seem chaotic and senseless. So, is this just another perk for you?
How symbolic this issue is for you, Single Gal… I mean, whoever you are? “Are you warm, are you real,” Single Gal? “Or just a cold and lonely lovely” blogger?
Non-bottled water should be regarded as our purest, most precious resource, free of pollution, free from containment and part of our free and natural sustenance. It is not something that should be branded and controlled by Nestle, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, among other large global, corporate interests.
As pointed out from other bloggers, you don’t even seem to realize what NATURAL water looks like anymore. To think that you are dazed from the airy clouds on your tap water… so much for clouds in your coffee and smoke and mirrors! Do you have any core sense of self, or are you just some figment of imagination?
Maybe after you have done away with this frivolous nonsense, you can finally get to find what it is to truly be “living.”
Any elected official who wants to take his or her cues from Texas—of all places—needs to recalled post haste.
Pete (#13),
I don’t think we can wait to save the planet later. What good will it do if we make San Jose a world class city as the planet become uninhabitable? And part of being a world class city is being a leader in stewardship of our planet. I doubt our city council members are so distracted by the bottled water debate that they are forgetting about the other things. I think it is great they can take these little steps for our planet while continuing to do San Jose’s business.
I buy my bottled water every morning from Starbucks. Then after I finish, I refill it with tapwater for the rest of the day.
So I get the best of both worlds.
Austin or not, as an employee of a company that was taken over by Texas cowboys and ever since can’t keep the same organizational structure in place for more than a couple of months, I stand by my statement in post #15.
#10 – Financial Times is my favorite paper, interesting to hear their opinion of San Jose, discouraging isn’t it…..
What’s wrong with the water establishments that purify our tap water? I began frequenting those when my vet recommended filtered water for an ailing pet. Last Sat. I loaded up with 11 gallons of water, 8 of which will be in storage for our impending quake. I’d suggest that some of you who are comfortable with water out of the tap, I’m not mainly because of cholorination and it’s connection to cancer, save some just in case…..the big one is on it’s way….
David #14: There’s a simple solution for those who believe we are being ripped off by the big water bottlers—don’t buy any.
For the city govt. to make this a crisis issue when we have third world roads, contemplate closing senior centers and cutting back library hours, have 6 city employed guys @ Happy Hollow changing a rainbird (See #11), whether the city council does or does not drink bottled water is a non-issue; and studying and debating such a non-issue merely points out the fact that they have no solutions to the big problems. If they are so set, just issue an edict—no more city-paid-for bottled water…end of story.
What a joke!
#18-These cities(Boston,Seattle and SF) are complete cities that are all finished up with downtown progress. They deserve to be the capitals of the new high-tech industries(green, solar and internet), not San Jose since it’s an unfinished city. They’re cosmopolitan and tech savy with all the sophisications of true urban centers. They provide much better environment for this new generation of tech workers since they demand a true urban setting. San Jose got away with it in the 80’s because the last generation of workers only cared about the spacious homes with wide garages. Now, San Jose will be really starving for companies which will have time recruiting workers since they don’t like the suburban lifesyle. There is no international exposure for San Jose. This city is in trouble.
I don’t particularly single people out, and go back and forth on topics. This is insulting:
City services like the library and street repair are part of a larger issue, but somehow some of us like to confuse them with sprinklers at Happy Hollow…. which needs to be repeated over and over again to trivialize matters.
Do you really think that this has credibility… some hearsay about city employees changing a “Rainbird”?! Even if it is true, this would still be a remote example that, in the end, is no different than poorly managed labor anywhere, either in the public or private sector.
I don’t think that City Hall has made a CRISIS out of the bottled water issue. Obviously, it’s a few bloggers here who go on and on about it, making us confused as to what the issue actually is anymore and then getting us involved in their drama and hype. Indeed, it seems that becomes the issue itself, doesn’t it. You not only seem to miss my point, but you also spin it.
As far as being the “end of story” and “a joke”: I hope I can keep your words to that, without spinning it around.
David –
Can you see the point that bottled water is front page news for this town, but major changes and improvements are few and far between. Someone’s a little sensitive today….
#13, 15-
Surely you two are aware of the tech business in Austin (it’s huge there)…the fact that Austin has a lively downtown that seems to have less of the problems that ours does…a liberal bent that is similar to the bay areas…development all over the place. Perhaps you have never been to Austin. It is an oasis in Texas – nothing like the rest of the state.
Why should the council work in a bubble when other communities have faced the same issues? It makes sense to have them study how other cities do business, especially if they are having successes where we have failures, or failures-to-thrive. They should go to all of the tech cities-boston, seattle, etc- see what they can do to recruit some of those businesses to san jose.
Single Gal- you’re totally off the mark with your post. I agree with david zappelli. The novelty of a ban on bottled water combined with the media power of reporting on all things green is what brought this small issue to the front page of the paper. NBC did an entire green week last week- green news sells papers, gets viewers, etc. that is not the council’s fault nor does that mean it was the top, or “crisis”, or only issue that they are spending time on. Your focus on the potential budgetary impacts of it was completely idiotic. Obviously, that’s not the point that council was trying to make.
Also, in line with David’s comments, if you really want to know what the council’s working on you should check out the weekly council agendas. You can watch it on tv or from your computer if you don’t want to go to council chambers. Since you have a platform to address the public, it would be a welcome change to have the issues that you address be based on what’s really important in this city and not just a blip on the council agenda that for whatever reason got picked up by the media.
Maybe when you’re not a ‘single gal’ and you have a family and more invested in your future and the future of the world you raise your kids in you would realize that any step, large or small, to stop unnecessary waste, pollution, and further degradation of the world that we live and and will give to our kids is a welcome step. I shudder to think what type of planet my babies will have- how widespread drought, fires, flooding, and major storms will be, and how utterly preventable it could be if ordinary citizens would just adjust their lives in the most minor ways.
#23-
I know the difference between street repair and Happy Hollow. My point was that money wasted in overstaffed parks maintenance is money not available for other needs.
As you say, it is no different than poorly managed labor anywhere.
The difference is that the city council signs union contracts that preclude well-managed labor.
If they didn’t sign those contracts, you wouldn’t have as many poorly managed employees, and we would have more money left over for libraries and streets.
Can a portion of the bottled water savings go towards the commissioning of a larger than life bronze of Al Gore majestically hoisting a glass of tap water? Bonus to the artist if s/he can work in a polar bear cub.
BTW, anyone ever ask a plumber if they drink tap or bottled water?
Once again, I already addressed this.
I think Mayor Reed and the current council members have inherited many of the problems from the previous administration, as well as the State’s financial problems. This all includes problems with monies, contracts, and initiatives, etc.
Indeed, I think members of city hall have said this, too.
Add to those statewide problems, as pointed out by Governor Schwarzenegger. With fires in Southern California and an oil spill cleanup in Northern California, do you think we are doing better? Hopefully we can get beyond.
Despite all this, there are BIG issues being covered and addressed, as well as these small ones. Just because I don’t agree with you, does not make me or others, “sensitive.”
Try going straight to the source and attend a public, City Hall councilmember meetings. You can fill out a yellow speaker card to address the council. I’m sure they would be glad to see the real “Single Gal”. City Hall meetings are also published online, just like this blog and other media choices.
Bottle water at City Hall is not necessarily front page news for the council members at City Hall, as its not for us sensitive “others.” But it seems you are determined to keep it there and make it so. I also think it’s sad that you keep blowing up this issue to attack the current administration in these very tough times.
#28
It`s time for your wake up call.
Single Gal is spot on.
Bottled water is nothing but a feel good, bright shiny object with which CH is using to distract the easily distracted from the real issues of the day.
Roads, budget, public safety, CH malfeasance, etc.
“When going to bed, I had to rehydrate, so I filled up with a nice glass of fresh San Jose tap water. At first, the particles and white milky look took me by surprise, but I was really, really thirsty, so I decided to let it settle and watch it like a bad science experiment. To my surprise, it turned completely clear (or was it that I turned out the lights in my room?) and tasted pretty good.”
Kinda like a Boddington’s ale at The Brit…only less tasty.
Try an Everpure water filter. We have one in our home that all our drinking and cooking water goes through. We purchased the system at Westwen Appliance. Not expensive either. I`ve toured bottling water facilities here in the bay area, based on what I`ve seen in their bottling operations,” bottled water is not for my family”.