Bottled Water

WASHINGTON -- The federal government proposed yesterday more stringent standards for bottled-water labels, hoping to clarify for consumers the differences among mineral water, distilled water, spring water and others.Consumers are entitled to know the source of bottled water, as well as precisely what it contains, the Food and Drug Administration said in announcing the proposals, which become official Tuesday and are expected to become final in six months, following public comment. The actual changes in the labels would occur in about a year.

Groundwater contamination from toxic waste dumped decades ago at a nearby factory in the Severn area has prompted widespread testing of residential wells and put eight homes on bottled water, state officials said. The eight households have been notified that they have unsafe levels of industrial solvents in their wells, according to the Maryland Department of the Environment, and two other homes have been found to have levels below those deemed to pose health risks. State officials said they are anxious to complete testing for the chemicals — including possible carcinogens — at dozens of other homes that had yet to respond to requests to check their wells.

It's lunchtime at Dulaney High School. The kids are grazing on pepperoni pizza and french fries and washing it down with chilled bottled water.Savvy consumers, students talk up the benefits of hydration, including water's zit-zapping and toxin-sweeping abilities. They drink it down during basketball games and band practice, and pay 65 cents for bottles of it at hallway vending machines."It's all about perception, and it's just cool to drink bottled water," said Cathy Haymaker, product specialist for the school system's food and nutrition department.

State environmental officials are drilling monitoring wells on the outskirts of Salisbury to get a better handle on ground-water contamination there that has fouled dozens of household wells with a potentially cancer-causing chemical, according to a spokesman. The Maryland Department of the Environment has contracted to install a total of 10 wells in the residential area south of the city to gather more information on the movement and severity of contaminated ground water, said Jay Apperson, the agency's deputy communications director.

Should their palates tire of fizzy French waters or the stuff that springs from Maine's ancient aquifers, discriminating bottled-water drinkers have another source: Baltimore taps. The city plans to bottle municipal water, which recently won a regional award for taste against several other tap varieties. "It tastes great and it's good for you," Mayor Martin O'Malley said this week as he announced plans to have a bottling company package the water under the name Clearly Baltimore. The effort is mostly about boosterism - "Believe" in a bottle, so to speak - and is not a serious attempt to enter the bottled-water business.

Exxon Mobil resumes bottled-water delivery In the wake of complaints from residents and state officials, Exxon Mobil Corp. has agreed to continue supplying bottled water to 97 households in the Jacksonville area, where wells were found to be tainted after a 25,000-gallon gasoline leak from an Exxon service station. The oil company had mailed letters last week to the households informing them it would stop providing free bottled water. A company official wrote that tests have found very little or no gasoline constituents in those wells, and Exxon Mobil now believes that high levels of contaminants will not be detected in the future.

To Thomas Pignataro, water never tasted so good. More than a decade after starting Brick House Farm LLC and several starts and fits with former partners, Pignataro is finally ready to see his Clarksville bottling company advance in the water market. With new partners, $700,000 worth of new equipment, plans for acquiring more land and a waiting list of customers, Brick House Farm is positioning itself for expansion. Only one other water company in the state - Green Spring - has both a bottling operation and a source in Maryland.

When it comes to bottled water, your readers should know the facts ("Maryland state offices going off the bottle," Oct. 1). While tap water can be a perfectly fine choice, it is not always readily accessible when and where consumers need it. Bottled water provides individuals with the opportunity to enjoy fresh, healthy water wherever they are. Importantly, our bottled water containers are 100 percent recyclable and are among the most recycled...

In order to help the estimate 300 people still without water in the East North Avenue corridor, the Baltimore City Department of Public Works has opened four stations to provide free bottled water for residents to help stay hydrated. According to a press release, Public Works Director Alfred H. Foxx said the four stations - located at the Oliver Recreation Center, Lanvale Towers, the intersection of Belair Road and North Avenue, and 1401 E. Oliver St. - are open to all of those affected, but residents must bring either a valid Baltimore I.D. or a bill to prove they live between Belair Road and Aisquith Street.

WASHINGTON -- The Food and Drug Administration's negligence in regulating the bottled-water industry has allowed contaminated water to reach consumers and has created confusion over product labeling, according to a House investigative report released yesterday.Last year's worldwide recall of Perrier products, brought about by the discovery of unsafe levels of benzene, focused attention on potential health problems, said Representative John D. Dingell, D-Mich., chairman of the Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee.

This time of year, people have weight loss on their minds. According to a 2012 survey published in the University of Scranton's Journal of Clinical Psychology, losing weight is the No. 1 New Year's resolution. For some Baltimore residents, working toward that goal by eating healthfully has gotten easier over the past year, thanks to the introduction of healthy snacks in their office or school vending machines. In December, Howard County Executive Ken Ulman signed an executive order banning the sale of high-sugar drinks in county buildings and at county-sponsored events; Baltimore City is exploring similar initiatives.

Happy New Year! Many folks make resolutions on this day -- to lose weight, exercise more, spend less, get a new job.  Major life changes like that can seem pretty daunting.  For those thinking they'd like to live greener in 2013, here are a half-dozen relatively easy suggestions, courtesy of guest blogger Laurel Peltier, author of GreenLaurel.com 1) Get a home energy audit.  A comprehensive “home energy audit” can tell you how many homes you are heating & cooling, and point you toward ways to save .  Click here for details from B'More Green.

Elevated levels of a toxic industrial solvent have been found in three more residential wells near Salisbury, the Maryland Department of the Environment reported Wednesday, as an investigation continues into ground-water contamination affecting dozens of homes in the area. Of 77 homes just south of the city that recently had their wells tested, trichloroethylene was found in seven, and three had levels of concern to health officials, according to MDE spokesman Jay Apperson. Bottled water has been provided to the three with elevated levels, he said.

In the 20 years she's lived on the outskirts of Salisbury, Arlene White said she'd never noticed anything unusual about her tap water. Now, though, White and dozens of neighbors are drinking bottled water and limiting their bathing after tests found unsafe levels of a toxic chemical in their household wells. A handful of residents, including Brian Bracken, have had large tanks hooked up to their homes, filled with treated water trucked in from nearby Fruitland. Local, state and federal officials are scrambling to provide safe, clean water to homes southeast of the Eastern Shore's largest city even as they acknowledge that they don't know the source or extent of the groundwater contamination.

Shortly before 4:30 p.m. Monday, Sarah Weber walked out of Binkert's Meat Products in Essex and locked the door behind her - an early departure for the third-generation sausage and deli meats producer. Just down the hill, traffic narrowed and was pushed onto a shoulder as drivers passed a large, muddy hole in Philadelphia Road, surrounded by orange traffic cones and Baltimore public works crews. A 16-inch-wide, city-owned water main burst under the road Monday morning, cutting water to Binkert's and more than a dozen other businesses, 60 homes and two nearby institutions - MedStar Franklin Square Medical Center and the Community College of Baltimore County's Essex campus.

A crew of Baltimore-area first-responders is headed to Garrett County to assist in recovery from a major snowstorm that hit as Sandy plowed into the mid-Atlantic. About 60 workers from the Urban Search and Rescue team will help clear debris and trees knocked down by the more than 2 feet of snow, conduct searches for and checks on those affected by the storm, and assist in evacuation efforts. The team pulls members from emergency response agencies from Baltimore and seven surrounding counties.

Howard County water is going to Mexico and South Korea.Clarksville's Brick House Farm Spring Water Co. has landed its first foreign deals -- potentially worth millions -- to sell its bottled water in the two countries.The deals represent a breakthrough for the 5-year-old company's product: bottled spring water pumped from a huge aquifer under a Clarksville farm and sold under two labels, Taro and Brick House."This could be our biggest break," Thomas Taro, the company's founder, said yesterday.

In order to help the estimate 300 people still without water in the East North Avenue corridor, the Baltimore City Department of Public Works has opened four stations to provide free bottled water for residents to help stay hydrated. According to a press release, Public Works Director Alfred H. Foxx said the four stations - located at the Oliver Recreation Center, Lanvale Towers, the intersection of Belair Road and North Avenue, and 1401 E. Oliver St. - are open to all of those affected, but residents must bring either a valid Baltimore I.D. or a bill to prove they live between Belair Road and Aisquith Street.

A 10-inch water main broke Tuesday during repairs to the two-block stretch of Light Street downtown that has been closed to traffic since a larger pipe erupted there July 16. "The location of this main was really a surprise to everyone," said Kurt Kocher, spokesman for Baltimore's Department of Public Works. "Water just started shooting out. " The main was only one-foot below the road surface, when it was struck by a front-end loader. Pipes are usually three feet underground, he said.