Cash-Strapped U Of California Spends Millions On Bottled Water

The University of California system, drenched in economic peril, has resorted to exorbitant student fee increases and significantly changed its admissions policies to ease its money woes.

But the dire finances of the system are still not enough to get it to drink tap water.

The New York Times reports that the UC system has purchased nearly $2 million worth of bottled water over the past two years.

At the Berkeley campus, officials said a total of $522,215 had been paid to Arrowhead for the three fiscal years that concluded in 2009.

Contrast that with the City of San Francisco, where bottled water has been banned in government offices. The move came after a 2006 investigation by The San Francisco Chronicle, which revealed that the city spent $500,000 a year on bottled water and supplies.

It's an odd situation, both for the broke system and the hyper eco-conscious Berkeley and San Francisco. Unsurprisingly, a movement called "I Love Tap Water" has been born at UC Berkeley to decrease bottled water spending.

Comments

[zeppelingirl89]

09:42 PM on 04/18/2010

Maybe they should stop putting crap in the tap water if they want people to stop drinking bottled water. Tap water does taste worse too....at least in my part of the country. It has a metallic taste and it's very unpleasant.

[Newsradiohead]

11:13 AM on 04/18/2010

They should invest in water filters and ditch bottled water. Problem solved!

[realitytrumpsbull]

12:11 AM on 04/18/2010

By all accounts, from what I've read about the institution, I think the UC should voluntarily seek out an external auditing agency that has absolutely no connection with the university system, and turn em loose in the business office, and find out what really happens to all the monies they expend on an annual basis. There was some report of someone involved with UC that was embezzling money, faculty or administrative or something like that.

Given that the state of California is tens of billions in debt, and their future ability to continue to provide revenue to fund the state school system might be in serious doubt as a result, maybe NOW would be the time to rally all concerned and leave no stone unturned in the hunt for better information on where the money goes, in the interest of keeping the doors open. Even if it means resorting to drinking tap water. I know, I know, how declasse, but if de whole classe has to take place at the library because the university shuts DOWN for lack of money, and the students have to teach themselves(a novel thought) because all the professors got laid off, they'll wish they'd 'done their homework' in this area...

[tompoe]

10:05 AM on 04/17/2010

I read that something like $23 billion in bailout funds are headed to universities, who took a hit on their endowment funds with the financial system (that's free market) crash. I thought that was poor judgment, but I was wrong. It's going to universities that don't want to drop their bottled water idiocy.

[AirViceMarshalPark]

03:27 AM on 04/17/2010

Yuppie Water has to be the silliest artifact of the past century.

Producers fill plastic bottles with tap water, then store it for months while it leaches toxins from the plastic and the bacteria grows, then sell that water to you at 1000 times the cost of the water you could get from your own tap.

[Igor13]

07:38 PM on 04/16/2010

We pay more per gallon for a pint of bottled water than we do for gasoline, but it's the convenience says corporate sc hill Tom Lauria, take it anywhere.
Disposable diapers were created with the intention of being the exception not the rule. your on a family outing, who wants to carry around Jr's. soiled poopwrapper, use a disposable. Simple, makes sense the occasional use would be fine,yeah right look at the land fill nightmare they have become.
We're drowning in our own filth and this guy wants to sell us more "convenience". What a to ol.

[invirginia]

06:17 PM on 04/16/2010

Bottle water is an environmental travesty, but please stop putting flouride in my tap water.

[Sean Myers]

02:06 PM on 04/18/2010

why no flouride? you dont want the general population to have healthy teeth? other than the occurance of dental fluorisis in small children, there is no adverse health consequence of having flouride in our drinking water. I really hope you arent a conspiracy theorist, then.

[tarlipps]

04:24 PM on 04/18/2010

Why does the water that I wash my car with or water my plants with or bathe in or flush the toilet with need to be fluoridated. If you want it take it I don't want it so I have to buy water. Has anyone done studies on how it effects the fish in streams and rivers where it eventually ends up how about a fetus or fruit and veges or farm animals. If you want to protect kids teeth put it in the soda they drink.

[Blackorpheus]

01:52 PM on 04/16/2010

Let them drink Latte (but only from Starbucks)

[Blackorpheus]

01:48 PM on 04/16/2010

Let them drink Starbucks!

[jaslyn]

12:28 PM on 04/16/2010

hmmm. At a prestigious school for higher education, there isn't a thinker among them that notices this waste ? Shameful. We should abolish this whole bottled water industry because most of it isn't better than tap water, and all the plastic that goes into the land fill should be an embarassment for anyone who buys bottled water. Stop being so lazy, buy your own thermos and fill it yourself.

[uglygnome]

02:04 PM on 04/16/2010

They have been convinced by the outright lies and propaganda by people like Tom Lauria of the Bottled Water Association: See below

[Tom Lauria]

02:56 PM on 04/16/2010

Outright lies?! I invite all who read these comments to visit my remarks and point-out where I am allegedly lying. Please, Uglygnome, be specific; be clear. People don't buy bottled water because of what I say. People buy it because it's delicious, its healthy, its totally convenient and its a welcome change from other packaged beverages that contain calories, colorings, caffeine and other additives. People love it because its pure, fresh water. Water should be the first thing we bottle so that people can drink water everytime and anytime they want. Some here feel we compete against tap water. Actually, bottled water competes with every other beverage in the refrigerator case of a food market. In this instance, we're talking about Home and Office Delivery coolers in 5 gallon, re-usable containers. By the way, Uglygnome, what is your real name? Where is your photo? Who are you? I'm the one who's real. That's my photo; my name; and I'm proud of my affiliation with bottled water. You're just an inkspot with attitude!

[invirginia]

06:13 PM on 04/16/2010

A lot of it is tap water. See "from municipal supply" on many grocery store shelves of bottled H2O.

[zsazsag]

12:18 PM on 04/16/2010

The bottled water over there is fine, at least in Oakland. Perhaps departments should invest in Britta or Pur pitchers if they're that really worried about the water. If the budget crisis is that dire, the bottled water is the first thing that should go. (Oh, and paying consulting firms millions to tell the university what it should already know, but that's another story entirely.)

--
Post Academic

[Cannae]

12:03 PM on 04/16/2010

STOP THE BOTTLED WATER MADNESS. Unaffordable education, underpaid professors, OVERPAID wasteful parasitical administrators and millions of plastic bottles destroying the earth. This is will be UC's shameful legacy

[tarlipps]

04:28 PM on 04/18/2010

How about anything in plastic bottles from juice to soda just ban the plastic bottle.

[MikeDu]

11:37 AM on 04/16/2010

$500,000 sounds like the cost of three Sarah Palin speaking engagements.

[invirginia]

06:13 PM on 04/16/2010

or a few campaign wardrobes, lest we forget.

[Tom Lauria]

11:33 AM on 04/16/2010

From a $20 billion per year budget, approximately $1 million per year on bottled water keeps thousands of students, teachers and visitors refreshed and hydrated. It is important that people drink water. The 5 gallon water-cooler containers can be sterlized and re-used about 50 times before they are melted down and made into new water cooler jugs. The Home and Office Water Delivery folks are the original recyclers as this has going on successfully for more than 100 years. From the standpoint of the International Bottled Water Association, it makes little sense for anti-bottled water activists to charge after Home and Office Delivery bulk water since the sustainability mantra these days is to "re-use." And so we do. Over and over again. Plus, the water is flat-out delicious, cold, and there when you want it.

[uglygnome]

11:51 AM on 04/16/2010

For which bottled water company do you work and/or lobby?

[Tom Lauria]

12:31 PM on 04/16/2010

As my post indicates, the International Bottled Water Association.

[uglygnome]

11:53 AM on 04/16/2010

Quick google search reveals that Tome Lauria is Vice President, Communications at International Bottle Water

Are you kidding me, dude? Save your propaganda for congress, to o l.

[Hopalongpoppyseed]

11:14 AM on 04/16/2010

I lived in Berkeley a long time ago. It's a great town and the tap water seemed just fine. Perhaps ole U.C. just needs to put in some more fountains and water stations.

[tarlipps]

04:33 PM on 04/18/2010

I think it is it comes from Hetch Hetchy.