If you build it they will come. It’s a tired old phrase and perhaps less relevant now than it once was. Evidence of this is that Ottawa has built a drinking water infrastructure valued at more than a $1 billion and spends $121 million a year to pipe clean water to Ottawa homes. But despite this, only 53 per cent of the city’s residents say they drink tap water exclusively while at home.
Instead, they prefer to buy bottled drinking water at a much higher cost to themselves and to the environment.
It isn’t clear whether the reason for this is because they think bottled water is cleaner or whether the convenience of bottled water trumps searching for a water fountain.
The city is trying to address this problem with a five-year, $1.1-million drinking water promotion strategy that combines infrastructure spending with an aggressive communications campaign to clean up tap water’s image.
One aspect of the promotion program may have been a litmus test of how committed city council actually is to promoting the city’s drinking water.
Months after the purchase of two mobile water units were approved, council decided that the $200,000 expense to supply free water to festivals and sporting events was too extravagant.
Orleans Ward Coun. Bob Monette, who tabled the motion to cancel the mobile water units, says that people already know that the drinking water is safe and that spending money on the mobile water units was not a responsible way to spend taxpayer money.
Natasha Wilson, spokesperson for the Ottawa Riverkeeper, an advocacy group that labels itself as a steward of the Ottawa River, also questions the drinking water promotion plan.
Her main criticism is that so much money is being spent on a communications campaign.
Some aspects of the campaign are “I drink tap water buttons,” children’s activity books, a drinking water week, advertisements, and posters in city facilities.
She says the drinking water study reflects strong confidence in the system’s safety with over 70 per cent of residents saying they are satisfied with the quality of the drinking water.
“If the reality of the study is that there is low availability than take that money and spend it on infrastructure,’ says Wilson
Somerset Ward Coun. Diane Holmes says she was surprised about the Riverkeeper response.
“We need to get the message out there and dispel the misconceptions. The bottled water companies are excellent at controlling their image now we need to do the same,” says Holmes.
She says that following years of media coverage of sewer overflows the public believes the water is unsafe to drink when the reality is that Ottawa’s water has been tested and rated among the best in North America.
One of Holmes’ concerns is that high bottled water sales hurt the city financially.
She says the more people choose bottled water over city water , the fewer ratepayers there are to support the infrastructure that delivers it.
“I see people at the grocery store paying exorbitant prices for bottled water and it’s a disgrace, then the public have to pay to landfill all of those bottles,” says Holmes.
The one part of the promotion scheme which everyone seems to agree on is the need to build more water fountains in public spaces and buildings.
Currently, there are only 220 water fountains in municipal buildings across Ottawa. The city plans to spend $75,000 on new outdoor water fountains and $100,000 on indoor water fountains. Much of this spending is up to future councils and the city was unable to say how many water fountains they planned to buy with the money.
Holmes says there has been a definite trend of reduced public access to water in the city.
“There were years when we were cutting our budget and during those years water fountains weren’t built or were removed with the assumption that people could just buy bottled water from vending machines,” says Holmes.
She says that this new project will seek to reverse this trend.
In the city facility she is most familiar with, city hall, Holmes could only think of one water fountain located on the second floor.
With thousands of thirsty athletes descending on city hall for the upcoming Ottawa Race Weekend she suspects many runners will have to purchase their water.
According to the city’s promotion plan the nixed mobile water units were to be, by far, its biggest financial commitment for promoting city tap water. The remaining $790,000 of the plan is set to roll out between 2011 and 2013 making it vulnerable to the whims of the next council.