purified-water stores drinking in business

There are shops selling pure water all over Southern California, making the most of the perception that tap water is unsafe.
\"This is really a phenomenon in southern California,\" said Prosy Abarquez . \"
Delacruz, Department of Food and Medicine, Department of Health Services, California.
Her agency has licensed about 292 such stores across the state, including 62 in Orange County.
Tend to focus on low
In terms of income, these independent stores have billed themselves as low-income people.
Cost alternatives for delivering water.
Julie Chavez said, \"People are afraid to drink tap water after problems with the municipal water supply,\" three months ago, she and her husband Joe opened a shop called a drinking water warehouse in winnica, San Fernando Valley.
She noted that thousands of people had been infected with cryptospores in Milwaukee in 1993.
These stores are a sign that their customers are increasingly distrustful of municipal water supply facilities.
Tap water in Los Angeles is very safe, said Pankaj Parekh, a frustrated manager of regulatory compliance for the city\'s hydropower sector.
He says anyone buying water from a store just for safety reasons is wasting money. It\'s crazy.
\"But consumers like Gloria Rosas at Canoga Park are suspicious.
\"The tap water didn\'t taste good and they kept saying there was a lot of leadership,\" she said, filling her up for five years
A gallon tank of drinking water.
\"I\'m worried--
It\'s not for me, it\'s for my children.
\"The new water store is just another product of the surge in bottled water --
Water business, $3. 4-billion-a-
Jennifer Levin of the International Bottled Water Association says the United States is growing by 9% a year and claims that California is its capital.
* This phenomenon has turned the water of a single simple molecule into a wide range of consumer goods.
Now you can buy distilled water, water from private Hot Springs, caffeine-containing water and even bottled tap water.
You can send water in big pots or buy it in small bottles at the baseball field.
In fact, there are so many types this year--
Worried about public confusion-
Judith Foulke, spokesman for the federal Food and Drug Administration, said the government has developed a new definition to distinguish between spring water, purified water and other varieties.
So far, however, many of the water produced commercially has been directed at high-end customers ---
The audience of Trade an and Perrier, said Eric Sfiligoj, senior editor of Trade magazine Beverage World.
The water store \"is a market for people who can\'t afford to buy home delivery,\" Joe Chaves said
Owner of the drinking water depot.
\"This is for your gardener, your laborer, your hard work --
Staff raising two children.
\"Greg Arnds, who obtained a license for the first water retailer in Orange County, said that the biggest growth in the industry was immigrant communities from Southeast Asia and Latin America.
He says his Huntington Beach company, water company.
Helping some independent operators to set up stores in these communities is now a wholesale supplier for these operators.
Usually, the store sells tap water purified by reverse osmosis, Abarquez-Delacruz said. Reverse-
Infiltration filtration forces water to remove tiny particles, including many minerals, through the membrane.
As long as the equipment is properly maintained, the process is effective in water purification to a certain extent.
Health officials have recently delayed the issuance of water store licenses several times as pipes that need to be flushed and pipes that do not have a cure, Abarquez-Delacruz said.
In the drinking water warehouse, customers take their bottles to a blue place --
Carpeted shops, paying 25 cents a gallon, are filled with a faucet on the wall.
Customers can usually fill a 5 gallon kettle at most water shops for more than a dollar.
This is the eighth of the price of most water supply, comparable to the price of vending machines, also use reverse osmosis technology to purify.
But the price is far from cheap tap water, the price of tap water is about 1-
Roy Wolff of metropolitan waters in Southern California says it costs a tenth of a gallon.
Levels of contaminants allowed in bottled water and water
In addition to some chemicals, the stored water in tap water is the same as permitted by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
Exceptions include lead and trihalogen methane, a by-product of the chloride of potential carcinogens regulated by EPA.
Bottled water and retail water are more regulated on both elements.
But in general the rules are so similar that bottled
Anne Turner, technical coordinator at McKesson water Products Co, said the water company was \"dissatisfied with advertising to promote the unsafe attitude of tap water \".
In Pasadena, the parent company of Sparkletts.
This is not the case with the new water store.
\"If you drink tap water without a filter, you are asking questions,\" said Sam intemir, owner of Stop n\' Go, located in South Elmont.
DWP\'s Parekh was angry at the conversation.
\"I drink tap water.
\"I am very happy,\" he said . \".
He said that protofauna such as cryptospores infected with the Milwaukee water system are worrying because they are resistant to traditional chlorine treatment.
But no significant levels of water were found in the water source in Los Angeles.
In addition, the water was treated with ozonizes by DWP.
The disinfection process (
Sparkletts has also been used)
Palick said it is effective for cryptospores.
Similarly, the concentration of trihalmethane in DWP water was 50% lower than the government allowed minimum levels, department officials said.
Lead is also within the prescribed limits, Parekh said.
* Despite this, the water store continues to surge.
The shops attracted the owners because
The cost of the increase is small, the return is moderate but stable, and it is easy to run.
Most investors have made money back in two years, says Pat Kimball of Waternet International, a Las Vegas company that specializes in water shops.
Times staff writer Barbara Marsh also contributed to the report. (
Start text of infobox/Infographic)
Eager aunt-and-
Popular retail stores selling purified water want to take advantage of California\'s desire for bottled water.
The top 10 Marts in the bottled water market in 1995, in millions of gallons: California: 788. 2Florida: 176. 6Texas: 173. 3New York: 165. 0Illinois: 100. 2Arizona: 98.
Massachusetts: 87.
Pennsylvania: 81. 7Louisiana: 79. 8Maryland/D. C. : 77.
Number of stores selling bottled water :(
Please read the newspaper)
* Source: Department of Health, California;
International Bottled Water Association