Water wars

Inside the chic restaurant, Frederick A. Laskey was nervously pacing, wondering if he had made a mistake in coming.

The executive director of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority had boasted that the ozone-infused tap water his agency had just started producing was every bit as good as the expensive bottled waters Americans are expected to spend $10 billion on this year.

But now his tough talk was being put to the test. The Globe was doing a lab analysis and a taste test comparing bottled and tap waters. Laskey, reluctantly, had agreed to participate in the blind taste test, but he acknowledged he was worried the test could end up embarrassing him.

Laskey confessed to his fellow tasters -- Jim Koch, brewer and founder of Boston Beer Co., the maker of Samuel Adams beer; Geoffrey Fallon, the sommelier at Les Zygomates Wine Bar & Bistro; and John McNabb, the research director at the environmental group Clean Water Action -- that his palate wasn't very sophisticated. ''I often drink wine with ice cubes," he said.

Koch looked up in mock horror. ''Don't tell me you drink light beer on the rocks," he said.

The taste-testers went to work, swirling the waters in their glasses, sloshing them around in their mouths, smelling them for odor, and holding them up to the light for inspection.

But no matter how hard they tried, the testers failed to detect any significant difference between the bottled and tap waters. The bottled waters came from as far away as the South Pacific island of Fiji and ranged in price from 79 cents to $6.82 a gallon. The MWRA water came straight out of a Milton tap or the public drinking fountain at the John F. Kennedy Library in Dorchester and cost a half-cent a gallon.

''The differences were very slight, certainly not worth paying money for," Koch said.

Fallon, whose restaurant was hosting the taste test, gave a hesitant thumbs up to bottles A and C, which were the Fiji bottled water and Milton tap water. He gave an equivocal thumbs down to bottle D, which was Aquafina. PepsiCo Inc.'s Aquafina is water from the Ayer Water Department that is run through a rigorous purification process that includes adding the same ozone the MWRA is using.

Ozone, essentially electrified oxygen, destroys bacteria cells and also breaks down organic material that can affect the color and taste of water. By using ozone, the MWRA has been able to curb its use of chlorine and ammonia as primary disinfectants, although chlorine is still used as a secondary disinfectant as water travels through pipes to homes and businesses.

Swishing one of the water samples around in his mouth, Fallon said he thought he detected a slight nut flavor in bottle D (Aquafina) and a bit of an aftertaste in bottle B (Acadia spring water from Miscoe Springs in Mendon, which is sold by Stop & Shop). He said whatever differences existed were minor, if they existed at all.

''The differences I found could be there or they could totally not be there," Fallon said. ''Water is the purest of canvases that anything could affect."

McNabb said he thought he detected a hint of chlorine in the Acadia spring water. ''There were very slight differences, if at all, between the waters," he said. ''I wondered if I might be imagining them."

He probably was, since a lab test showed no chlorine residue in the Acadia water.

Laskey breathed a sigh of relief as the other taste testers, even those with more sophisticated palates than his, agreed that there was essentially no difference between bottled and tap water. ''It's reassuring," he said.

The Globe's lab tests, conducted by GeoLabs Inc. in Braintree and G&L Laboratories in Quincy, indicated there were some differences between the bottled and tap waters, but the differences in most cases were minimal.

The chief exception was a background bacteria test that found unusually high levels in the Fiji bottled water.

None of the five waters tested showed any trace of coliform bacteria, which can be an indicator of E. coli. But a heterotrophic plate count test, which indicates whether conditions are ripe for bacteria growth, showed Fiji water with an estimated 1,800 colony-forming units per milliliter. The recommended maximum is 500 colony-forming units.

Paul Tierney, director of the food protection program at the state Department of Public Health, said the higher level does not necessarily indicate a health risk, but possibly a sanitation problem at the bottling plant. He said tests by his agency have found levels as high as 2,500 in some bottled waters.

Heterotrophic plate count levels are sometimes higher in bottled waters that are not disinfected and exposed to higher temperatures before consumption.

Officials at Fiji water could not be reached for comment. The lab officials who conducted the tests for the Globe said they were confident of the results.

The three bottled waters -- Fiji, the Stop & Shop Acadia water, and Aquafina -- had no lead or residual chlorine. The tap waters from Milton and the JFK Library had trace amounts of both substances, but nothing of concern.

The tap waters also had more sodium than the bottled waters, just over 30 milligrams per liter. By contrast, the Stop & Shop Acadia water had 27.8 milligrams, the Fiji water had 18.5 milligrams, and Aquafina had just 1.13 milligrams.

State health officials recommend no more than 20 milligrams of sodium per liter, but the officials noted that water is usually not a major source of sodium in a person's diet.

One area where the bottled and tap waters differed sharply was price. The MWRA, which is essentially a wholesaler of water to nearly 60 Eastern Massachusetts cities and towns, charges the municipalities approximately two-tenths of a cent per gallon.

The prices charged to consumers by cities and towns vary. In Milton, the price is about a half-cent per gallon and in Boston it's roughly four-tenths of a cent per gallon.

The cheapest bottled water in the Globe's sample was the gallon jug of Acadia water from Stop & Shop, which sells for 79 cents. A 1.5-liter bottle of Fiji water sold for $2.29 at Stop & Shop, which works out to $5.77 a gallon.

The most expensive water in the Globe's sample was Aquafina. A 1.05-liter bottle sold for $1.79 at Stop & Shop, which works out to about $6.82 a gallon.

Bruce Mohl can be reached at mohl@globe.com.