Mayor Greg Nickels signed an executive order in March to end the city's practice of buying bottled water for city employees and for public events because he said Seattle's water is reported to be "amongst the best in any major city in North America."

Seattle Public Utilities regularly tests its water for 179 compounds including metals, chemical contaminants and disease-causing organisms. The tests regularly find no contaminants.

Nickels also began a six-week public awareness campaign to promote the quality of the city's drinking water and to encourage people to stop buying bottled water.

At about the same time, Water Without Waste came up with a program that reduces use of plastic disposable water bottles in Washington by 25,000. The small, private group consists eight working professionals.

Water Without Waste said they had involved government officials, public utilities, companies, non-profits and sports teams to commit to using non-bottled water during May. The group applied for and received a $1,000 grant from the city in support of their cause.

Their popularity also grew when they shared their campaign at neighborhood meetings, city governments, schools, and events such as the Seattle Green Festival, Phinney EcoVillage Green Your Ride, the North Seattle Community College Earth Week Fair and the Sustainable West Seattle Festival.

Like Nickels and the Water Without Waste plan, King County government is also making an effort to reduce the environmental impacts of bottled water and promoting the use of Seattle's tap water. They are drafting a set of guidelines for departments and divisions so when they have a choice they choose to use tap water rather than buying wasteful and expensive bottled water.

"There are examples such as what if you're in the Green River Valley on a hike or if you live in a place where the pipes are no good," then a person should use bottled water, said Dow Constantine, King County Council member and West Seattle resident. "But essentially the question is when is it reasonable to use tap water. And we're asking people to choose tap water, which costs taxpayers almost nothing compared to bottled water."

Constantine said at their last town hall meeting they used reusable coolers with ice water and disposable cups. Constantine said people were just as happy, nobody went thirsty and they saved a bit of money and a lot of plastic to recycle at the landfill.

"There are several reasons why we're wanting to move away from bottled water, this is only the tip of the iceberg, this is only an example of focusing on an irrational practice we've all come to do out of habit," said Constantine.

King County funds will no longer be used to purchase single-served bottled water when tap water is available.

Joe Doss, president and CEO of the International Bottled Water Association in Alexandria, Va., sees the plannd reduction of water bottle use to be an unfortunate debate of bottled water vs. tap water.

"We are not trying to replace tap water with bottled water," said Doss.

"The actions to ban bottled water by the city (Seattle) are not in the best interest of the consumer," he said. "Instead of having access to bottled water, their second choice may not be tap water and they may just go for less healthy products such as sweetened drinks, juices, and soda pop."

Doss says that companies and the bottled water association will be supportive of environmentally friendly ways to be more green. They are now using lighter weight plastic and are more fuel-efficient by using railroads over trucks when transporting material for bottled water and bottled water itself.

"When you look at the bigger picture at the end of the day it's not only one industry you have to take into account, you have to look at all products from other industries and see how many products in your homes use plastic," Doss said.

For more information on Water Without Waste visit www.WaterwithoutWaste.blogspot.com or to read Seattle's annual water quality report visit www.seattle.gov/util/About_SPU/.

Allison Espiritu may be reached at 932-0300 or allisone@robinsonnews.com.