For years, thirsty people have been conned into paying a dollar or more for those so-called elite bottles of fresh water. Every fashionable jogger, biker and hiker carries them. The snooty bottlers claim the water was from the clear Alpine springs of France or pure snow runoff from high up in the Rockies. Now, the truth is leaking ... no, pouring ... out about what a bunch of suckers we've been.

One of the biggest bottlers, PepsiCo, in a fit of unexpected honesty, admits on its new labels that its Aquafina comes from a "public water source." That confession means it is not from some magic spring and purified by virgins, but plain old H2O from the same kind of public water tap, or bathroom and kitchen spigot all the rest of us use.

True, tap water in some cities like New York, Philadelphia, Las Vegas and Los Angeles can to often taste terrible and assume the color of diluted soy sauce. But what makes anyone think that even the purest bottled water is any safer to drink after it has sat festering on the grocery shelf for six months?

What's so fresh about mountain run-off water that was bottled after being pooped in by pumas, wolves and bears ... oh, my? And we all know why W.C. Fields claimed he never drank water because of what fish do in it.

Of course, the water bottlers, as well as city water officials, use all kinds of filtering, aerating and charging to purify water that is meant for human consumption. People can further clean their tap water by various kinds of commercial home water purifiers, including some that fit on the end of spigots. Another advantage of cutting the use of commercially bottled water would reduce the enormous piles of used plastic bottles in landfills that are tossed away every day by thirsty customers.

Why does anyone need to be ripped off for a buck or more to take some swigs of water? Anyone can buy empty bottles or reuse ones they have to fill up for use when hiking, biking or otherwise involved in traveling. Airline regulations have eased a bit recently, and now allow passengers to carry water bottles aboard.

Thanks, Pepsi. You've hit the spot with me. I've always suspected that bottled water is a pure rip-off, marketed by people who may push pure water, but now I know their greed is a bit polluted.

Learn more about this author, Ted Sherman.
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