Problems in Vending Water, Study Says

In a study that is sure to roil the already boiling waters of the consumer health debate, Los Angeles County health officials said Thursday that those ubiquitous vending machines at supermarkets sell water that has a far higher bacterial count than good old free tap water.

“It is very shocking, and very disturbing,” said Supervisor Mike Antonovich, a self-avowed health advocate who persuaded his colleagues on the Board of Supervisors to order the yearlong study last August. It was conducted by the Environmental Toxicology Bureau of the county’s Agricultural Commissioner/Weights and Measures Department.

Even as representatives of one water company defended their product, Antonovich and a host of county officials held court at a packed Hall of Administration news conference. They described the “vended” water that is being sold at hundreds of locations around Los Angeles as unclean and potentially dangerous.

They also criticized the state Health Services Department for failing to inspect such vending machines, including the 3,000 in Los Angeles County, and for not regulating the quality of water in them.

The state relies on vendors to test the water and send in their results. However, Antonovich and health officials said that the system is placing consumers at risk.

In response to the study, the state’s food and drug division chief, Stuart E. Richardson Jr., said he failed to see any “significant public health concerns,” but acknowledged that it appears that some of the vending machines have not been adequately maintained.

As a result, he said, California has started a statewide surveillance “sampling program” to randomly test the machines and the water in them.

Already, he said, his agency has sent letters to 17 operators warning that their machines have exceeded state standards, mostly for high bacteria count.

Officials--and the study--said county lawyers refused to allow them to disclose the names of the vending machine companies responsible for having the dirtiest water, including one machine found to have potentially unsafe levels of coliform bacteria.

More than half the machines in the county are operated by Glacier Water of Carlsbad. Three company representatives attended the news conference to try to counter the charges of the county scientists. They defended their company’s product as “very safe.”

Dr. Jonathan Fielding, the county’s public health director, called the report’s findings “troubling.”

And although there is no “clear evidence of danger to consumers,” Fielding said the findings merit further study, increased regulation of the vending machines and surprise inspections to ensure that water being sold as purified or of drinking quality is safe to consume.

Although the study found that the health risks appear to be minimal, it said that a fraud is being perpetrated on consumers who bring their jugs to the markets, pay their quarters, fill them up and lug the water home.

“The public,” it concluded, “is paying for water quality it is not getting.”

The study found that the average bacterial count in the 279 vending machines it tested throughout the county registered 1,306 parts per billion of bacteria. That’s 163 times higher than the level of bacteria found in tap water, which, at 8 ppb, is just under the state regulatory limit, the study said.

Although certain forms of bacteria can be dangerous, such as fecal coliform, the study found that most samples contained bacteria that came from common organic compounds, which are not necessarily a health risk.

But it also found that 38% of the water sampled from vending machines contained levels of the chemical trihalomethane that exceeded the state regulatory limit of 10 ppb. Trihalomethane, a byproduct of disinfecting water with chlorine, has been associated with increased cancer risk in laboratory animals and increased risk of miscarriages for women in their first trimester who drank five or more glasses daily of water containing 75 ppb of the chemical.

“Some of these [samples] are higher than 75 [ppb of] trihalomethanes,” said Wasfy W. Shindy, deputy director of the Environmental Toxicology Bureau.

And 2% of the vending machine samples had water with levels of lead that exceeded the state regulatory limit, the study found.

About 15% of the machines tested advertised their water as “purified,” and 62% contained dissolved solids exceeding state limits, the study said.

The report cited several reasons for the allegedly contaminated water.

Many of the machines are poorly maintained, with dirty spigots or overused carbon filters that do not adequately remove contaminants. Others had purification systems that fail to remove some odors and dissolved solids, and germicidal treatment processes that don’t disinfect the water as well as they should, the study found.

Al Aulwurm, a safety specialist at Glacier Water, said water from his company’s vending machines was safe to drink and worth the money. “I consider it very safe,” he said. “I drink it every day.”

Aulwurm said the company changes its carbon filters more often than required by the state, and that he welcomes statewide testing of the machines. “If there are some disreputable water companies out there,” Aulwurm said, “they would be exposed.”

Antonovich said the Board of Supervisors will call on the state next week to relinquish oversight of the vending machines to the county. The cost of such inspections, he said, would be passed on to the water companies in the form of an increased license fee.

Shindy, the county toxicologist, said the state’s recent efforts to crack down on vending machine companies was not enough.

“They send letters saying, ‘You’re in violation, fix your machines.’ Give me a break,” Shindy said. “We need random checks, unannounced checks. . . . We need a way to shut them down.”