Los Angeles: Testing the Waters

Citizens of Los Angeles have long maintained that they buy and imbibe bottled water in record amounts not out of fashion but out of necessity. The city's tap water, many of them claim, is heavily dosed with chlorine and often dirty. Not so, says this month's issue of Consumer Reports magazine, which rates Los Angeles' drinking water as "excellent" and says it is for the most part "flawless or nearly flawless." In a test of 50 bottled waters as well as tap water from Chicago, Houston, New Orleans, New York and San Francisco, Los Angeles' H2O ranked with New York's as the best in the urban league and rated better than much of the bottled water that is downed by the city's residents.

Critics of the test note that the magazine quaffed the fresh-tasting stuff from the Sierra Nevada snowmelt rather than the sometimes foul-smelling brew from the groundwater basins of the San Fernando Valley. While the report has gratified local officials, it has perturbed others. Says Sy Linden, co-owner of a Santa Monica appliance store: "This story is killing my water-purifier business."