Ever since I was a kid I've been told that tap water in Kansas City is the best in the country. Recently, KSHB did an investigation and found out that this town's water is still not good enough for most of the people at City Hall. Thing is, I don't like criticizing the worker bees who have to toil at the place so I have to assume that all of this water waste is done by City Council members who are trying to get themselves clean.
Here are the highlights for the report:
Why would City Hall spend more than $500,000 on something they could get for free?I know, I know there are a lot of good Evian jokes to make at Country Club Kay's expense but everybody knows she doesn't drink water because it makes her melt.
City departments are using tax dollars, again, to buy the bottled water back to the tune of another $61,500.
NBC Action News Investigators found a state-of-the art Innowave Water Filtration System at City Hall. The company's promotional video says the machine hooks right up to the tap, filtering the water with a special UV light. But Kansas City's drinking water already ranks #1, so we asked Cauthen why the city was spending tax dollars on the systems.
And we found them in at least 62 city departments around the metro, totaling another $215,000 in taxes.
asinine+
ReplyDeleteTony,
ReplyDeleteI made some comments over at BlogKC about this. Coca-Cola water (Dasani) in Coca-Cola vending machines is not a story. If the City started bottling Kansas City Cola should we expect Coke to vend that from their machines too? Those machines are owned by the Coke distributor, not the City.
The only real story is the expensive water filters. The rest is just noise.
There are some real stories out there about waste and corruption that need to be reported. Leave it to the TV news to come up with "Water-gate" for sweeps month.
So all city employees are supposed to bring a glass with them to work so they can drink water? Anyone who has visited city hall knows there are very few drinking fountains, all of which look antique and are not something I'd want to drink from. City employees get enough crap as it, let them drink their filtered water in peace.
ReplyDeleteTony, thanks for this great story. I'm working on a "Ban the Bottle at the Hall campaign."
ReplyDeleteIf the city water is fine in the first place, plus they have an expensive filtration system in effect because of the poor quality in the buidings, does it make any sense that they would spend extra money drinking the KC Bottled water at their meetings and in their offices?
(I have not seen any members drink bottled water by any other company, btw. It's all the bottled tap water from Kansas City. It is provided for city employees in certain offices and buildings -like City Hall. Yes, the building that has a $500K filter so that the water can be consumed straight from the tap).
Why is it so hard to have a cup at your work that you can fill at your desk? I have never seen many people (well, any) that actually walk around the building with a water bottle in hand. They aren't running marathons, right? They are drinking it at their desks.
So if it adds extra money to an already costly filter system, stop buying the bottled water. How hard is that?
Not to mention that after a mass marketing to encourage people to drink bottled water and not tap water, global consumption has risen to 41 billion gallons (2004) - up 57% from the previous five years.
I have gone to the city council meetings and heard the green city talk - which I'm all about. But let's really see the members walk the walk and put their own money where their mouth is.
Other cities across the nation have banned agencies from buying bottled water for their employees. If they can do it, I don't think we should think ourselves an exception. They all report no real complaints and they still drink water.
If our city is facing a potential issue with waste management and landfills reaching their capacity, we should look at reducing and reusing in the first place. (More than half of plastic bottles don't end up being recycled). Let's set an easy example, folks.
After I saw how ridiculous the council looked, saying "oh, we aren't just going to talk about doing green things because it is cool," while they slurped from plastic bottles of water. I decided to cut out the BS in my own life. I carry a bottle and refill it all day. It is actually easier than going to to the store for multiple bottles and then dealing with the recycling. (Yeah, that is another story - since I live in an apartment in Midtown and the city doesn't provide recycling for us).
Keep up the great work, Tony. I'll let you know how my campaign is going - two members of the council have been curious about how other cities have set this resolution in place.
I guess the entire practice of selling bottled tap water at city hot spots doesn't make ANY sense to me. The Zoo doesn't even offer recycling, but they campaign about how waste hurts animal habitats. It goes beyond issues about lazy life styles, this impacts our money and does nothing to improve the stress on our waste management systems.
Read my blog on it (and other KC issues) at www.kkfinews.blogspot.com
Thanks,
Elizabeth (Lizzi) Sexton
KC MEDIA WATCHDOGS, intern
90.1 FM KKFI,
every Monday at 9:30am
www.kkfinews.blogspot.com
www.kkfi.org
Innowave bottleless water coolers are the #1 reason why many municipalities today are saving a bundle by eliminating bottles. And the green benefits are numerous when comparing to a bottled water service.
ReplyDeleteBut what a good muni water system cannot solve are bad pipes and old infrastructure used to deliver a good water product. This is one of the reasons why innowave exists today. And the UV technology inside an innowave bottleless system does not filter the water (separate filters or reverse osmosis does that) but continually disinfects the water tank from excessive bacterial growth.
Innowave eliminates chlorine thus improving the taste and odor of your tap water, and the UV technology assures bacteria free water all the way to your cup.
More information may be found at www.innowave.com.