S.F. to Sell Bottled Hetch Hetchy Water

Sierra product said to be purer than tap.

by Patrick Hoge
San Francisco Chronicle - March 14, 2003

In the belief that it has the purest water around, San Francisco is preparing to bottle and sell water from its famed Hetch Hetchy reservoir in Yosemite National Park, according to officials at the city's Public Utilities Commission.

The commission has created test labels and been experimenting with plans to distribute 16.9 ounce, or half-liter, bottles of the Sierra Nevada nectar -- price as yet unknown -- through city-run sites such as the airport, convention centers, the port and the zoo, officials said.

"We're on the brink of making an announcement that says for sure this is something we're going to be doing," said PUC President Dennis Normandy.

Mayor Willie Brown proposed the idea of bottling Hetch Hetchy water in his first term. Now, five years later, the product could be available in certain stores by the end of the month, when PUC officials plan to have a product kick- off.

Bottles could be available "anywhere people would like to have a drink of water, or buy a souvenir of San Francisco," Normandy said.

Rather than making handfuls of money, he expects the venture to promote the city and "the idea that San Francisco has the best and purest water in the country, if not the world."

In a test run, 5,000 gallons of water was trucked about 100 miles to a bottling plant in Roseville, northeast of Sacramento. There it was treated with ozone, filtered and poured into 31,000 plastic bottles. If the Hetch Hetchy brand takes off, the PUC would likely get a beverage distributor as a partner, officials said.

Commissioner Ann Moller Caen said the water "tastes very different up at Hetch Hetchy -- it's much sweeter."

Regular tap water in San Francisco is so pure it is unfiltered -- something only six other large cities can boast -- but it is often a blend of water from the Tuolumne River and other parts of the PUC's watershed, she said.

It's a good thing the PUC isn't looking to get rich quick off its bottled water scheme, however, said Arthur von Wiesenberger, founder of Bottledwaterweb.com and a writer on the water industry.

"It really depends on how bottled water is distributed and marketed. That in reality is the critical component," he said. "You have to have huge volumes to make money. The margins are very low."

For his own taste, Wiesenberger said trucking water to a bottling plant is problematic. "I prefer water bottled at the source," he said.

John Rizzo, vice chair of the San Francisco Bay chapter of the Sierra Club, said he knew nothing about the city's bottling plans, but he was concerned about potential truck traffic near Yosemite.

PUC general manager Pat Martel said it was too soon to worry about such things.

"We don't have any idea of what potential volume of distribution would be," she said.

Normandy, however, sees many natural markets -- such as city agencies that buy bottled water, cruise ships and restaurants. PUC officials have been meeting with potential customers and distributing samples.

"It's a little premature to say we are in the bottled water business," said Normandy, who runs a company that provides marketing, communications, and graphic design services. "We are doing all of the things that go into the development of a new product prior to kick-off."