Where Have All the Water Fountains Gone?

[marmar]

via AlterNet:



Where Have All the Water Fountains Gone?

By Richard Girard, Polaris Institute. Posted October 29, 2008.

New buildings are being constructed without water fountains, and existing buildings are decommissioning older fountains.



People are turning away from bottled water as fast as they turned onto it. Municipalities across Canada and the United States are limiting the sale and purchase of bottled water in city buildings, bottled water free zones are popping up on college and university campuses, community groups are phasing out the use of bottled water, and the message about the ills of this product is all over the mainstream media.

I was recently asked in an interview about the next steps for the movement away from bottled water given that the backlash had spread so widely. The interviewer mentioned that he wasn't sure what people would do at his local hockey arena when the only access to water was from an old dusty water fountain. His question struck a chord and confirmed my belief that the success of the anti-bottled water movement must more and more be accompanied with stronger demands for the renewal of public access to potable drinking water.

Municipal leaders have shown that there is a strong political will for increased use and promotion of tap water. However, we continuously hear of new buildings being constructed without water fountains and existing buildings decommissioning older water fountains without replacing them.

One example comes from the University of Central Florida (UCF) where a $55 million football stadium was constructed with no water fountains.

In September 2007, UCF opened the 45,000 seat football stadium for a home game. The day of the game was very hot and the concessions had less than 45,000 bottles of water on hand. The concessions ran out of bottled water and fans were left thirsty. More than sixty people were treated for heat exhaustion. .......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/water/105051/where_have_all_the_water_fountains_gone/

[Lars39]

1. Cheaper maintenence without all those water fountains.

[SharonAnn]

2. You really mean"drinking fountains". Where have all the drinking fountains gone.

Water fountains are usually considered to be for display and ornamentation with water spraying up in the air, falling down into a collecting pool, and then being recycled through the spray again.

[sweetpotato]

5. Water fountains vs drinking fountains

Is that like shopping cart vs. buggy?

Maybe a regional thing? I've always heard and said water fountain - never drinking fountain. I live in the Southeast. I use a buggy at the grocery store.

[Warpy]

9. Go to New England and ask for a " bubblah"

which is their term for one.

[OwnedByFerrets]

13. Alabama, and its water fountain in these here parts.

[marmar]

6. Just posted an article.....My personal terminology would be "drinking fountain"

n/t

[kick-ass-bob]

10. no, those are just 'fountains'

you know what he meant, why are we getting into a 'pop' vs 'soda' vs 'whatever the hell else people call it' debate?

[hfojvt]

11. maybe he means "bubblers"

where have all the cheeseheads gone?

[lpbk2713]

3. No water fountains in the football stadium ....

... means more profit for the concessioneers. As if they don't make enough on their merchandise when it's priced three or four times (at least) what you would pay for the same thing outside the stadium.

[zanne]

4. Alot of people drink bottled water for the convenience...

My husband still drinks bottled water, so I take his empties and fill them with tap water. A friend of ours comes over from time to time to collect empties, too. I think people are getting the message.

[TechBear_Seattle]

7. Regarding the stadium without water fountains, I suspect

This was a deliberate move to force people to buy from the concession stands. Why hand out free water when you can sell beer and soda at $7 a pop? And you certainly don't want them buying a cup and then refilling it with water at no charge.

[Captain Hilts]

8. They're with the pay phones. And the phone booths. I miss them!

[RaleighNCDUer]

12. A slight diversion from the topic - how does plastic bottled water keep

in the long term?

I don't drink bottled water, but I have a case of 16oz bottles of water for emergency hurricane supplies. The case is now about 4 years old. I must assume that at some point the plastic will begin breaking down, leaching toxins into the water, but have no idea when - 5 years? 10 years? six months ago?

Any idea?

[hfojvt]

17. there's probably a date stamped on the bottle

I would go with that. None of my recent bottles of pop goes past February of 2009, but the water bottle I got recently goes to December of 2009. Your 4 year old water is probably no good.

[surrealAmerican]

14. fountains

As cities run out of funds, they do things like this to cut costs. That said it's a shame, and possibly a public health issue in warmer climates.

[shraby]

15. A different line of thought on the old drinking

fountains. They actually weren't too sanitary they way they work. Many a person put their mouth right on the opening where the water bubble up..mostly because the pressure was too low to bring the water up high enough to get a drink.
In these days of HIV and other communicable diseases they need to redesign the fountains with health in mind.

[Wednesdays]

20. HIV, passed on by drinking fountains?

:eyes: What is this, 1983 or something?

Now, if you asked me if I were afraid of getting a cold bug off a fountain, then yeah...

[shraby]

21. That was only intended as an example, not that

I think hiv in particular would be passed that way but many children put their mouth right down on the piece that the water comes out of..many germs can be passed that way. I was raised with those kinds of fountains in school, on street corners and all over. They were totally unsanitary!

[SoCalDem]

16. Local TV stations with cotton swabs & test tubes

swarmed buildings, doing stories about how unsanitary they were, and of course the sponsors of all those tv stations happily offered bottled water at $2 a bottle, as a "safe" alternative..

ANY object that's in the public sphere is not "sanitary", but didn't our Mothers all teach us to not put our mouths on the water fountain:)

My hometown even had drinking fountains on street corners...and had public restrooms availabe at every city parking lot too.. The local merchants got together and paid for that improvement, so they would not have to offer their bathrooms to customers (except in emergencies, of course)

[Fumesucker]

22. My hometown had public drinking fountains too...

Most of them were marked "white"..

A few of the nastier ones were marked "black".

[Two Americas]

18. privatization

If you can't afford water, you don't get any. Sorry. We can't be coddling people.

[Jed Dilligan]

19. They must be piling up in the same place

the pay phones and public bathrooms went. ?