Water-Purification System May Become Fashionable Appliance of 1990s : Kitchen: People who are worried about the quality and safety of tap and bottled water are looking for alternatives. The Perrier scare is also expected to boost sales of home-treatment services.

The 1970s brought the food processor; the ‘80s was the decade of the microwave. For the 1990s, it’s a good bet that the fashionable new kitchen appliance will be a water-purification system.

With mounting concerns about the quality and safety of water--whether from the tap or a bottle--a growing number of individuals are turning to home filtering and purification systems in hopes of improving the quality and taste of tap water.

Despite warnings from federal environmental officials, local water utilities and some consumer groups that some of these purification systems may be unnecessary and/or ineffective, business for charcoal filters, distillers and reverse osmosis systems was picking up well before the recent recall of Perrier for benzene contamination.

“It’s becoming the new kitchen appliance, just like having a garbage disposal,” says Nancy Culotta, manager of the drinking-water-treatment program for the nonprofit National Sanitation Foundation, which tests and certifies water-purifying systems.

Now, with the Perrier scare, sales are expected to pick up even further.

“This will make people think about the sanctity of their water supply,” says Russ Ferstandig, a New Jersey psychiatrist who has helped major food and packaging companies develop products.

“Perrier is supposed to come from some mystical place, some countryside in France that doesn’t have all of the garbage found in the United States. So we have fantasized about its being pure and natural. Now this ultimate source of purity is contaminated. If you can’t believe in Perrier, what can you believe in?” Ferstandig asks.

The contamination of Perrier brings to the forefront unheeded warnings that consumer groups have issued during the past several years about the quality of bottled water.

Consumption of bottled water has grown sharply from 415.8 million gallons in 1978 to 1.6 billion 10 years later, according to the International Bottled Water Assn. The growth has come in large part from consumers who are concerned about the quality and safety of tap water.

Yet, according to a 1989 report by the Environmental Policy Institute, “despite the attractive packaging of bottled water, this product, in general, is not necessarily any safer or more healthful than the water that comes out of most faucets. In fact, the public water utilities supplying these same faucets are the source for more than one-third of all the bottled water in the U.S.”

What’s more, the study says, a review of numerous state studies on bottled water shows that it “frequently contains low levels of contaminants such as heavy metals and solvents.”

The IBWA acknowledges that some studies have shown contaminants in bottled water, but notes that the levels found are far below those that need corrective action.

Additionally, the organization says, the quality of bottled water receives more scrutiny than tap water because bottlers have to adhere to the standard sanitary manufacturing practices and proper labeling rules required of all food companies and products by the Food and Drug Administration.

Still, Ferstandig predicts, it is only a matter of time until consumers will turn from bottled water to home purification systems. “It will give consumers charge of their house and peace of mind,” he says. “They won’t have to rely on someone in a plant to clean their water.”

Like a home-security system, the purification system will provide an assurance, although not necessarily a guarantee, of safety, he adds.

The expectation that home water-treatment services will become big business has spurred several well-known corporations into action, including Eastman Kodak Co., Clorox Co., Electrolux Corp. and Melitta USA.

“We felt that the water problems in the United States were already significant and were only going to get worse,” says Charlie Couric, president of Brita USA Inc., a Clorox subsidiary that sells pour-through pitchers utilizing silverized carbon to filter tap water about a half gallon at a time.

“Secondly, we felt that even though bottled water was a rapidly growing business--Clorox owns Deer Park bottled water and a number of other brands--we should also be developing a point-of-use water filtration system because the economics would tend to drive consumers that way. After all, you can haul only so much water around.”

With the increase in competition, water-treatment equipment has become readily accessible to the consumer, available not only in plumbing-supply shops and longstanding dealerships, such as Culligan International Co., but also in department stores, discount chains and even supermarkets.

The cost varies greatly too, from as low as $7 for a gallon pitcher filter designed only to remove the taste and odor of chlorine to $800 or more for larger and more sophisticated filter tanks or distiller units that remove numerous other impurities.

“There has been a dramatic change in the water-treatment business within the last 10 years,” says Roy Russell, who owns a Culligan dealership in San Jose, Calif., and also is president of the Water Quality Assn. that represents water-treatment companies.

“For 40 years, we were primarily known for water softeners, iron filters and other things that treat water to make it better and easier to use in the household.”

These systems still account for the bulk of sales in the industry, but their growth has been fairly static. Sales of equipment to clean up tap water, on the other hand, have taken off. “Growth has been spectacular, on a magnitude of 30 to 40% a year” says Russell.

As a result, a recent study by Baytel Associates, a market-research firm in San Francisco, predicts that the residential water-treatment industry will double in the five years between 1989 and 1994, from $1.7 billion to $3.4 billion. In 1984, this market accounted for $840 million in sales.

With the sharp spurt in sales comes growing concern among consumer groups and federal and local regulatory officials about the safety and efficacy of the equipment, and the scare tactics being used by some water-treatment dealers.

Fairfax County (Virginia) Water Authority, for example, enclosed a warning about home filtering devices in last summer’s bills. “We do not recommend their use,” the warning said. “We know of no public health agency or consumer group that recommends the use of a home filtering device when the water supplied to customers comes from a public water system.”

In fact, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency noted in a fact sheet issued last spring, “for consumers using a public drinking water supply that meets national-state drinking-water standards, home treatment would seldom be needed for health protection.”

Although there may be problems with water quality in some of the smaller municipalities, particularly rural ones, there are few problems in the larger systems “which have the capital to keep on top of improvements,” says Jim Warfield, director of administration for the Fairfax Water County Authority.

“If there are customers out there who are buying these devices because they think it will improve the quality of the water and therefore prolong the health of their family, then they are wasting their money. If they are buying these devices because they don’t like the taste of their water, then it’s a legitimate use of the filter. But many of the marketers don’t sell that. They sell the story about how terrible the nation’s water quality is.”

Thus, the Federal Trade Commission and consumer groups have repeatedly cautioned potential buyers to beware of hard-sell tactics and especially of salesmen who try to represent that tap water may be unsafe with on-the-spot quality tests.

“Salesmen are not scientists and trained to make a judgment” on tap water’s safety, says Rick Hind, the environmental program director at U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

Hind also cautions consumers to be wary of claims that filters are EPA approved. EPA registers and tests certain filters if they contain silver to measure the amounts that are released in the water.

The EPA also makes sure these registered filters live up to the manufacturer’s claims. However, EPA registration “does not indicate a recommendation, approval or endorsement of the product by EPA,” the agency notes.

In one instance--the Norelco Clean Water Machine--the filter actually made the water less safe to drink, because it was emitting methylene chloride, a suspected carcinogen, into the water it filtered.

The FTC found Norelco guilty of “serious, deliberate and egregious” false advertising, because the company continued to claim that the machine would clean water even though it knew the machine added far more chemicals than it removed, the agency said. Norelco has since agreed to repay customers who bought the machines.

If consumers are concerned about the quality of their tap water, consumer groups and health officials recommend that they get their water tested by a state or EPA certified laboratory before spending money on a purification system.

Not only would the tests reveal whether there is a problem but they also would help consumers decide what kind of machine to buy. Several different systems are on the market, with some more effective in improving taste, others more effective in eliminating dissolved solids.

The bulk of the drinking-water systems now being sold are attached to the kitchen faucet, where most people get their drinking water. There are also systems that would improve the quality of water for the entire house, although they are considerably more expensive.

Among the systems being sold are:

--Activated carbon filtration, which absorbs chlorine taste and odors, certain pesticides and fungicides. It is not particularly effective in eliminating lead and other heavy metals, according to an edition of Consumer Reports, which studied the different filters on the market.

--Reverse osmosis, which forces pressurized water through a microscopic membrane to remove salt, ferrous iron, fluoride, nitrate and lead in the water. Its main problem, Consumer Reports noted, is that it uses a lot of water to create a few gallons of clean drinking water.

--Distillation, in which steam from boiling water is cooled until it condenses. Anything that won’t boil--salts, sediments and metals--is left behind. But some volatile organic chemicals, such as chloroform and benzene, may be passed through, Consumer Reports says.

Many of the systems combine two or more of these technologies and perhaps even an ultraviolet sterilizer. No matter what kind of equipment is installed, dealers and health officials stress the importance of maintenance and cleaning.

If the machines are not properly maintained, they may end up doing more harm than good. Charcoal filters, for example, may back up and flush through all the bad chemicals they had been cleaning from the water--and all at once--if not changed frequently.

“That’s why we don’t put a lot of support behind buying filters,” says Elizabeth Kraft, director of natural resources at the U.S. League of Women’s Voters.

These systems may be just the beginning of a whole new industry, predicts Jim Thomas, senior analyst for Baytel. Once the water filtering and purifying devices are in place, it’s only a matter of time he says, before soft drinks such as Pepsi and Coke will be made at home, by mixing the syrup with carbonated tap water.

“With the right marketing, that could really take off,” Thomas says.