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When the Birmingham Water Works Board (BWWB) began to consider the option of bottling itsown water, the Board retained Malcolm Pirnie to help assess the viability and determine theappropriate justification, if any, for a BWWB municipal bottled water operation. Consequently,a survey was developed to gather information from approximately 20 other utilities that hadeither previously studied bottling municipal water or which were currently engaged in such abottling operation. The survey was designed to be as comprehensive as possible and includedsuch issues as (among others): the utility's primary motive for bottling water; cost (capital andoperating); product distribution and sales (if applicable); treatment; product labeling; in-housevs. outsourced bottling; project delivery method (i.e., design-bid-build, design-build, design-build-operate, etc.); and state and federal regulations.One of the most unexpected finds of the survey was that a number of the utilities contacted werenot only very interested in the results of the survey themselves, but had also contacted some ofthe other surveyed utilities independently to gather information about municipal bottled water ina similar manner, albeit via a less comprehensive process. Interest was particularly high amongthose utilities that were still in the study phase and considering the advantages and disadvantagesof bottling municipal water. This paper presents the results of this surveyand the insights it revealed to serve as a resource for other utilities that might be weighing thepros and cons of municipal bottled water operations. The paper discusses the most significant findings of the survey that were grouped into five categories including:purpose of the Municipal Bottled Water Program;owning bottling facilities vs. outsourcing;bottled water treatment processes;sizes of bottles produced; and,cost.

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Edition: Vol. - No. Published: 06/17/2004 Number of Pages: 5File Size: 1 file , 160 KB