Take the Pledge to “Think Outside the Bottle!” Join the thousands of people across the country who are pledging to choose tap over bottled water. Click here to take the pledge.

Get Active To Stop The Water Privateers

Meet with your Mayor. Take a small group of friends that know the Mayor. Ask if he/she attended the 75th U.S. Conference of Mayors in Los Angeles, June 22-26, 2007. Remind him/her that at the Conference, the Mayors overwhelmingly passed a resolution that stressed their support for municipal, public water systems and called for study of the environmental costs of bottled water and the impact of plastic bottles on city waste. Ask if your Mayor voted in favor of this resolution at the Conference, or supports it, and might be willing to join you in a press conference or to make a public statement of support.

At present (October 18, 2007) the Mayors of the following cities support the Pledge: San Francisco, San Leandro, and Emeryville, California; Boston, MA; Minneapolis, MN; and Salt Lake City, UT.

Add your Mayor to this list!
Click here for a copy of the Resolution to take to your Mayor and press release
“U.S. Mayors Pass Mayor Newsom’s Resolution Calling for Support of Municipal Water, Study of Bottled Water Impact”

Go to a City Council Meeting. At public comment period, tell the City Council that you personally have taken the Bottled Water Pledge. Pass out copies of the pledge to City Council members, reporters who cover the council, and some people in the audience, and read the text.

Ask your City Council members to stop serving and drinking bottled water at council meetings. Let them know that Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco, for example, has cut funds for the purchase of bottled water for public offices. Because these meetings are frequently televised live and replayed on Public Community Access T.V., this is a perfect opportunity to get “free air time.” You might even politely offer them a glass pitcher of water.

You might also inform them of how harmful the production, use and discard of plastics are to the environment and especially to the health of young children.

Click here for flyers to use in your organizing.



Take this issue to your local School Board meeting which may also be televised, and speak at public comment period. Let them know about the Bottled Water Pledge, as well as your concerns about the harmful effects of plastic production, use and discard. Parents, teachers and administrators should be concerned about contamination of the environment and harmful effects on children.

Go to some of your favorite local restaurants, find out if they serve bottled water. Talk to the manager and encourage him/her to take bottled water off the drink list. Let him/her know that a number of major restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area and New York have stopped serving bottled water and others across the country are joining the list. Let them know you understand bottled water provides income from sales and that purchase of an “in house” filter and carbonation system may be expensive, but worth the investment.

Let our Office Manager Barbara Clancy know by email of your success on any one of these actions. Let her know the name of your Mayor and or Restaurant Manager and city where located so we may make a report at the end of the Blue October.

Beginning last March, a number of news articles highlighted restaurants that were only serving tap water in particular: Alice Waters in her famous Berkeley, CA restaurant Chez Panisse, and Mario Batali at Del Posto, in New York City.

Now Bella Luna and the Milky Way Lounge and Lanes in Boston have joined.

How about your local restaurants? Let’s add them to the list!

To protect our water resources and keep water clean and safe, we must re-invest in our public drinking water and waste-water treatment systems, NOW.
Many of our city water pipes and sewers were installed in the early part of the 20th century, some as far back as the Civil War. As the systems age and population grows, more and more leaks develop and sewage overflows into our streams, rivers, lakes and ocean, creating serious public health hazards.

Public health agencies issued more than 20,000 warnings against swimming at beaches on U.S. coasts in 2005. A majority of beach closings are due to sewage overflows and malfunctioning sewage plants.

The National Research Council recently warned that we should expect more water-borne disease outbreaks if there are not "substantial investments" made to improve our water pipes and systems.

In fact, there is currently a shortfall of more than $22 billion per year between the funds available and what is needed to keep water safe for human and environmental health. The federal government has cut the main source of funding for clean water year after year. It's time to fill the funding gap with a trust fund - a dedicated funding source and sustained commitment to safe and affordable public water.

Sign here to Congress to provide the funds needed to protect our water sources and keep our water clean and safe.