Text, video and image by Elizabeth DeOrnellas.
Philadelphia’s tap water is inexpensive and accessible. But resident surveys reveal close to 40 percent of Philadelphians report drinking bottled water as their primary water source at home, and low-income neighborhoods show higher percentages of bottled water usage.
Philadelphia Water Department data from 2021 shows continued differences related to income – 52 percent of respondents who reported income of less than $35,000 preferred bottled water, while only 18 percent of those who reported income above $150,000 did so.
The demographic data from 2021 also revealed large differences between racial groups, with 62 percent of Black survey respondents preferring bottled water versus 24 percent of white survey respondents.
Residents’ lack of trust in the municipal water supply is causing those who can least afford it to spend needlessly, and city officials hope to combat safety concerns with an arts-infused campaign to lift the reputation of its tap water.
The Drink More Tap campaign, launched in 2019, used mural arts and community ambassadors to raise awareness and build trust. The city commissioned two murals in North Philadelphia neighborhoods with high bottled water usage.
“The idea was to get engaged directly with the community — to interact with them in person to kind of explain the benefits of drinking tap water,” said Calo Rosa, the muralist hired to facilitate the project.
Rosa said including the community in the design process was very important.
“It’s different when you tell somebody or see it on the TV that recommends you do something,” Rosa said. “It’s different when somebody that you know is doing it or telling you.”
The latest drinking water quality report from the Philadelphia Water Department indicates that Philadelphia’s tap water continues to meet federal quality standards, but additional research is needed to see if the art-fueled outreach projects had an impact on consumption patterns.
Maura Jarvis, assistant manager of public engagement at the Philadelphia Water Department, said the department is continuing to collect data on bottled water consumption to assess long-term trends.
Data from the department shows consumption trends held largely steady from 2016 to 2021.
A separate, parallel campaign called Drink Philly Tap hired community leaders as ambassadors to educate their neighbors about the city’s tap water.
The campaign’s site lists 18 neighborhood ambassadors. There is anecdotal evidence that their year of work started conversations.
According to the Drink Philly Tap PR team, “By December 31, 2019, over 10,000 people took the Drink Philly Tap pledge to drink tap water and stop using bottled water.”
Drink More Tap and Drink Philly Tap are both confronting an issue of mistrust that can be exacerbated by emergency situations.
On March 26 Philadelphians learned that a chemical spill in the Delaware River might result in contamination of the city’s drinking water. Although the city ultimately issued an all clear two days later, residents’ frantic buying of bottled water illustrated how easy it is to spark panic.
“I feel like it really is just about talking, you know, and getting everybody essentially on the same page,” Jarvis said, “so that we all have the same most up-to-date information.”
Rosa came to the United States from El Salvador, where he did not have reliable access to clean tap water. He said the anxiety around the chemical spill really underscored the number of people who depend on Philadelphia’s municipal drinking water.
“It’s like a privilege,” Rosa said. “If it’s a few days out of it, you can tell how important that is.”
Philadelphia isn’t alone in discovering that mistrust can cause residents to turn away from tap water. A 2017-18 national study published in Public Health Nutrition “calculated that Black and Hispanic children and adults are two to three times more likely to report not drinking their tap water than members of white households.”
New York City has also invested in public artworks as part of its efforts to increase tap water consumption. Mayor Michael Bloomberg promoted a “water on the go” program that attached portable drinking fountains to fire hydrants at dozens of sites around the city.
To see if such campaigns could work in rural areas, Kern County, California tested the viability of public water bottle filling stations. Researchers found a 21 percent increase in water consumption at sites that installed water stations and ran promotional campaigns.
There have also been campaigns to increase consumption of tap water on college campuses. Cornell reported that its Take Back The Tap campaign resulted in a 25 percent decrease of bottled water sales at campus convenience stores and community centers.
Although robust data doesn’t exist for all campaigns, there are examples from both urban and rural settings of U.S. communities successfully using community engagement protocols to increase consumption of tap water.
Rosa said using the arts to drive those campaigns can reach residents on a personal level.
“Commercially, we are getting used to seeing advertisements, right?,” Rosa said. “And one way of art of getting through people is that you, you connect, at least in a mural, you connect with the people who live in a place.”
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