You said you were speechless about the water, I found someone who speaks about water:

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/091704_beyond_peak.shtml

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07024/756224-294.stm

Here is another link to a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article about this crazy water thing. I remember your water-tasting experiments, so I thought of you when I read this.

Growing up on well water, I can tell ya all about different tastes.

But I have to wonder how much of this is similar to the fancy chocolate from the other day. It's fancy only because they say it is, and have convinced others its true.

I disagree. Selling water as a prestige item (where did that weasel word come from?) makes perfect sense to me. Water from fresh mountain streams has been part of a great many religious pilgrimages in Europe and Asia for centuries. That likely holds true for other continents as well.

How about a little reverence for the glaciers that remain? What is in one of the $55 bottles could be summer melt water from a hunk of ice older than many modern cities. It could have last run the precipitation/ evaporation gambit well before you and I had identifiable ancestors.

Even putting those things aside, have you ever run tap water and pond water taken from any little place near your home through tests beyond Ph with your own two hands? You likely know the sorts of things that urban water treatment plants kill off or filter out of our water, right? Ask someone who lives in a town just outside an industrial pig farm or near a forest that received dose after dose of DDT what things they consider delicacies.

You and I have both paid $4.50 for Fiji brand water at indie movie theaters and probably $6 or more for a liter of purified Kent, Washington water while at mainstream movie theaters.

Not sure if that disagreement was to me, but can supply my take.

I agree, and know of, may pilgrimages to streams and rivers happen around the world every year. In fact.... I want to say just last month was such a one in India? no, not quite right. Anyways what makes said water special is the actual journey I would think. If you could buy "Mystic River water" in the store I would expect it to loose its spiritual connection.

In fact I've drank from springs in every portion of this country but the NorthEast, giardia be damned. ... I get your glacier example, but I'm take a different angle. To show my revernce, I wouldn't consume it after something being shipped to me. Instead I would visit it in person to show"honor" and drink what runs off.

Its in the same reasoning of saying I like redwoods, and then cutting down one of the oldest to make furniture or a house. I'd take the deadfall.

Are you from NC, btw? *grin* Guessing from your pig farm comment. In fact reading about pig farms makes me think about all the farms near the old homestead. You're correct, lots of junk gets released into the water. Which gets into the wildlife, and then onto the hunters plate. It sucks, which is why I'm all for enforcement of the current EPA laws as well as tightening as needed.

Ah opps. You were referencing last line of the original post.