MetroGnome for May 14, 2001 From the outside, the cinder-block walls give no indication of the pernicious science -- and a wholesale betrayal of nature -- going on within the nondescript building on Borden Avenue. But make no mistake, New York, what is happening inside the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Maspeth is an affront to each and every citizen of our city. Effrontery, thy name is Dasani. As everyone in this city knows, New York water -- that delightfully refreshing elixir that flows out of the pristine Catskill Mountains through an amazingly spotless series of aqueducts and pipes before spewing gloriously out of our kitchen faucets -- is the best municipal water in the world. This isn't me talking. It's a bunch of scientists. They say that the absence of sulfur, lead, iron and, yes, arsenic in New York's drinking water -- plus the aeration it undergoes when making the arduous journey from the Borscht Belt to the dinner glass -- gives New York water a "sweetness" that is just not found anywhere else. Some call it "the Champagne of waters," but that's an insult to our water. Champagne stinks compared to New York water. Regardless of this essential fact of life, last week, that nondescript Coca-Cola bottling plant started making Dasani, Coke's answer to Evian, Poland Spring and all the other "spring waters" that have made bottled H20 the hottest beverage since the two-cent plain. Dasani is different from all those other waters because it's not a spring water, but a FILTERED water. And just what water are they filtering in Maspeth? You guessed it: the very same water that's good enough for you and me. Last week, I dropped by the plant, donned a hairnet and watched the simple process that converts our potable potion into Dasani: First, New York water is pumped into the filtration room, where it is cleansed of particles and specks. Next, the filtered water is put through a process called "reverse osmosis," which is just a fancy term for "more-intense filtration" that removes all the minerals and compounds -- such as calcium, chlorine, magnesium and potassium -- that give New York water its unique taste and attitude. Here's where the mad science comes in: After filtration, the water goes to another room where Coke adds in a "mineral blend" -- mostly potassium chloride and magnesium sulfate -- that was devised in a laboratory at Coke's Atlanta headquarters. In essence, they've taken the New York out of New York water, homogenizing our water, if you will, into a generic product. And, worse, they're PROUD OF IT! "This is the only way to produce a consistent product regardless of where in the world it is bottled," said Robert Lanz, a spokesman for the local Coca-Cola bottling company. "No matter which municipal water source we use, after reverse-osmosis, it's all the same." They could just bottle New York water and then charge people $1.50 for it, but Coke was clearly not willing to trust nature when there was money to be made. In fact, according to Coke, the Dasani formula was the result of months of focus-group testing. The company identified cities where residents were pleased with their water and then analyzed those liquids to determine which minerals really make a difference to the taste of water. To give credit where it's due, Dasani is a good-tasting water that's vaguely reminiscent of our own. And Coke must be onto something with this "mineral blend" because Pepsi opts NOT to add minerals to its purified water, Aquafina -- and the result is a water that tastes thin and without-body, like an anorexic runway model wearing Betsey Johnson. But so what if Dasani (which, Coke admits, is a made-up word meant to suggest "purity" but actually reminds me of the desert) is the best bottled water? That's not the point! The point is that Coca-Cola, the same company that first tried to tell us that a carbonated blend of sugar, caramel color, potassium benzoate and phosphoric acid is "refreshing" is now telling us that New York water needs to be perfected upon in a lab. Well, that just doesn't wash with this New Yorker. --30-- email: gershny@yahoo.com