CONVENTION CRASHING: The International Bottled Water Association

Monday, Oct. 9, 2006 | 7:31 a.m.

There is woe in water land.

Rising petroleum prices are making supply (bottles, palettes) and distribution (diesel fuel) more expensive. Competition between giant corporations will destroy most small bottlers. Price wars have trained consumers to expect a cheap product, Wal-Mart demands them, and anyway, the American middle class is shrinking; so who's going to be able to afford it at a higher price?

"We need to change the way we sell water," said industry analyst Kathleen Ransome. "At what point will consumers turn to the tap?"

Such was the vision Ransome held up for attendees at the International Bottled Water Association convention at the Mandalay Bay last week. (Theme: "Everyone's a Winner").

And an odd one it is, too, for an industry that has experienced amazing growth for a decade - the part of it with the multiounce bottles you buy and not the staid-but-steady part with multigallon ones that get delivered. Last year, Ransome said, Americans spent $13.1 billion on bottled water. (The Beverage Marketing Corporation estimates that figure at $9.8 billion.)

But the market's growth is slowing.

"The picture has been pretty ugly for the last two years," Ransome said.

She's not at all sure about the Beverage Marketing Corporation's prediction that bottled water sales will eclipse soda by 2011.

"We'll see," she said.

Water prospecting

"They have dreams, aspirations, hopes. They have a ranch or some land," says Brian Dooley of engineering and consulting firm Woodard & Curran. "But it's hard - you've got to research it and develop it and permit it. It's expensive. Maybe too expensive for the little guy."

Every now and then one of them would come by Dooley's booth asking how he too could make it big in the bottled-water boom. Maybe the old homestead with the spring burbling in the hollow could become a boon instead of a long, slow bust.

Or not. A ranch with cows? Maybe E-coli. A farm? Maybe phosphates. A nearby mine? Maybe tailings. It takes a lot of tests to find out.

"They come by all the time," Dooley says, "but over the 10 years we've been doing the show, they don't often come back."

Product No. 1: The Sad Cafe

We're walking by, ambling no faster than a mosey, and then the man with the gold rings says, "Can I have a minute of your time?"

Suddenly he's explaining something, some kind of water cooler called an Esio. But not just water, no sir. You put these little plastic pouches in there, anything you want, coffee, tea, cranberry juice. Distilled beverage essence. Because of the nozzles you can swap. It will revolutionize the home- or office-delivery business. You won't just be in the water business, you'll be in the beverage business.

Oh no, he's handing us a small cup. It's supposed to be coffee. It tastes like Sanka and radiator water. Old radiator water and too much of it.

Another cup, allegedly it's cranberry juice. Maybe it is by way of Kool-Aid made with lemon juice.

But then we see them, sitting over there on the high tables of the "Esio Cafe" part of the booth:

Starbucks cups.

Product No. 2: Honey, Turn the Water Cooler Down Low

"Romantic coolers" come in black or silver, free-standing or counter-top models. Come with ambiance light for dispensing area. For lights along the side, you pick between mood lights or disco lights. Select either a CD player, message recorder with radio, relaxation station or a radio and clock model, with weather station.

From Serrara. Patents pending. Web site inoperable.

Overheard

"Eh. Water is water. It all tastes the same to me."

- Security guard standing next to the bottled water bar (10 varieties).