Does Arisu Have the Edge
When It's Put on the Market?

Seoul marks the centennial of its first supply of tap water

Public attention is paid to whether Seoul city water, called "Arisu,"will be put on the commercial market as Seoul celebrates the centennial of the Seoul Metropolitan Government's first supply of tap water.
Noteworthy is the fact that the metropolitan government's bottled Arisu was provided at the first Cabinet meeting of the Lee Myung-bak government on March 3 to President Lee and his Cabinet members. To this end, one day earlier, the Office of Waterworks at the Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) supplied 38 boxes of 350 ml bottled Arisu to Cheong Wa Dae.
The Waterworks Office is in talks with the Presidential Secretariat on the supply of the bottled Seoul city water twice per month.
While campaigning, then presidential-candidate Lee made a public pledge to allow bottled Arisu to be put on the market, saying that the quality of Seoul's tap water does not fall behind that of spring water coming directly from mountains.
Arisu has already become a familiar fixture as the drinking water at government ministries and other offices as well as conferences sponsored by the SMG.
Such offices as the presidential transition team head office, the president-designate office, and the ad hoc committee for strengthening national competitiveness had been supplied with 1,374 boxes of bottled Arisu during their tenures, which expired by Jan. 4.
Arisu has been supplied to the participants of conferences organized by about 70 government agencies, including the Prime Minister's Office, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Ministry of Labor, the Ministry of Knowledge and Economy and the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Family Affairs as well as the participants of the Cabinet ministers and vice ministers'meetings and international conferences since one year ago.
As early as October 2005, the Seoul Metropolitan Government, headed by then-Mayor Lee Myung-bak, began to supply Arisu to its offices and subsidiary institutions.
Current Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon and his family have been supplied with the metropolitan government's tap water since his inauguration.
In 2001, Arisu made its debut in the form of bottled water in order to provide citizens with an opportunity to sample tap water and use it in emergency situations. Tens of thousands of Seoulites who poured into the streets to cheer for the Korean national soccer team during the 2006 World Cup were supplied with bottled Arisu free of charge to help ease their thirst. The Waterworks Office also offered about 30,000 bottles of Arisu to a flood of volunteers who came to their aid in cleaning up the oil spill caused by the supertanker Hebei Spirit off the Taean Peninsula late last year and donated 50,000 1.8-liter bottles of Arisu to North Korean flood victims in September last year.
Hwang Ju-sung, CEO of Notrans Club, signed a provincial contract to export 2 million 500-liter Bottles of Arisu to a central Asian country last month, but he later found out his deal cannot be realized due to the provision of a clause of the Act on Tap Water, banning the sale of piped water.
In a related development, the Ministry of Environment plans to allow each local government to put its bottled tap water on the market, which is expected to have an impact on the drinking water market.
The Waterworks Office's release of the outcome of its latest survey on drinking water has drawn a keen interest in the run-up to the planned permission of the sale of tap water. The blind taste test of drinking water, conducted by the SMG among Arisu, spring water and purified water showed that 627 people, 50.2 percents of the participants, chose Arisu, followed by purified water (291 participants or 23.4 percent) and spring water (80 people or 20.1 percent) and 353 participants (9.1 percent) who responded that there was no difference. The test was conducted at the Seoul City Hall Plaza on March 22 to celebrate World Water Day anniversary. Eight previous similar surveys conducted for three years from Sept. 1, 2005 also found that Arisu topped the list with 1,623 people or 41.9 percent of the 3,874 who participated in the taste tests, followed by purified water (890 people or 23 percent) and spring water (1,008 people, or 26 percent).
On Sept. 1, 2008, Seoul City marks the centennial of the city's first supply of Seoul city water at the Ttukto purification plant along the Han River.
The brand "Arisu"was named after the old name of the Han River at the time of Goguryeo, an ancient Korean Kingdom. Arisu means a great river or water in view of the historical linguistics of Korean.
Jin Ik-chul, vice mayor of the Waterworks Office said, "Arisu is a 'life-giving water'for 10 million Seoulites."The Waterworks Office now makes a regular check into 145 monitored items -- 55 items set by the central government and 90 categories set by the municipal government on its own -- which is equal to the number of items recommended by the World Health Organization to raise public awareness toward safe water, and the monitored standards are high enough to not cause health problems even if the average adult consumes 2 liters of tap water per day for the whole of his or her life, said the vice mayor, adding that in addition, 200 categories are checked each time an inspection is deemed necessary to supply clean and safe tape water. nw

Jin Ik-chul, vice mayor of the Office of Waterworks at the Seoul Metropolitan Government

Bottled Arisu is served at the first Cabinet meeting of the Lee Myung-bak government on March 3.