When they approach the dais from now on, City Councilmembers better check their bottled water at the door, lest Councilman Peter Arellano come down on them.

The council voted 5-2 to approve Arellano motion that bans councilmembers from drinking bottled water while in session. Councilmen Perry Woodward and Craig Gartman voted no.

The limited ban will not affect other City Hall employees or any residents who attend City Council meetings, only the councilmembers.

"I'm not talking about taking it away from the community, but setting a precedent and showing the city that its City Council is helping the environment and helping reduce our dependency on foreign oil," Arellano said.

Arellano told the council that he got the idea after Mayor Al Pinheiro joined a national group of mayors in October who have pledged to limit climate change locally. Then there is the enormous amounts of energy and oil that go into producing bottled water for a seemingly insatiable American public, Arellano added.

But Woodward was not buying it and said Wednesday that he voted no because he thought it was a weak symbolic gesture.

"So now we'll drink soda instead of bottled water? Is that better for the environment than bottled water?" Woodward asked rhetorically. "The motion just did not capture me."

It is impossible to estimate how much money the city has spent on bottled water for councilmembers throughout the past few years because they usually provide their own, and the city does not have a "bottled water" account to finance the minimal purchase, according to Co-Finance Director Christina Turner.

But state and national figures abound.

Americans lead the world in bottled water consumption and spent $15 billion on the product last year. This enormous spending is driven by a chorus of romantic ads portraying the likes of cool Fiji springs and quixotic Alpine aquifers, according to Santa Clara Valley Water District officials.

But these folks say that "contrary to the propaganda, tap water is, in fact, subjected to more rigorous testing and purity standards than bottled water," according to a district press release. It cites a four-year study by the Natural Resources Defense Council that found a third of the bottled water tested to contain contaminants.

Not only are the district's standards much stricter, but their water does not require transportation via diesel trucks, and there is no plastic bottle to throw away afterward. Arellano said all of this resonated with him, but Woodward said Coke cans have to travel by the same trucks and end up in the same landfills, but he can still drink them on the dais.

The water district oversees the county's five watersheds, including 10 reservoirs and more than 800 miles of streams and groundwater basins.