Two New Westminster Secondary School students are entering murky political waters with their bid to get bottled water sales banned at their school.

Marie-Claire Massicotte and Hannah Crisp sent a letter and a petition with 105 signatures from students and staff to superintendent John Woudzia in November. The letter outlined their concerns about the environmental and ethical impact of single-use bottled water and urged the district to ban its sale at their school. What the girls didn't know when they began the campaign is that the issue of whether to ban bottled water at the high school has been a political hot potato, with union-endorsed trustees at odds with Voice New Westminster trustees over whether to stop selling bottled water at the high school. The labour-supported board of education chair, Michael Ewen, has now decided to include the students' letter in the upcoming board of education meeting's agenda on Tuesday.

Ewen decided the letter should go to the board level because it was sent to the superintendent.

"They've gone beyond the school, they obviously want to have a district response. In this particular matter, the board's been looking at it, so John (Woudzia) can't respond," he said. "These are high school students trying to make a difference in society. I would think that what we want to do is we want to encourage them to come forward and talk to us at the board table."

Trustee Lori Watt, who introduced a motion to consider banning the sales of bottled water, said she was "thrilled" when she saw the letter.

"I wasn't expecting it, which is great. I always think it's great when people are politically active at a community level," Watt said. "We are there to represent people, and those people include the students of New Westminster, and, quite frankly, they should be the most important focus of the board."

Trustee Jim Goring applauded the students for taking initiative but didn't think the letter needed to be included in the board's agenda.

"I tend to think of things like this as school-based issues," he said. "I don't know why it's coming to the board. ... It's like anything else, if you always jump to the senior level of decision making, how do you develop decision-making at a local level? If a school wants to make a decision about what they have in and available, and that's supported by the students and the parents and the administration, whoa, I think why would a board overrule that?"

Goring didn't think the issue should be dealt with from the top down, he said.

"It's a letter to the superintendent," Goring said. "It's not a letter to the board."

Goring said reducing the use of bottled water is supportable, but it has to come with the support of the entire school community.

The board's debate on whether to ban bottled water started last January, when trustees voted on several motions to gradually discontinue offering bottled water as a part of a phased out approach, which included surveying water quality in the fountains and education explaining the carbon footprint and health issues associated with single-use water bottles.

The bottled water brouhaha really took off when trustee Watt got a "Tappie" on behalf of the school district in March. The Tappie was given out by the Council of Canadians at the Canadian Union of Public Employees-sponsored World Waters Day event in Vancouver. The union opposes the privatization of municipal water plants, where CUPE members are employed.

At the time, Voice trustee Casey Cook took issue with Watt accepting the Tappie on behalf of the board because the board hadn't banned bottled water and he was never told about the award. The board was still considering whether to continue selling bottled water in schools, he said at the time.

In March, the board directed staff to forward the original motion to school parent advisory councils and to the regional medical health officer, for review. Most parents wanted the sale of bottled water to continue until a new high school was built, and the health officer encouraged the district to stop selling pop and to ensure that clean drinking water was available at the fountains before banning the sale of water.

By September, the board had opted to just ban bottled water at the board level and to reconsider the other bottled water motions in February.

For Hannah and Marie-Claire, the issue is not a political one. The pair are concerned about the sale of water, which they deem as unnecessary given that it's already freely available without the damaging packaging.

"We find that it's a very controversial topic, especially because our school is making a profit but, on the other hand, it's affecting the environment in a bad way, so it's sending the wrong message," Marie-Claire told The Record.

"Companies say it's better water, like from the Alps, but it's actually less regulated than tap water," Hannah said about the bottled water industry.

The girls are members of the high school's environment club, a group of green-minded students who meet regularly on their own time to discuss environmental issues. Instead of single-use plastic bottles, they want the school to sell reusable water bottles. The bottles could be designed with the Hyack colours - orange and black - to promote school spirit, they say.

Marie-Claire and Hannah said there was strong support for a ban from those they spoke to at the school. When the district put the issue out to parent advisory councils to discuss last year, a number of parents were concerned about the safety of their children drinking water out of the school's aging pipes and wanted bottled water to remain available.

Carrying water from home in a reusable water bottle is the best solution, Hannah said.

"So people who are concerned about health and say 'I don't trust the taps at school' can fill up at home," she said. "Education is a big part."

FACTS ABOUT BOTTLED WATER VENDING IN SCHOOLS:

- New Westminster Secondary School receives approximately $22,000 annually from its beverage vending agreement. This money is used by the athletics program (not physical education) for such items as: new uniforms, tournament registrations, provincial championship costs and some equipment replacement.

- Glenbrook Middle School receives approximately $4,200 annually from its beverage vending agreement.

The money is used for school-wide activities, including extra-curricular programs and technology purchases.

- Queen Elizabeth Middle School does not have any vending machines.

- Water is not tested on a routine basis, and there is no regulatory requirement to do so, as all the schools are on the municipal water system. Testing is done if a specific problem is identified. (It's worth noting that the water mains operated by Metro Vancouver to deliver water from the reservoir are older than the pipes in New Westminster schools.)

- Most of the water fountains at New Westminster Secondary School have filters installed and school staff are proceeding with installing filters in the other schools.

source: New Westminster School District