The owner of an Alberta bottled water company says governments should consider collecting royalty fees from companies that bottle and sell municipal water.

Brad Wallace bottles spring water, sparkling water and water filtered through reverse osmosis for export and consumption in Alberta, in the town of Nanton, south of Calgary.

Companies that use municipal water supplies to make bottled water should pay more for it, he said.

"Maybe they should work together with the municipalities to figure out something to offer back if they are using the municipal water," he said. "Maybe offer a small kickback, or a royalty, or a small tax that the consumer would feel happy with."

Collect fees: Polaris Institute

Coca Cola filters Calgary's municipal water to make its popular brand Dasani. Meanwhile Pepsi trucks in municipal water from Vancouver or Mississauga, Ont., for its brand, Aquafina.

Tony Clarke, who wrote a report on bottled water for the Ottawa-based think-tank the Polaris Institute said such companies are selling municipal water at many times what the company pays for the resource.

"It's not like the oil industry … or the timber industry or mining industry where you have royalty fees that the companies have to pay for the taking of the resources. That doesn't exist with the bottled water industry."

Don't single out water companies: CBWA

Elizabeth Griswold, head of the Canadian Bottled Water Association, said bottlers such as Coca Cola do pay the same for their water as other industries, but they shouldn't be singled out for royalty fees.

"To single out bottled water, you also need to look at other food processors that use water as part of their  product," she said.

Municipal water that is bottled is fundamentally changed when it is filtered because most of the minerals are removed, she said.
 
"When you have a source that is a municipal source and it is processed, the composition of the finished product is nothing like the original source."

Wallace said consumers may be missing out if they only drink water that has had the minerals removed. Water that has been filtered for bottling has fewer minerals, and what impact that will have on people's health is unknown, he said.

Last year, more than 1.9 billion litres of water were bottled across Canada.