San Francisco Launches Pioneering GlobalTap 'Refilling Stations' That Are Strangely Similar to, um, Water Fountains

Just to be clear, I'm totally in support of San Francisco's efforts to end the use of bottled water. And have heartily applauded the city's decision to cancel its bottled water contracts and the efforts of many local restaurants to promote tap.

But, this press release is just too funny to not mention. Here's a snippet:

San Francisco Department of the Environment (SFE) and San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) officials today announced new tap water partnerships as part of the City's efforts to promote "on the go" access to San Francisco's great tasting Hetch Hetchy tap water while reducing waste from use of plastic bottled water. In 2007, Mayor Gavin Newsom barred the use of City tax dollars for the purchase of bottled water. The demand for bottled water puts a strain on our environment and resources and bottled water can cost as much as 1,000 times more than tap water.

In Yerba Buena Gardens, SFE Director Jared Blumenfeld and others unveiled the pilot water refilling station from GlobalTap, an international provider of new and innovative clean drinking water refilling stations. Following the pilot installation, SFPUC and SFE officials hope to install additional stations throughout San Francisco in 2010.

"San Francisco has been a leader in educating people about the negative impacts of bottled water," said Blumenfeld. "Today we are honored to be the first U.S. city to host a GlobalTap filling station. Now San Franciscans can 'BYOB' ('Bring Your Own Bottle') every day."

Wow, 'refilling stations.' It sounds so space agey, and yet also strangely reminiscent of time when we used to have just that, only we called them something else. What was it ... water fountains?

But, wait, it gets better: