Our government in action:

FEMA dumps 400,000 liters of donated water

THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS

DALLAS — A million cans of drinking water donated for hurricane relief ended up at a scrap-metal business in Balch Springs, Texas, where the water was dumped into a sewer.

The water — 400,000 liters of it, enough to supply a typical Dallas household for more than a year — hadn’t been dispensed when evacuees from hurricanes Rita and Katrina left shelters in Texas and Louisiana. So the 18 truckloads were sent last month to Lake June Scrap Metals, where the cans were put through a machine and drained. The water was dumped and the flattened cans sent for recycling.

“We didn’t need it anymore,” said Don Jacks, a spokesman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, who said the water came from various donors, including the Coca-Cola Co.

The cans were 12-ounce unpainted aluminum and labeled “Filtered Drinking Water.” Joe Perkins Jr., foreman of the Balch Springs scrap-metal processor, said all the cans he saw were stamped with an expiration date. At least some of the cans had expired.

Coca-Cola donated about 40 million beverages during the relief effort, a company spokesman said, and more than 90 percent of the donated drinks were packaged water. Some of the containers did have an expiration date, but the spokesman, Ray Crockett, said he didn’t know why.

“We’re looking at it,” he said.

Though water doesn’t spoil, Crockett said, it may eventually acquire a peculiar taste from its container, though it’s still “very drinkable.” He said Coca-Cola’s Dasani water, for example, has an expiration date of a year after bottling.