Regardless of how you may feel about buying drinking water that has been taken from an everyday source and put into a plastic bottle, the fact is that bottled water is big business in Costa Rica. When the ongoing arsenic contamination brouhaha in Guanacaste reached a boiling point back in August, a group on unscrupulous businessmen began selling bottled water that was found to have the same arsenic levels as tap water -because that was precisely what it was.

Guanacaste has traditionally been forced to deal with water shortages. This is Costa Rica’s driest and warmest region, which makes a prime market for bottled water sales. Add to this situation the numerous reports published by the Costa Rica Star on the issue of arsenic contamination, and you have a proven formula for selling plenty of bottled water. In August of 2013, news daily La Prensa Libre reported that the Citizen’s Advocate and Consumer Protection Office discovered that people in Guanacaste were being sold bottled tap water when testing of all water sources revealed the same high levels of arsenic, which may have been of volcanic origin.

The water bottling scoundrels of Guanacaste are hardly alone in their desire to tap into a booming market in Costa Rica. According to Radio 16, an AM station broadcasting out of Grecia in the province of Alajuela, two expat investors are betting on bottled water to hold them over while they wait for their coffee business to take off. Aqua Nici is the name of this new bottled water brand, which will join a crowded market in Costa Rica. The businessmen, Andres Pardi and Robert Diaz, are currently growing coffee in Rio Cuarto de Grecia and would like to offer coffee tours in the future, but in the meantime they will put residents to work with their bottled water plans, which they intend to export and market as water from Costa Rica.

Market statistics seem to favor these investors. Last year, business weekly El Financiero reported on the healthy growth of the bottled water market in Costa Rica, which had been initially slow to catch on but now has 32 brands. Whereas in Honduras and Guatemala bottled water is seen as somewhat of a necessity due to several reports of contamination and extended shortage periods, the quality and abundance of water in Costa Rica made it a tough market to break in. Four years later, however, this segment is roaring thanks to efforts by industry giants such as Wal-Mart and Coca Cola.

Without a doubt, Guanacaste is one of the best markets for bottled water in Costa Rica; it has the right combination of elements to make it stand out: Hot and dry weather conditions, water shortages and arsenic contamination. Incidentally, a study conducted by the University of Costa Rica in October of 2013 determined that tap water was not different than bottled water in terms of arsenic content levels. In fact, the pricey San Pellegrino brand of bottled water was found to contain 7 micrograms of arsenic per liter while the rest of the brands tested (Alpina, Del Bosque and Rainforest) were found to contain 3 micrograms -the exact amount found in tap water across the Central Valley.