It’s hot, at least temporarily, here in Vermont and that probably has you yearning more than the usual amount for water. Perhaps even stopping into your local store and grabbing a bottle to go.

Time was when it never would have occurred to us to pay money for water, but you have to concede that water is healthier than soda. It does make you wonder, though, about all those bottles that we didn’t used to generate but now proliferate.

In Oregon, that kind of wondering is translating to an expansion of the bottle bill. The Oregon House endorsed a bill Thursday that the state Senate approved last month and the governor is expected to sign.

Under the bill, consumers would have to plunk down a 5-cent deposit on every bottle of water they buy, beginning in January 2009.

Vermont was an early champion of the bottle bill, which began here in 1973, but efforts to expand it to juices and teas have not gone far. Will it stay that way?

- Terri Hallenbeck