Taylor Made Water Systems

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Despite a drought that has left California short on water for years and in a time when farmers are protesting for additional water rights, Nestle made plans to open a 50 million gallon per year plant in Sacramento, buying water from Sacramento and trucking some from nearby springs.  They actually announced the plant as using 150 acre-feet per year, which makes it sound like a small amount.  Since most of us don’t know what an acre-foot is, 150 doesn’t sound like much.  But, an acre-foot is the volume of water required to cover one acre of land to a depth of one foot, or 325,851 gallons.  So, 150 acre feet is 48,877,650 gallons, which we can all see is a massive amount of water.  Which is why they  use acre-feet. 

Regardless, that’s 50 million gallons that won’t be going to residential use, farms, or industry.  It’ll be filtered, put in plastic and sold back to Sacramento residents at a huge markup (alternatively, you could buy a reverse osmosis unit, if I haven’t mentioned that before).  Nestle does this while I let my lawn go brown because of the “State of Emergency due to drought” declared by the State of California.  Now, Nestle will tell you that 50 million gallons is very little water.  Well, maybe to them, and I’ll recognize that 50 million gallons wouldn’t go very far in agriculture (my guess is it would cover about 150 acres of land with a foot of water, though) but 50 million gallons is a lot of water to me and I think when we’re in a State of Emergency regarding water, we should preserve as much as we can.  The 12 to 40 new jobs in Sacramento is nice, but a high price to pay for 50 million gallons of water.

This new plant is a pretty interesting development given the uproar in many local communities, including McCloud just north of Sacramento, over Nestle’s expanding bottling empire.  The Swiss food giant has faced strong opposition from local communities who have come together to stop Nestle from bottling their local water.  A website has been created, www.StopNestleWaters.org, which describes itself as a gathering point for communities trying to preserve control of their water from Nestle.  Somehow, Nestle launched this Sacramento plant without a massive opposition, which must be a nice change for them.  We’ll see if it lasts.

 

Nestlé Waters to set up plant in Sacramento warehouse

 

http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2009/07/20/daily78.html

Nestlé Waters North America Inc. will pump $14 million into the local economy to convert a warehouse in the Florin Fruitridge Industrial Park into a two-line water bottling plant.

The company announced Friday that it will create by early next year a bottling plant that will employ about 40 people. The plant will be created from 214,434 square feet of existing warehouse space on Younger Creek Drive in Sacramento.

The new bottling plant initially will bottle up to 150 acre-feet of water annually, purchased from the city of Sacramento and from nearby private springs. The plant will bottle water under the company’s Nestlé Pure Life brand and Arrowhead Mountain Spring Water brands for distribution to its customers primarily in Northern California, a news release said.

Nestlé Waters North America currently has no presence in the Sacramento area. Its nearest plants are in Calistoga near Napa and in Livermore.

The company will employ about 16 people to install equipment and retrofit the building. When the bottling plant is fully operational, it will employ about 40 workers. The jobs will pay competitive wages and offer benefits, including medical, dental and vision insurance, life insurance, 401(k) and profit sharing.

“Nestlé Waters looks forward to building strong partnerships in the Sacramento community as both an employer and neighbor,” Chris Kemp, Nestlé Waters Sacramento plant manager, said in the release. “It is our commitment to invest not just our resources, but also our time and energy into the communities where we operate and we hope to learn more about how to be a part of Sacramento in the coming months.”

The Sacramento Area Commerce and Trade Organization and city and county of Sacramento representatives helped attract the company to the area.

“Nestlé Waters’ decision to open and operate a bottling facility in Sacramento is a testament to our city’s strengths as a good place to do business and create jobs,” Jeanne Reaves, SACTO board chairwoman, said in a news release.

“This is exactly the type of light, clean industry SACTO works to attract to this region and we look forward to continuing to work together with them as the company becomes a part of our community and our economic base,” she said.

“It adds another international company to the constellation of firms calling Sacramento home,” Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson said in a release. “During these tough economic times, this company will not only bring jobs to the city, but it is also nice to have a reaffirmation that many firms still see Sacramento as such a desirable location.”

Oates Investments Inc. owns the warehouse that Nestlé Waters will occupy.

The bottler signed a 10-year lease with options to extend, Kemp said. Nestlé Waters still needs a building permit from the city.

“We chose the city of Sacramento primarily because of its proximity to our customers in Northern California, affordability and business-friendly environment,” Kemp said.

Industrial broker Ryan DeAngelis with CB Richard Ellis represented Nestlé Waters in the deal. Cable & Kilpatrick Inc. represented the landlord.

Nestlé Waters searched everywhere between Auburn, Vacaville and Tracy, DeAngelis said in an interview. It was a “pretty quick” deal, lasting only three and a half months, he said.

“It was a nice deal to have given all the negative news in the market,” DeAngelis said.

“It’s been a pleasure working with Nestlé’s representatives who were very professional and impressed us by their commitment to being part of the Sacramento community,” Scott Cable and Andrew Kilpatrick wrote in an e-mail. “Nestle stresses quality in everything they do and we are proud to be a part of their Sacramento operation.”

Also helping bring Nestlé Waters to Sacramento were Jim Rinehart, Tom Zeidner and Dave Brandt from the city of Sacramento.

Nestlé Waters, a 33-year-old company based in Greenwich, Conn., distributes 15 of the nation’s best-known bottled water brands, the company says on its Web site. Its brands include Perrier, Calistoga, Poland Spring, San Pellegrino and Ice Mountain.

The company employs more than 8,400 nationwide, including nearly 2,000 people in California.

Nestlé Waters will conduct a wage survey in two to three weeks to determine what comparable jobs pay. The company will pay in the top half of wages for those jobs, Kemp said in an interview.

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This is a follow up to a previous blog regarding the connection between arsenic in drinking water and the H1N1 flu virus.  This article presents a more detailed look at the link between even low levels of arsenic in drinking water and its impact on the body’s ability to fight off H1N1.  This may indeed explain the disparate reactions to the H1N1 virus in the US as compared to Mexico and other countries where drinking water contains higher levels of arsenic. 

 

http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/newscience/low-dose-arsenic-alters-mouse-response-to-flu

 

Arsenic makes mice more susceptible to H1N1 flu virus.

Jul 17, 2009

Kozul, CD, KH Ely, RI Enelow and JW Hamilton. 2009. Low dose arsenic compromises the immune response to influenza A infection in vivo. Environmental Health Perspectives doi:10.1289/ehp.0900911.

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Synopsis by Kathleen M. McCarty, Sc.D. and Wendy Hessler

World Bank

People around the world drink well water that is tainted with arsenic.

Low dose exposure to arsenic compromises the immune response to infection in mice, increasing their vulnerability to the flu virus. By itself, the metal altered the number and function of certain immune cells. The changes predisposed the rodents to more severe reactions when exposed to the Influenza A virus.

This is the first study to link arsenic exposure to a reduced immune response. The results suggest those people most exposed to arsenic through their drinking water may be more susceptible to illness and possibly death when infected with the H1N1 swine flu virus.

Context

Arsenic is a natural metal found globally. It occurs in higher levels and is more widespread in some areas of the world – such as Bangladesh, other Southeast Asian countries and Mexico – than other areas – such as the US – due to regional geology.

People are exposed to arsenic mainly through drinking water from underground wells (Kumar et al. 2009). It leaches naturally into the water from deposits in the bedrock or from areas disturbed by human activity – for example, mining or drilling.

When arsenic is in its inorganic form, it is a human carcinogen and has been linked to liver, bladder, kidney and lung cancers (Marshal et al. 2007). Arsenic is also associated with increased risk of type II diabetes, heart and circulation problems, lung disfunctions and compromised immune system function. It is unique because it can affect lung health after eating rather than breathing. The organic form of arsenic, present in some seafood, is not associated with these health outcomes and is not a threat to human health.

The risk to human health  depends on many factors, including dose and length of exposure. Public water supplies are monitored for the metal. The drinking water standard in the US and by the World Health Organization (WHO) is 10 parts per billion (ppb) of arsenic.

Yet, millions of people worldwide are exposed to much higher levels on a regular basis. And, cell and animal studies show some effects below that standard (Kozul et al. 2009).

H1N1 flu virus is a human flu that was first observed in April 2009. Government health organizations consider the strain highly virulant and one that could cause a worldwide flu epidemic (H1N1 also called the swine flu).

It is estimated that a half million people worldwide die each year because of influenza. Lung and other respiratory infections sometime accompany the flu and increase the risk of death. Recent research has hinted that environmental contaminants, such as dioxin and cigarette smoke, could affect the immune response in people and make them more susceptible to infections and illnesses (Burleson et
al. 1996; Gualano et al. 2008; Warren et al. 2000)

The immune system is a complex network of organs and cells that are designed to attack and destroy foreign invaders, such as bacteria and viruses. Dendrite cells are important players in that process because they help start the immune response by activating the T cells that latch onto and try to destroy the pathogens.

What did they do?

Mice were separated into four groups – arsenic exposed, flu exposed, arsenic plus flu exposed, no exposure (controls) – to determine if arsenic alters the immune response to lung infection in mice.

The researchers exposed some of the rodents to a chronic, low dose of arsenic (100 ppb) in drinking water for five weeks.  The mice were then injected with the H1N1 virus, and their responses were compared with the other three groups for their ability to deal with the infection.

The mice were weighed daily and were considered very ill if they lost more than 20 percent of their body weight. A number of immune system functions were measured in the animals, including the number of infected lung cells and the levels of cytokines, chemokines, albumin and dendritic cells.

What did they find?

Arsenic exposure by itself and in combinations with the flu virus was associated with a number of significant changes in the rodents’ immune system and in their response to influenza.

The mice exposed to both arsenic and the virus had a much greater risk of severe disease than mice exposed only to arsenic or only to the H1N1 virus. The co-exposed animals lost a great deal of weight (more than 20 percent) and were so sick they were euthanized.

The co-exposed mice, when compared to mice exposed to only the flu virus, had a 10-fold increase in lung influenza virus antibodies that occurred about the same time they got severely ill, about day 7 after being infected. The lungs started to fill with water and hemorrhaged. They also had fewer dendritic cells in the lymph nodes at the beginning of the flu infection.

The mice exposed only to the flu virus lost some weight but recovered and were well again after 16 days.

Alone, arsenic affected neither weight nor growth in the mice, but it did affect the immune response relative to the control animals. The exposure changed some important immune cell functions, reducing dendridic cell movement into the lungs and decreasing both macrophage and neutrophil numbers and percents of cells. These changes predisposed the mice to the severe immune failure following H1N1 infection.

"Thus, the increased morbidity was due to the combination of arsenic in drinking water and influenza infection at an infectious dose at which mice not exposed to arsenic recover," explain the authors.

What does it mean?

Low-dose arsenic exposure had a dramatic effect on immune system responses which results in a more acute sickness to the H1N1 flu virus.

This is the first time arsenic exposure is shown to affect the immune system and the dendritic cells that lead the immune system response against infections. While this study was conducted in mice, it suggests a potential role for arsenic to modify exposure to H1N1 flu virus and immune response in humans.

Human population studies have reported that arsenic exposure through drinking water increases the risk of several respiratory diseases, including lung cancer, lung function and bronchiectasis. This mouse study provides a description of how arsenic may influence the severity of these diseases and raises new study questions. Furthermore, the results of this study support that health effects can be observed with low dose inorganic arsenic exposure.

These findings have global implications. Inorganic arsenic exposure through drinking water is a serious concern in Bangladesh, India, Argentina, Mexico, Vietnam, Chile and other regions. Worldwide there are millions of individuals with drinking water concentrations between 50 and 1,500 ppb.

These same regions, often in southeast Asia, Mexico and parts of South America, are also regions with high rates of viral outbreaks of various flu strains. This study used the H1N1 flu virus, which is the same virus responsible for the recent pandemic.

Public water supplies are tested for arsenic concentration, and there are standards in place. While the US drinking water standard is 10 ppb, this standard does not cover private wells. Wells in New Hampshire, Nevada and other regions of the US are reported to have concentrations similar to those used in this study.

Between 5-20 percent of the world’s population will contract influenza infection annually. Infection with the flu virus results in more than 3-5 million hospitalizations and between 250,000 and 500,000 deaths worldwide.  In the US, there are 200,000 cases of hospitalization due to influenza infection and an estimated 35,000 deaths (not H1N1-related).

The authors conclude that identifying risk factors, including environmental exposures such as arsenic, could have an immediate impact on protecting public health.

 

For those who think we have no tap water problems in the US, here’s a community that has just been told to boil their water for the next 18 months!  Yes, for the next year and a half, they need to boil all of their drinking water.  Not just when they go camping in the woods and are using a local lake, but every time they want to drink their tap water, or brush their teeth with it, they need to boil it first.  Great news for the electric and gas companies, but bad news for the citizens of Sugar Grove, Virginia. 

Their underground spring is somehow polluted with coliform bacteria, which is used to measure fecal bacteria.  Yes, that is gross, but not uncommon.  And yes, that does mean that “Spring” water needs to be filtered, treated, purified, just like all other water.  There is nothing magical about a Spring that makes it impervious to contamination (just in case you’re one who “only drinks Spring water” for some reason). 

Oh, and the problem was discovered 11 months before the community was notified.  They weren’t required to notify users until they had official confirmation.  I’m not sure what official confirmation means, but apparently it takes 11 months to become “official.”  I am sure there are many forms to fill out and committee meetings required.

To be fair, they did do extensive testing and issuing a boil water alert is not something to be taken lightly.  But, then again, neither is coliform and 11 months of unexplained bouts of diarrhea is not to be taken lightly either. 

Just one more reason to invest in a home purification system to protect yourself.  Self serving, but true. 

 

http://www.tricities.com/tri/news/local/article/citizens_fear_they_were_exposed_to_contaminated_drinking_water_for_months/28740/

 

Citizens Fear They Were Exposed to Contaminated Drinking Water for Months

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By cgalofaro
Police Beat Reporter – Bristol Herald Courier
Published: July 13, 2009

SUGAR GROVE, Va. – Michael Ward stood up at a community meeting to declare he had diarrhea eight times last year – a peculiar public announcement, but one met with gratitude by dozens of his neighbors, who had squeezed into a muggy gymnasium for the June gathering.

Ward was expressing their commonly held fear – that their drinking water had been making them sick for months.

The Rye Valley Water Authority on June 11 sent a letter to some 550 households notifying customers of the presence of a bacteria called coliform in their water. Found naturally in the intestines of warm-blooded animals, coliform is used as a standard measure of fecal-matter pollutants in drinking water. Its presence in the Rye Valley system indicates that surface water might have infiltrated the water source, which is an underground spring, and quite possibly brought along other parasites such as giardia lamblia and cryptosporidium. Those parasites can cause diarrhea, headaches, even death in the most severe cases.

The water system’s notice said residents must boil all of the water they consume, even to brush their teeth – for the next 18 months. And the notice began with this sentence: “In July 2008 Rye Valley Water Authority began noticing changes in our untreated or raw water testing results.”

The 11 month lag before water customers were told raised many concerns.

But Robert Parker, Southwest Virginia spokesman for the Virginia Department of Health, said there are no interim measures requiring the health department to notify the public of a potential danger before it officially confirms that the water supply was compromised.

Testing the water

The water authority collected its first bad sample on June 2, 2008, according to a report from the monitoring body, the Virginia Department of Health’s Office of Drinking Water in Abingdon. Because of that sample, the health department required weekly testing. 

The health department uses a review sheet, a sort of flow chart, to determine whether the bad samples resulted from surface water infiltrating the underground water source. Water experts call that situation “groundwater under the direct influence of surface water,” or GUDI.

If that is determined to be the case, the water authority must issue a boil notice and install a proper filtration system within 18 months.

The flow chart’s first step asks if there’s been a disease outbreak, chemical spill or a known leak, such as a sinkhole.

None of those options applied in the Rye Valley system, so they moved on to Step 2, which requires a minimum of 20 weekly tests.

Then, Step 2b asks if 10 percent of those required samples have a coliform count of more than 100 colonies per 100 milliliters.

“If the answer to Step 2b is YES – STOP – the source is GUDI,” the flow-chart memo states. 

Rye Valley collected its 20th sample on Oct. 7, 2008. Three of those 20 samples, or 15 percent, contained more than 100 colonies.

But the testing didn’t stop.

“Issuing a boil water notice is difficult on people and it’s not something you do without sound justification,” said Richard Puckett, a field director for the drinking water office who is responsible for monitoring Rye Valley’s system.

Puckett also said the health department decided to do more testing because the system had no history of bacterial problems, and there had been no reported illnesses.

But residents said diarrhea is not something one typically calls the health department to report, and they had chalked bouts of intestinal troubles up to bad luck or bad diet.

Definitive evidence

The health department flow-chart memo sets those first 20 samples as a minimum, allowing local field directors to choose the number, frequency and duration of testing. Puckett said his office decided to use six-month increments for Rye Valley.

And at the end of that first six months, on Nov. 24, bad samples for Rye Valley’s water were at exactly 10 percent with almost half collected in October, which is traditionally the driest month of the year in the region.

Puckett said the numbers dropped during the fall because bacteria levels are high in rainy months and low in drier ones. So they went on to do a second six-month testing period.

In January, the bacteria numbers shot back up, to 396 colonies per 100 milliliters, right on cue with an increase in precipitation, according to records of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Over the next four months, there were three additional high tests, finally reaching 770 colonies total coliform on May 7.

That’s when the drinking water office determined that the boil water notice should be issued.

Before that, as testing was ongoing, Puckett said, the water authority and the health department tried to exhaust every other possible cause, including repairing old spring boxes.

“All of those questions that arose during the meeting made me a little suspicious,” said state Delegate Bill Carrico, R-Independence, who hosted the meeting
in June, when Ward revealed his problems with diarrhea.

“It raised some red flags when I started hearing from the people, especially those saying they’d been sick,” Carrico said. “I don’t understand if this has been a problem for some time or if it just started. I’ve always been very proactive to be open with the public. … I don’t know what happened in this situation and who dropped the ball.”

Adding filtration

Now, the Rye Valley Water Authority has 18 months to install a million-dollar filtration system, and its managers don’t know how they’re going to pay for it.

Carrico said he has been working on long- and short-term fixes, such as asking county officials to make an emergency declaration for discretionary funds to buy water for the community.

He also is waiting for the water authority, specifically the system operator, to determine what grants and loans might be available.

“I told them to give me some indication of how they want to move forward after they come up with some idea,” Carrico said. “I told them I would write letters, make calls. I haven’t heard from them.”

Meanwhile, a month after the notice and two weeks after the meeting, residents have seen no relief.

“This makes you think about everything you’ve never had to think about,” said Ward, a father of two small children. “My wife is from Belarus, and you cannot drink that water. We know what this can do and you wouldn’t think it could happen in the U.S.”

 

Congress is looking at new labeling requirements for bottled water.  As many know, tap water is subject to much more testing under the EPA than bottled water is under the FDA.  A congressional subcommittee is hearing testimony to determine what, if any, changes should be made to bottled water regulations in regards to testing and labeling of their product.  Proponents suggest that bottled water companies should be required to provide the same information that municipal water agencies are required to supply.  As the following article points out, since bottled water companies charge 1,000 times  more for their water, they should be able to provide the same information as the municipalities. 

Oh, and the research released to congress suggests consumers purify their tap water as the best solution.  We agree – click here to act now!!!!

 

 

Jul 8, 7:41 PM EDT

Stricter labeling urged for bottled water

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_BOTTLED_WATER_VS_TAP?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

By EMILY FREDRIX
AP Food Industry Writer

AP Photo/Bill Hughes

 

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Consumers know less about the water they pay dearly for in bottles than what they can drink almost for free from the tap because the two are regulated differently, congressional investigators and nonprofit researchers say in new reports.

Both the Government Accountability Office and the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization, recommend in reports released Wednesday that bottled water be labeled with the same level of information municipal water providers must disclose.

The researchers urged Americans to make bottled water "a distant second choice" to filtered tap water because there isn’t enough information about bottled water. The working group recommends purifying tap water with a commercial filter, however.

Both reports were released at a congressional subcommittee Wednesday morning.

Bottled water – an industry worth about $16 billion in sales last year – has been suffering lately as colleges, communities and some governments take measures to limit or ban its consumption. As employers, they are motivated by cost savings and environmental concern because the bottles often are not recycled.

Bottled water sales were growing by double-digit percentages for years and were helping buoy the U.S. beverage industry overall. But they were flat last year, according to trade publication Beverage Digest.

Beverage Digest editor John Sicher said some consumers are turning on the tap during the recession simply because it’s cheaper.

From 1997 to 2007, the amount of bottled water consumed per person in the U.S. more than doubled, from 13.4 gallons to 29.3 gallons, the GAO report said.

The issue before a subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee was less about waste and water quality concerns and more about the mechanics of regulating bottled water.

As a food product, bottled water is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration and required to show nutrition information and ingredients on its labels. Municipal water is under the control of the Environmental Protection Agency.

The two agencies have similar standards for water quality, but the FDA has less authority to enforce them, the GAO said, and the environmental agency requires much more testing.

Subcommittee chairman Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., said the subcommittee was requesting information Wednesday from a dozen bottled water companies on their water sources, treatment methods and two years’ results of contaminant testing. It was not immediately clear which companies were being contacted.

"Consumers may not realize that many regulations that apply to municipalities responsible for tap water do not apply to companies that produce bottled water," he said in statements opening the hearing.

The GAO noted the FDA has yet to set standards for DEHP, one of several chemicals known as phthalates that are found in many household products, while the EPA limits the presence of phthalates in tap water.

In a survey of officials in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, the GAO found they think consumers are misinformed about bottled water.

"Many replied that consumers often believe that bottled water is safer or healthier than tap water," according to the GAO report.

The Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Working Group said in its report that consumers do not get enough information to determine which water is best for them.

Both groups said some bottled water brands include the same information required of tap water providers on either labels or company Web sites.

The GAO called for more research but said the FDA should start by requiring that bottled water labels tell consumers where to find out more.

Community water systems must distribute annual reports about their water’s source, contaminants and possible health concerns.

Consumers should know where all their water comes from, how it is treated and what is found in it, said Richard Wiles, senior vice president for policy and communications for the Environmental Working Group.

"If the municipal tap water systems can tell their customers this information, you would think that bottled water companies that charge 1,000 times more for this water could also let consumers know the same thing," he told The Associated Press.

The bottled water industry’s trade group, the International Bottled Water Association, planned to testify Wednesday that the product, – subject to the same regulation as other soft drinks, teas, juices and other beverages – is safe. Additional standards apply for bottled water products labeled as "purified water" or "spring water," among other labels, because they must prove a connection to those sources, according to planned testimony from Joseph Doss, president and chief executive of the International Bottled Water Association.

Doss said consumers can learn about bottled water by contacting the company, reading its Web site and visiting sites run by state governments.

State safeguards for bottled water often exceed the federal, though they are less stringent than for tap water, the GAO wrote.

The trade group declined to comment on the reports before they are released.

 

And I thought the bottled water wars in the US were tough, with sites like StopNestleWaters.org and the “Tapped” trailer release attacking the mega-bottlers.  Cities like San Francisco and others (more than 60 US cities according to the article) have banned purchases of bottled water by the city.  But, the town of Bundanoon has actually banned any sale of bottled water in their community.  Yes, it is a pretty small town, but that is still pretty remarkable. 

Apparently, the issue began when a bottled water company tried to use Bundanoon as a source for its bottled water.  After fending off the bottled water company, the town took it a step further to ban the product entirely.  I’ve got to think that many of the American communities now battling against Nestle’s and others’ efforts to bottle their community water will look to follow in the foodsteps of Bundanoon.  More bans to follow.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090709/ap_on_re_au_an/as_australia_bottled_water_ban;_ylt=AiNQC6GwRq7ZobMFeevzC_t1fNdF

 

H2-WHOA! Australian town bans bottled water sales

AP – German backpacker Sandra Hackel sits at Circular Quay in Sydney, Australia, Thursday, July 9, 2009, …

By KRISTEN GELINEAU, Associated Press Writer Kristen Gelineau, Associated Press Writer – Thu Jul 9, 12:01 pm ET

SYDNEY – Residents of a rural Australian town hoping to protect the earth and their wallets have voted to ban the sale of bottled water, the first community in the country — and possibly the world — to take such a drastic step in the growing backlash against the industry.

Residents of Bundanoon cheered after their near-unanimous approval of the measure at a town meeting Wednesday. It was the second blow to Australia’s beverage industry in one day: Hours earlier, the New South Wales state premier banned all state departments and agencies from buying bottled water, calling it a waste of money and natural resources.

"I have never seen 350 Australians in the same room all agreeing to something," said Jon Dee, who helped spearhead the "Bundy on Tap" campaign in Bundanoon, a town of 2,500 about 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of Sydney. "It’s time for people to realize they’re being conned by the bottled water industry."

First popularized in the 1980s as a convenient, healthy alternative to sugary drinks, bottled water today is often criticized as an environmental menace, with bottles cluttering landfills and requiring large amounts of energy to produce and transport.

Over the past few years, at least 60 cities in the United States and a handful of others in Canada and the United Kingdom have agreed to stop spending taxpayer dollars on bottled water, which is often consumed during city meetings, said Deborah Lapidus, organizer of Corporate Accountability International’s "Think Outside the Bottle" campaign in the U.S.

But the Boston-based nonprofit corporate watchdog has never heard of a community banning the sale of bottled water, she said.

"I think what this town is doing is taking it one step further and recognizing that there’s safe drinking water coming out of our taps," she said.

Bundanoon’s battle against the bottle has been brewing for years, ever since a Sydney-based beverage company announced plans to build a water extraction plant in the town. Residents were furious over the prospect of an outsider taking their water, trucking it up to Sydney for processing and then selling it back to them. The town is still fighting the company’s proposal in court.

Then in March, Huw Kingston, who owns the town’s combination cafe and bike shop, had a thought: If the town was so against hosting a water bottling company, why not ban the end product?

To prevent lost profit in the 10-or-so town businesses that sell bottled water, Kingston suggested they instead sell reusable bottles for about the same price. Residents will be able to fill the bottles for free at public water fountains, or pay a small fee to fill them with filtered water kept in the stores.

The measure will not impose penalties on those who don’t comply when it goes into effect in September. Still, all the business owners voluntarily agreed to follow it, recognizing the financial and environmental drawbacks of bottled water, Kingston said.

On Wednesday, 356 people turned up for a vote — the biggest turnout ever at a town meeting.

Only two people voted no. One said he was worried banning bottled water would encourage people to drink sugary drinks. The other was Geoff Parker, director of the Australasian Bottled Water Institute — which represents the bottled water industry.

Australians spent 500 million Australian dollars ($390 million) on bottled water in 2008 — a hefty sum for a country of just under 22 million people.

On Thursday, Parker blasted the ban as unfair, misguided and ineffective.

He said the bottled water industry is a leader in researching ways to minimize bottled beverage impact on the environment. Plus, he said, the ban removes consumer choice.

"To take away someone’s right to choose possibly the healthiest option in a shop fridge or a vending machine we think doesn’t embrace common sense," he said.

But tap water is just as good as the stuff you find encased in plastic, said campaign organizer Dee, who also serves as director of the Australian environment group Do Something!

"We’re hoping it will act as a catalyst to people’s memories to remember the days when we did not have bottled water," he said. "What is ‘Evian’ spelled backwards? ‘Naive.’"

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I know that this is a bottled water Ad, but it is hilarious and worth watching, so hat’s off to Evian.  I’m a sucker for dancing/skating babies. 

 

 

As I have mentioned before, many experts claim that we are headed for “Water Wars,” or conflicts centered around water rights.  As pristine sources of this precious resource becomes more scarce, more conflicts are expected around the world relating to access to water, diversion of source water, etc.  For example, one country may pump so much water out of a river that it no longer is a viable source of drinking water for another country (or countries) down river.  The same can be true of underground aquifers, surface water, or other sources of drinking water.  This leads to conflicts and conflicts often lead to wars. 

For many, however, the wars have already begun.  Here in California, farmers and farm workers recently rallied in a fight over water rights in the Central Valley.  With California in the midst of a serious drought, a major conflict is brewing over water allocations.  This is certainly not a new conflict, with farmer’s seeking more water while others, including environmentalists seeking to protect delta fisheries, are trying to decrease water diverted to farms in the Central Valley.  When resources are scarce, the conflicts heat up.  4,000 protestors showed up for this rally.

Expect to see more of these conflicts here and abroad over the next decade. One protestor’s sign said it best, “If you like Foreign Oil, You’ll love Foreign Food.”  Obviously, this is a major issue with far reaching implications.  Jobs, lives, and an industry are at stake, so conflict is inevitable. 

 

http://www.fresnobee.com/local/story/1510498.html

 

Rally for water rights hits downtown Fresno

Published online on Wednesday, Jul. 01, 2009

By Robert Rodriguez / The Fresno Bee

Ron Schafer and Alice Powlick aren’t farmers or farmworkers. They are middle-school teachers who came to Wednesday’s water rally in downtown Fresno on behalf of their students.

The teachers joined several thousand who jammed the front of City Hall to plead with the state and federal governments to provide the Valley with more irrigation water. Mike Lukens, city of Fresno spokesman, estimated the crowd at between 3,500 to 4,000 at its peak.

More than a dozen speakers, including Congressmen Devin Nunes, R-Visalia, and George Radanovich, R-Mariposa, blamed environmental protections along with a third dry year for the shortage of water for Valley farmers.

Schafer and Powlick say they see the ripple effects of the drought in their southeast Fresno classrooms.

"We hear the students talk about their parents being out work because of the drought," Schafer said. "And it is hard for them."

Powlick, a self-described "bleeding-heart liberal," said she doesn’t agree with federal protections for smelt, a tiny fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a major artery for Valley irrigation water.

The massive water pumps at the southern end of the delta have been slowed and sometimes stopped so the fish wouldn’t be sucked in and killed.

"I believe in the Endangered Species Act," Powlick said, "but when it comes to having food and keeping our kids in school, that easily wins over a fish."

After the noon rally, the diverse crowd of demonstrators marched for several blocks around downtown. Many carried signs that said: "If you like foreign oil, you’ll like foreign food" and "Farm + Water = Jobs."

"We are marching because we need people to understand that without water, we don’t have jobs," said farmworker Rosa Hernandez, of Firebaugh, who said she worked four days last month.

Other workers — including Rigoberto Ybarra, an irrigator from the Five Points area — are working fewer days a week. He said he was lucky his boss paid him to attend Wednesday’s rally.

"Right now, we are all using money we have saved so we can pay our bills," Ybarra said. "Nobody has money to save this year."

The rally is the latest in a series of demonstrations that included a four-day march in April that began in Mendota and ended at the base of the San Luis Reservoir.

This year, farmers in the Westlands Water District, one of the largest farming regions in the state, received 10% of their federal water allocation. Many farmers said they were forced to fallow thousands of acres and lay off hundreds of workers.

Tim Riley, operations manager for Midland Tractor in Madera, sees the fallout of the drought at his store. Sales are down because farmers don’t have the income to buy new equipment.

"I don’t think people understand that this isn’t just a problem for farmers. This affects a lot of different people," Riley said.

Among those in the audience was west side farmer Mark Borba, who said it is important to keep pressure on federal and state officials to make changes that balance the needs of all California water users.

"Some of these things are in place and can be done, but what is lacking is the political will," Borba said.

Among the short-term solutions Borba supports is a proposal to submerge massive barriers in the channels of the delta to protect threatened fish, such as smelt.

A.G. Kawamura, secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture and a speaker at the rally, empathized with Valley farmworkers, saying the region has become the home of the frustrated and angry.

Rally organizers, including members of the California Latino Water Coalition, vow to take their battle for water to the streets of Los Angeles and the Bay Area.

Actor and comedian Paul Rodriguez, who chairs the coalition, said he will continue to fight on the region’s behalf until they get the water they need.

"Unity is our strength," Rodriguez said. "And that’s why I know we are going to win this."

ERIC PAUL ZAMORA / THE FRESNO BEE

People chant slogans as hundreds begin a march through downtown Fresno on Wednesday following a rally outside City Hall that advocated for increased water allocations to Valley agriculture.

ERIC PAUL ZAMORA / THE FRESNO BEE

Thousands of people gathered in front to Fresno City Hall to cheer and listen to speakers who advocated for increased water allocations to Valley agriculture.