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Nestle is being sued over the origins of Poland Spring Water:
Nestle's marketing and sales of Poland Spring water has been "a colossal fraud perpetrated against American consumers," 11 people claim in a federal class action. Filing their suit Tuesday in Connecticut, where Nestle is based, the lead plaintiffs are from the Nutmeg State as well as New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. They say they would not have paid a premium for the water had they known it did not actually come from eight purported natural springs in Maine.
Rather than being "100% Natural Spring Water," the "products all contain ordinary groundwater that defendant collects from wells it drilled in saturated plains or valleys where the water table is within a few feet of the earth's surface," lead plaintiff Mark J. Patane says in the complaint. "The vast bulk of that groundwater is collected from Maine's most populous counties in southwestern Maine, only a short distance from the New Hampshire border," the complaint continues.
As required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, all bottled spring water must be collected either at the source of a naturally occurring spring or from a well that draws from a natural spring. "In hydro-geological parlance, all such well water must be 'hydraulically connected' to a genuine spring," the complaint states. But the class says that's not the case for defendant Nestle Waters North America's eight sites in Maine.
People will pay for water in a bottle?!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Joe Desertrat on Saturday August 19 2017, @10:41PM (2 children)
Pretty much all bottled water is a colossal fraud if you are buying it (in most cases in the US) because you believe it is more healthy or better than the local tap water. Most of the fraud though I think is committed by people on themselves. Now granted, bottled water companies don't exactly discourage this sort of thinking, but it is the same sort of people that perpetuate all the alternative "medicine" nonsense that promote the idea that bottled water is better than tap water. There are places where local tap (or more likely well) water tastes like crap and/or is heavily laden with minerals where bottled water might be preferable, but most places with utility supplied tap water have water that is as good or better than anything you buy in a bottle at the supermarket. A whole lot cheaper too!
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday August 20 2017, @12:46AM
I think having commercials calling your bottled water "Earth's finest water" and "Untouched by man" is going a bit further than just "not discouraging" fallacies about bottled water.
Where I live, the water tastes a bit off, but a simple filter corrects that for a few cents a gallon.
(Score: 4, Informative) by srobert on Sunday August 20 2017, @01:26AM
I'm both an employee and customer of the Las Vegas Valley Water District. My job entails planning water quality treatment facilities. Our tap water meets the applicable regulations from the EPA and state authorities. I bathe in it, wash my clothes in it, water my garden with it. But I'm not required to pretend that I think it tastes good. So I don't. I drink bottled water.