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posted by janrinok on Tuesday February 18 2020, @07:45PM   Printer-friendly
from the will-you-drink-to-that? dept.

Lawmakers open groundwater fight against bottled water companies:

Washington state, land of sprawling rainforests and glacier-fed rivers, might soon become the first in the nation to ban water bottling companies from tapping spring-fed sources.

The proposal is one of several efforts at the state and local level to fend off the fast-growing bottled water industry and protect local groundwater. Local activists throughout the country say bottling companies are taking their water virtually for free, depleting springs and aquifers, then packaging it in plastic bottles and shipping it elsewhere for sale.

"I was literally beyond shocked," said Washington state Sen. Reuven Carlyle, who sponsored the bill to ban bottling companies from extracting groundwater. It was advanced by a Senate committee last week.

"I was jolted to the core to realize the depth and breadth and magnitude of how they have lawyered up in these small towns to take advantage of water rights," the Democrat said. "The fact that we have incredibly loose, if virtually nonexistent, policy guidelines around this is shocking and a categorical failure."

Elsewhere, lawmakers in Michigan and Maine also have filed bills to restrict the bottling of groundwater or tax the industry. Local ballot measures have passed in Oregon and Montana to restrict the industry, though in Montana, Flathead County's zoning change remains tied up in court.

"The Washington state bill is groundbreaking," said Mary Grant, a water policy specialist with the environmental group Food and Water Watch. "As water scarcity is becoming a deeper crisis, you want to protect your local water supply so it goes for local purposes. (Bottled water) is not an industry that needs to exist."

Though much of the controversy around the bottled water industry has concerned "bottled at the source" spring water sites, nearly two-thirds of the bottled water sold in the United States comes from municipal tap water, according to Food and Water Watch. The Washington state legislation would not keep companies from buying and reselling tap water.

Americans consumed nearly 14 billion gallons of bottled water in 2018, while sales reached $19 billion—more than doubling the industry's size in 2004. The bottled water industry is expected to grow to more than $24 billion in the next three years, according to Beverage Industry magazine.

Industry leaders have opposed sweeping legislation that would cut off resources, pointing out the potential hit to local employment and the importance of bottled water in disaster relief.

"This legislation would prevent any community from having these jobs or having a project in their area," said Brad Boswell, executive director of the Washington Beverage Association, who testified against the bill. "We think these issues are best dealt with on a project-by-project basis."

The International Bottled Water Association defended the track record of its members in an emailed statement. The bill in Washington and other legislation to limit the industry "are based on the false premise that the bottled water industry is harming the environment," wrote Jill Culora, the group's vice president of communications.

"All IBWA members," she wrote, "are good stewards of the environment. When a bottled water company decides to build a plant, it looks for a long-term, sustainable source of water and the ability to protect the land and environment around the source and bottling facility."

Culora did not address specific examples of community claims that bottling companies have damaged their watersheds and aquifers.


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  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday February 18 2020, @09:05PM (5 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 18 2020, @09:05PM (#959658) Journal

    In the 1960s and early 70s, I grew up with Las Vegas tap water.

    We didn't use no filters! I wonder if that affects cognitive development?

    (I suspect some people didn't use filters on their cigarettes either. The water was also very 'hard', but I didn't understand what hard water was until I lived somewhere else.)

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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday February 18 2020, @10:05PM (4 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday February 18 2020, @10:05PM (#959682)

    Central Florida uses a lot of well water in the homes, typically from the Hawthorne aquifer which has some pretty strong H2S content. If you let the water sit in an open container, long enough, after it is taken from the ground, most of the hydrogen sulfide gasses off, but... studies show that even low levels of chronic H2S exposure can, and do affect negatively cognitive development and lifelong cognitive ability. Which goes a long way toward explaining the people you tend to meet around those parts...

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    • (Score: 2) by dwilson on Wednesday February 19 2020, @03:34PM (3 children)

      by dwilson (2599) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 19 2020, @03:34PM (#959878) Journal

      studies show that even low levels of chronic H2S exposure can, and do affect negatively cognitive development and lifelong cognitive ability.

      I have no trouble believing that, though I did have a good chuckle at "low levels". I'm mighty curious what they consider low in the context of concentration in water.

      Working in the oil industry, you learn all about H2S, with regular refresher training every few years because it can and does kill people who get careless. At 500 ppm (0.05%) concentration in the air, most people are dead after only five minutes. At 1000 ppm (0.01%), you drop dead after one breath. At 40,000 ppm (4%!), long after everyone is dead, it becomes explosive. Any spark or source of ignition and boom. It's also heavier than air, so it pools nicely in any ground depressions in the area. You get a lot of those on an oil well lease.

      To say it's nasty stuff is putting it mildly [cdc.gov].

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      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday February 19 2020, @05:34PM

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday February 19 2020, @05:34PM (#959919)

        It's difficult to translate the dissolved concentration of H2S in well water into an airborne concentration. It's simple enough to say: you definitely can smell it, and even though some of the restaurants serve it - it's an acquired taste to say the least.

        40 years ago, folks around those parts still didn't use air-conditioning much, but they would run their ceiling fans with the windows open most of the time, so concentrations weren't so high in the living quarters back then, but even with all the fresh air of the great outdoors, a flowing well can be easily smelled from quite some distance. And, of course, once you get used to it you can sit in the H2S cloud without any discomfort...

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      • (Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Wednesday February 19 2020, @10:53PM (1 child)

        by Joe Desertrat (2454) on Wednesday February 19 2020, @10:53PM (#960059)

        I have no trouble believing that, though I did have a good chuckle at "low levels". I'm mighty curious what they consider low in the context of concentration in water.

        Easy. It is the highest level they get away with bribing legislators to approve.

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Thursday February 20 2020, @02:48AM

          by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday February 20 2020, @02:48AM (#960150)

          Easy. It is the highest level they get away with bribing legislators to approve.

          Oh, Central Florida is a whole lot simpler than that - they're still back at the "don't ask, don't tell" stage. Everybody has had these wells for the last 100 years, it was good enough then, it must be good enough now. While the county will test your well water for safety, for free, very very few people volunteer to let that happen, and I don't think anybody is interested in anything that might in any way suggest that their way of life is somehow flawed.

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