Over the past decade, an increasing share of the bottled water sold in the United States is coming from municipal water supplies. Categorized as “purified” by the bottled water industry, bottling companies purchase municipal tap water, put it through a filtration process, bottle it and then sell it back to consumers for hundreds to thousands of times the cost. Between 2000 and 2009, the share of water bottled with polyethylene terephthalate (PET) sold in retail stores sourced by tap water supplies increased by almost 50 percent. During that time, tap water went from making up a third of retail PET bottled water sold in retail stores (32.7 percent) to making up almost half (47.8 percent) of it.

After witnessing BP’s devastating Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, some industry analysts are suggesting that domestic natural gas is a good onshore alternative. But the damage that a rapid expansion of the industry could do to America’s water could be our next energy disaster. Even before the oil spill, drillers had begun using a potentially harmful method for extracting natural gas known as “hydraulic fracturing”—“fracking” for short. Advances in this technology now allow drillers to extract gas on a large scale from previously hard-to-reach rock formations — specifically from shales and “tight” (denser, less porous) rocks. The energy industry, convinced of an impending shale gas revolution, has increased its investments in natural gas and begun advertising and lobbying to sell its product. Meanwhile, small towns near gas deposits are witnessing a mad rush to drill near their communities.

How to read your water quality report and choose the best filtration system for your home

New Jersey municipalities will not resolve their fiscal woes by privatizing water and sewer services. Tough economic times require local governments to take swift yet judicious measures to balance today’s budget without com- promising tomorrow’s. As public officials determine how to cut deficits, they must avoid superficial solutions, such as auctioning off water utilities and outsourcing sewer services, which can have lasting consequences. Water privatization is not a responsible way to shore up local budgets. It can result in greater long-term costs, serious environmental problems and a loss of local control.

The European open water aquaculture industry is fraught with a variety of major problems including rampant disease outbreaks, pollution, escapes and depletion of wild fish populations used in feed.

Suez Environnement has a poor track record in the United States. From sewage overflows in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to contaminated drinking water in Gloucester, Massachusetts, serious problems have afflicted municipalities across the country after they turned their water or sewer systems over to Suez-owned United Water.

Des débordements d’égout à Milwaukee, Wisconsin, à l'eau potable contaminée à Gloucester, dans l’état du Massachusetts, de sérieux problèmes ont affecté les municipalités à travers les Etats-Unis suite au transfert de la gestion de leur eau ou égouts vers United Water, succursale de Suez Environnement.


The Take Back the Tap guide to healthy, environmentally friendly water for your campus, office or public space

For the past 10 years, Hawai`i’s state-controlled waters have been a testing ground for the industrial ocean fish farming industry. After a decade, and an investment of millions in taxpayers’ dollars, it is clear that the industry has not lived up to its promises of both economic and environmental sustainability. Instead, industrial fish farming damaged ocean ecosystems, infuriated Native Hawaiian rights groups and contributed little to the local economy.

Corporations have a financial incentive to hide their environmental impacts from an American public that wants to buy environmentally friendly products. As consumers have been looking for ways to “go green,” corporations have been accused of “greenwashing” — selling products as environmentally responsible when they actually damage the environment. Today, with heightened media attention on the world water crisis, blue is the new green— and corporations appear to be using similar “bluewashing” tactics to obscure their effect on the world’s water.