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Kate Fried, Food & Water Watch (202) 683-2500

International Bottled Water Association Distorts the Truth About Bottled Water:

Food & Water Watch Responds to Industry Claims of Environmental Stewardship

Washington, DC—In an open letter issued late last week to select members of the environmental community, Tom Lauria, Vice President of Communications of the International Bottled Water Association made several claims intended to illustrate the industry’s “continued environmental stewardship.” Yet Lauria’s assertions are nothing more than hyperbole spun to hide the fact that corporations continue to get rich at the expense of a natural resource and the communities and families that rely on it for sustenance.

Mr. Lauria attempted to position the corporations his organization represents as “natural allies” of the environmental movement. Yet the very nature of their work exploiting a natural resource for profit stands sharply at odds with groups such as Food & Water Watch who work to ensure that our nation’s food and water resources are protected from corporate interests.

In a response to Lauria’s letter issued today by Food & Water Watch, executive director Wenonah Hauter said:

“When the flow and level of a region’s springs, wetlands, lakes, streams and rivers are materially affected by extraction for bottling, the entire local and even regional environment suffers. This extends to the activities that depend on the water –agriculture, individuals, businesses, tourism and recreation. And the same goes for Pepsi and Coke tapping city water supplies for their Aquafina and Dasani brands.

“Many communities across the country develop water management plans that take into account such issues as population and climate, including drought. The people and businesses living and operating there have to live within the rules set forth in those plans, but bottling companies too often get a nearly free pass, even though they are permanently removing water from a community’s aquifer.

“The extraction of any community’s water for sale sets up a frightening scenario. We are seeing a steady shift of a public resource, water, into private hands. No one owns water. The people and businesses in a watershed have the right to use it reasonably for drinking, growing food and other activities within the community. Over the long term, it could become difficult for states and local governments to regulate water removal, precisely because the water will be seen, in legal terms, as severed from the community and classified as a product. Companies could challenge any attempted regulation under the auspices of the World Trade Organization or other free trade agreements, which prioritize corporate access to markets over wise resource management.”

Communities around the country have spoken out in opposition to companies extracting water for profit. Earlier in the year, activists in Wells, Maine halted a plan by Nestle to open a well to extract more water for its Poland Springs brand. Similarly, in McCloud, California activists mobilized to cancel a contract with Nestle to pump water from nearby Mount Shasta Springs. This activity, combined with that of national organizations dedicated to educating the public about the detrimental environmental, economic, and equity issues associated with commercial water bottling activities illustrate a mounting public opposition against bottled water.

Facts About Bottled Water:
The mass production and marketing of bottled water exploded in the late 20th century. In 1976 in the United States, 300 thousand gallons of bottled water were consumed. By 1997 that number had risen to 3.4 million. By 2005, Nestlé, Coke, Pepsi and other companies were taking water from communities across the country and packaging it in some 26 billion plastic bottles.

Approximately three liters of water are required to produce one liter of bottled water. The total amount of energy used to produce, transport, refrigerate and dispose of a plastic bottle of water may be equivalent to filling one-quarter of a one-liter bottle with oil. Annual production of plastic bottles to meet U.S. consumer demand for bottled water takes the equivalent of about 17.6 million barrels of oil, not including the cost of transporting the bottled water to consumers. The production and transportation of bottled water spew more than 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide into our atmosphere where it contributes to global climate change. The resulting altered weather patterns are reducing precipitation, and thus water regeneration in aquifers, in the very places from which companies are extracting water.

Read Tom Lauria’s “An Open Letter to Environmentalists”
Read Wenonah Hauter’s response

Food & Water Watch is a nonprofit consumer rights organization based in Washington, D.C. that challenges the corporate control and abuse of our food and water resources. Visit www.foodandwaterwatch.org.