This Emergency is Sponsored by Nestlé
Whenever there is a disaster that puts people out on the street, bottled water is there. Be it flood, drought, hurricane, fire or water main break, bottled water is always around to save the day. The camera from news coverage of such events will often pan by several cases of bottled water — conveniently delivered for free from a far away place — as if to depict that safety has arrived. The bottled water industry has certainly done a good job in recent years of associating their product with emergencies. But do we really need bottled water in most emergencies?
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Will Coke and Nestlé Use More Tap Water?
Coca-Cola is closing a spring water bottling plant in High Springs, FL, a move they say is because they want to concentrate on bottling purified water. But their “purified” bottled water actually comes from municipal sources. Coke switching from spring water to purified water essentially means a switch from spring water to tap water. This is certainly a unique occasion when Coca-Cola admits that they are selling tap water in those bottles. But what does it mean for taxpayers when a beverage company wants to focus more on municipal water?
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Can Water Privatization Drain a Community?
We talk all the time about how expensive bottled water can be. Imagine paying $175 each week for your family’s supply of water in your own home. Unfortunately, some residents in Northwood Oaks, a community in Raleigh, North Carolina, are finding out the hard way that bad things can happen when public services like water are privatized.
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Citrus County, FL Rejects Privatization
Citizens like the residents of Citrus County, Florida, have the power to fight privatization of public water. It starts with a well informed public.
Residents of Citrus County, Florida did it right: They questioned a process BEFORE it was put in place. In this case, the process was moving the county’s public utilities toward privatization. Thanks to the Citrus County Council — a grass-roots consortium of civic clubs, homeowners associations and environmental groups — residents were well informed about what privatization would mean for Citrus County, and they told their commissioners to reject privatizing their water utility.
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Renew America’s Water
Since much of the country is experiencing a record-breaking temperatures this summer, it seems like yet another good opportunity to talk about water. While you’re sweating profusely and in desperate need of hydration, think for a moment about the water you’re drinking and how you get it. Even though we have one of the most accessible and safe water systems in the world here in the U.S., it’s falling into a state of disrepair. Many of the individual systems that carry our water are outdated. Old drinking water pipes lose 1.7 trillion gallons of treated water a year, while sewage overflows and storm runoff continue to be a problem. Remember the water main break in Boston recently? We need to turn our attention to how we can prepare our water infrastructure for the future. We need to Renew America’s Water.
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