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News Clips
Gulliver's Cove Bottled Water Project Mothballed
As reported by a local radio station in Nova Scotia, the bottled water project proposed by New Hampshire businessman John Hyatt for Gulliver's Cove on Digby Neck, Nova Scotia, appears to have been indefinitely postponed.
Janet Eaton, Canadian liaison to Sierra Club's WPTF, working with a small committed group of local citizens, played a key role in bringing attention to the proposed project throughout Canada and emphasized that such a project is not in keeping with the local sustainable economic development on Digby Neck which serves as a model for the future.
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March 19, 2004: Guardian (London)
UK: Dasani Bottled Tap Water Withdrawn After Cancer Scare
Taking Action
The Sierra Club has published a brochure which we will be happy to provide
to any group or chapter which wants to join the campaign to discourage the
use of bottled water. Call Ruth Caplan at 202-244-0561 for details.
Find out more...
What Are the Issues?
Advertising Hype. On the shelves of grocery stores, bottled water proliferates. New labels appear overnight claiming purity. In 2002, Americans paid $7.7 billion for bottled water and sales continue to increase.
It's an amazing new fad, one of the most successful advertising hypes in recent history. Advertising for bottled water suggests that drinking water in plastic can make you thin, sexy, healthy, affluent, and environmentally responsible. Water bottles have become a fashion accessory.
These ideas have a source, and it's not a mountain spring. Giant multinational companies like Nestle, Coke, and Pepsi are making a fortune on bottled water. In the U.S. a sip of bottled water costs on average 1,000 times a sip of water from the tap.
Environmental Justice. In Michigan, Nestle received $9.6 million in tax breaks to site their Ice Mountain bottled water plant in Mecosta County. Yet in Detroit more than 20,000 families have had their water shut off because of inability to pay their water bills when the state refused to provide a subsidy. How do such policies measure up to the United Nations declaration "The human right to drinking water is fundamental to life and health"?
How safe? Many people think bottled water is safer than tap water. There is no such guarantee. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has strict water quality standards for tap water, but the EPA does not oversee bottled water. Bottled water sold across state lines is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA interprets EPA clean drinking water regulations and applies them selectively to bottled water. While the FDA requires water sources to be “inspected, sampled, analyzed and approved,” it only has one inspector so the industry does the inspecting. Nor do the FDA regulations prevent bottling companies from drawing water next to industrial sites, underground storage tanks, or dumps.
In Pennsylvania, the state health department tested the water and found high levels of coliform bacteria. after a man reported getting sick from drinking bottled water. In California, an independent lab tested for hundreds of different chemicals in 38 brands of California bottled water. Two samples had arsenic contamination, six had chemical byproducts of chlorination, and six had measurable levels of the toxic chemical toluene.
So consumers should not assume that bottled water is safer than tap water. In fact Coca Cola’s Dasani and Pepsi’s Aquafina are tap water coming from places like Queens, NY and Jacksonville, FL with some additional treatment.
Ecosystems. Nestle prefers to market water from springs. The pumping can have a significant environmental impact, sucking water from underground aquifers that are the source of water for nearby streams, wells, and farms. In Mecosta County, a judge has ruled that Nestle must stop pumping from a site that is threatening the surrounding ecosystem. Nestle has at least 75 spring sites around the country and is actively looking for more.
Plastic Hazards and Waste. What about the bottles themselves? Every year about 1.5 million tons of plastic go into manufacturing water bottles for the global market, using processes that release toxics such as nickel, ethylbenzene, ethylene oxide and benzene. In the U.S. alone 1.5 million barrels of oil are consumed in making the bottles. Most bottles end up in landfills, adding to the landfill crisis.
The Sierra Club has just published a brochure which we will be happy to provide to any group or chapter which wants to join the campaign to discourage the use of bottled water.
- Use pitchers of water at your Club and community events?
- Use containers that you can refill with tap water when you are away from home
- If there is a problem with water quality in your community, use a good quality water filter which is much cheaper than bottled water and does not produce mounds of plastic waste. The average cost of filtered water is $0.13/gallon compared to $1.27 for bottled water.
- Advocate for adequate funding and good public management of municipal water systems.
- Monitor unusual land purchases near to natural springs
E magazine reports: "When Good Morning America conducted a taste test of its studio audience, New York City tap water was chosen as the heavy favorite over the oxygenated water 02, Poland Spring and Evian." Do a blind taste test with your friends and see what they choose.
Look at the bottled water labels on your local grocery shelves. Do they say where the water comes from? If so, see what you can find out about the environmental quality of the water and the environmental impacts of the pumping.
Talk with your municipal waste authority to find out how plastic bottles are disposed of. If they are incinerated, research what chemicals might be released. If landfilled, how close to capacity is your landfill?
If the bottles are recycled, can you track where they actually go? What use is being made of the recycled plastic bottles?
Go to www.epa.gov/safewater/dwinfo.htm to get copies of reports to the EPA from your water and sewer authority. How often do they report? What are the findings?
Are there any limits as to how much water a water company can extract from any given site in your state? How springs and groundwater are protected by your state and community? Are there ways these protections should be strengthened?
Resources for More Information
Santa Clara Valley CA Water District
E Magazine, Sept/Oct 2003, "Message in a Bottle," by Brian Howard: www.emagazine.com
Centre for Science and Environment: www.cseindia.org
Natural Resources Defense Council: www.nrdc.org/water/drinking/bw/bwinx.asp
PBS/Point of View Borders: www.pbs.org/pov/borders/2004/water
Environmental Protection Agency Local Drinking Water Reports: www.epa.gov/safewater/dwinfo.htm
Water Follies, Groundwater Pumping and the Fate of America's Fresh Waters, by John Glennon, 2002, Island Press.
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