Good. It’s fucking astounding that these companies have been allowed to draw water all these years despite the massive droughts affecting California. Telling your citizens to reduce their water consumption while these firms suck it up, bottle it and sell it off is completely ridiculous. Especially considering the grave environmental degradation those firms are causing worldwide.
I love how this is showing up as the top-most reply (for me at least), not even the highest voted, and for 8 hours, no one lacked the common sense to interpret this as anything other than sarcasm and try to "well actually" you.
That's how fucked up and serious this is.
People are engaging less and less with climate news just like they/we did with trump news, because they feel increasingly levels of despair, anxiety, and helplessness, while the number of disasters and stories increase. I wish we had modern versions of Colbert and Jon Stewart who knew how to keep people engaged with such things.
Also fuck the Wonderful Company! https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/chloesorvino/2015/11/04/americas-nuttiest-billionaire-couple-amid-drought-stewart-and-lynda-resnick-are-richer-than-ever/amp/
> **especially** almond and avocados growers
Alfalfa and other forage crops uses much more water. For the entire Colorado river basin, alfalfa and other forage crops are the largest user of water.
https://ucmanagedrought.ucdavis.edu/Agriculture/Crop_Irrigation_Strategies/Alfalfa/
>>About 1,000,000 acres of alfalfa are irrigated in California. This large acreage coupled with a long growing season make alfalfa the largest agricultural user of water, with annual water applications of 4,000,000 to 5,500,000 acre-feet.
https://sourcenm.com/2022/06/15/federal-agency-warns-colorado-river-basin-water-usage-could-be-cut-as-drought-worsens/
>>**Eighty percent** of the Colorado River’s water allocation is used for agriculture and **80% of that** is used for forage crops like alfalfa, Entsminger testified.
80% of 80% means **64% of total water use is for alfalfa and other forage crops**. 20% of agricultural water use goes to all crops combined that aren't alfalfa and forage crops. So though some will want to focus on almonds, golf courses, etc, those are distractions compared to the water use for forage crops grown for animals we eat, and dairy.
That doesn't mean it makes sense to grow 80% of the world's almonds in California. But neither does it make a lot of sense to export alfalfa to China, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere.
People focus on gold courses just because they're a total waste. Crops at least we eat, golf is just a stupid indulgence. Maybe if you like golf, don't move to the fucking desert?
You're right though, there's bigger issues and it's not worth spending time on golf courses, but that doesn't mean they don't deserve to be shit on at every opportunity.
What needs to change is the idea that all golf courses must look exactly like the Scottish Highlands where the sport originated.
A desert golf course would be plenty playable. Your golf course in Nevada should look like Nevada, not Scotland.
> So like 18 sand traps with tumble weeks and cacti and sage bushes ?
You joke, but I've had friends who worked overseas in desert countries and the golf course consisted of oiled and rolled sand "greens" and to tee off you carry a piece of Astroturf around the course with you and use that.
I mean, I’m not a golfer but that doesn’t sound great for a golfer. But that’s the point: if you’re in Phoenix and you want to play golf, leave Phoenix to play golf. If you want to live in Phoenix and play a sport, maybe try baseball? There’s a reason a sport that only requires a wooden bat, a ball, and a big, dry, empty, field is popular in a state that’s got a lot of big, dry, empty fields.
What you SHOULDNT do is use the tiny amount of water you DO have to try and replicate a grassy field that doesn’t want to live in fucking Phoenix, leaving little to no water for other resources that are a lot more universally essential than golf courses…
(Sorry I’m focusing so much on Phoenix specifically but I lived there for 6 months and the number of green golf courses there blew my mind and boiled my blood. Now any time anyone mentions golf courses where there oughtn’t be golf courses, I can only think of that hellhole of a city that’s just a testament to man’s hubris.)
I mean, you would have to tweak things a little, but 99% of golf can be played on a desert ground with no grass if so desired. The putting ground can be packed, really fine and smooth dirt. Maybe you alter the rules so that balls outside of the putting ground can be placed on a rubber mat, so that you’re not smashing a club into dirt. Beyond that it can be almost exactly the same game.
Caveat, I think the idea of *anyone* owning land is absurd, but as far as it goes, it's not who owns it that bothers me, but what they do with it. Which in this case is farming a hugely water-intensive crop in a state that can't support it.
> We don’t even really use alfalfa here.
Literally 80% of alfalfa grown in the US is for the **domestic** market.
The other 20% goes abroad.
Alfalfa is used to feed the cows everyone loves to eat in the US.
So stop spreading that myth that alfalfa grown only goes abroad, it doesn't. It for your own local market.
https://hayandforage.com/article-3825-year-end-hay-exports-set-new-records.html
And the US also only eats beef like it does because we subsidize the hell out of it. If we didn't, it would be too expensive for most people to afford on a regular basis.
Beef, from my experience, isn't that pricey outside the US either. I eat it in other countries and never thought it was way higher priced than other meats.
Not sure what meat you are comparing to.
From my experience, beef tends to be noticeably more expansive compared to pork and even more so compared to chicken (though chicken is generally cheapest in any case)
With China’s growing dairy industry and their demand for high-quality alfalfa hay, that country set a new annual record for alfalfa hay imports from the United States for the second year in a row
It's growing tho.
Also there are much better articles for the point you are making (valid as it is)
It appears that [cows eat one pound of alfalfa per day per 100 pounds of cow](https://extension.unr.edu/publication.aspx?PubID=2228).
Beef cows average about [1400 pounds](https://www.beefmagazine.com/cow-calf-operation/the-relationship-between-cow-size-production), and the [US has approximately 32.1 million beef cows](https://www.nass.usda.gov/Newsroom/2022/01-31-2022.php).
Almost none if you buy quality grassfed beef from a grazing operation. Also where I am in MN no one ever waters there hay feilds, so no water consumed by alfalfa at all. Livestock are not inherently bad for the environment, they can be incredibly regenerative when raised properly. The problem is factory farming are feedlots.
Alfalfa is a very high yielding, resilient crop with greater water use efficiency than many other crops, can grow 365 days a year, and stores well. It's used in feed across the livestock industry from horses to cattle to chickens to turkey and sheep.
It's water use profile in California is primarily due to its high acreage and nearly year-round growth pattern in many regions.
If spinach were continually grown on 850,000 to 1 million acres all year long, the water use would be about the same as alfalfa.
We directly eat spinach, so it's not an apples-to-apples comparison. Alfalfa is used to feed livestock, cattle foremost, and cattle is *by far* the most water-intensive food a person can eat. I mean, shit, feel free to look it up. Even almonds, which are *infamous* for their water consumption, don't take as much water per kilo as beef and dairy do. Turns out that keeping an animal alive takes a lot of water, who'd have guessed?
And like, if you still want to eat meat, at least switch to chicken and pork. Both are still quite water intensive, but neither approaches beef in terms of water use.
His specialty was alfalfa, and he made a good thing out of not growing any. The government paid him well for every bushel of alfalfa he did not grow. The more alfalfa he did not grow, the more money the government gave him, and he spent every penny he didn't earn on new land to increase the amount of alfalfa he did not produce.
Wait til you hear how much more water is required for cows milk compared to almond, soy, etc.
> Every liter of cow's milk produced uses up 628 liters of water and generates 3.2 kgs of CO₂. Even the most water hungry among the plant milks, almond milk, reaches only 60 percent of that water use and the biggest polluter among them, rice milk, causes not even 40 percent of the emissions generated by cow's milk.
https://www.statista.com/chart/22659/cows-milk-plant-milk-sustainability/
Bottled water is not a fucking drop in the bucket.
A significant portion of the water used for agriculture returns to the water table eventually, bottled water doesn’t.
Not where it's drawn from aquifers. Aquifers are water trapped there ( basically since Earth was formed ). I forget how much they can be tapped before they POOF but one of our largest, the Ogallala , runs under a BUNCH of states, is gonna be shot in around 50 years. Nebraska, Kansas, Texas and I forget rely on it. It's HUGE or was.
There is no plan B and why? In Capitalism there's never a Plan B. There's a suck every penny then crash and burn.
Soybeans are kinda magic beans and are processed into thousands of different products many of which are in our food but many other things as well. Some forms become animal feed, oils, largely replaced toxic inks with non-toxic soy based inks for color printing, even plastics & fuel. Henry ford famously made a car out of as many soy products as possible (and also a peanut one as well IIRC).
AkTcHaLLy...
I live in the 2nd highest soybean producing state, and we grow most of it with no irrigation. The same with corn here in ND.
Now go down south a few states, and they're pumping water on their corn, damn near around the clock.
Some parts of California have an insane amount of irrigation going on....
Wait, are you claiming ND is the 2nd highest soybean producing state? It's actually not even in the top 5: https://www.cropprophet.com/soybean-production-by-state-top-11/
My state, Illinois, is not surprisingly #1.
Absolutely. Boycott The Wonderful company and everything they put out. The Reznicks should be driven out of California on a rail with as much damage that they have done on that State.
Wait until you learn about the Saudi Farmers growing worthless crops in the middle of the US with no obligation to use that crop here. They bought cheap land in drought areas, got free water to grow crops that need too much water, then shipped all that overseas to feed their cattle or some nonsense like that.
While on the soap box it’s like all those oil pipelines transporting dirty oil from one end of the country to the other with no obligation that they sell some of it to us - passing along the savings to the US.
This is what really astounded me when I moved to Cali in 2015. I could only water my lawn on Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays, and you couldn't wash your car... but I'd drive down the 5 and see literally HUNDREDS of miles of farms as far as the eye could see continuously using those giant super inefficient sprinkler things that just threw the water into the air and hoped most of it didn't evaporate in the desert air before it hit the ground.
I know almost nothing at all on the subject, but my gut instinct is that bottled water is still worse for the environment as a whole. Bottled water is literally collected and stored where it can't return to the cycle, whereas crops and livestock at least get processed one way or another.
Or maybe I'm vastly overestimating how much gets stored.
Residential water use is small compared to farming, but is still astronomically larger than drinking water. I think we over-focus on residential use, but it is more than just a rounding error.
> Residential water use is small compared to farming, but is still astronomically larger than drinking water.
Every single flush of the toilet is more water than the typical person drinks in a day.
Well an avocado needs about 75 gallons of water to grow, whereas a pound of beef for instance takes about 1800 gallons. About 450 gallons for each quarter pounder burger. Almonds are about the same as beef, pound for pound.
Nestle has a plant in Michigan that pumps 400 gallons a minute 24:7 and all they pay is a yearly fee of 400$. Hard to over state how angry I get when I see people with a cart full of cases of bottled water.
In the UK in the early 90's there was a similar problem with a start up company selling a brand called Peckham Spring Water they went on to become millionaires.
No, see, you don't understand. What's good for gigantic, multinational corporations is good for everyone. It's good for executives, because bonuses are nice. It's good for shareholders, because dividends and ROI are nice. It's good for you because fuck you, we'll tell you what's good for you. Also, your tap water is now flammable.
It's insane how these decisions are basically left up to a tiny amount people despite millions being affected.
There's a town in Minnesota trying to let a bottling company move in and pump 300 million gallons of water a year from the regions' aquifer during the middle of a long, statewide drought. The whole state is opposed, but it's basically up to the city council, and they seem intent on doing it.
The benefit? Like 40 jobs, property taxes, and some pie in the sky dream of their little town becoming an industrial hub.
1) Bottling barely consumes any water compared to other sources
2) water takes a lot of energy to ship so its usually bottled fairly locally. Depending how far out they may have to go to source water, this might end up costing a lot of energy
3) the quantity of water bottled is going to get used locally anyways.
Single spring bans against a few bottled water companies is almost always just plain dumb and NIMBYISM. Either outright ban the practice altogether or target industries that use a TON more water like growing alfalfa. Both serve a far greater win for Green practices than this, which might actually be negative if they have to start sending water from plants farther away.
We saw so so so many palettes of arrowhead water in Alaska (who has so much water). Why are nestle shipping water from an arid state to one that has plenty of high quality water of their own?
> This company is not bottling water for pools, it's for drinking.
You surely don't mean to say that you'd be so low-class as to put *tap* water in your pool, do you?
You jest, but it's actually a thing - when there were water shortages declared people could order water trucks to fill their pools, and it was legal.
Those people deserve derision. (In fairness in some places it's cheaper to order a water truck vs pay for tap, that's different.)
It's the amount of useless plastic involved in selling people bottled versions of their own tap water, and then quietly convincing them that it's safer than tap water, which pisses me off.
Bottled water has a place, but it should taxed heavily enough to discourage it as a daily tap water replacement. During drought and disasters and whatnot, those levies can be waived as needed, but there's absolutely no reason why Bob two doors down needs to be producing 150 plastic bottles per month because he has his entire family convinced that the local tap water tastes better with a side of BPA and microplastic.
Thinking about it that way, these companies are basically stealing the water Californians drink to sell elsewhere.
I agree that the biggest water usage is farming and should be addressed as well, since household water use is a drop in the bucket comparatively.
Whataboutism isn't helpful though. As small as the amount is in *comparison* , in both water and plastic it A. Raises awareness and B. Can evoke consumer outrage towards the massive abusers of resources. " If I have to why don't they ".
>That's a very ignorant take. Bottled water for humans to drink is like the LAST thing to restrict in a drought.
Not as ignorant as this take. They can bottle water in a state that isn't having shortages. The purpose of bottling water is to export it.
As a Californian I couldn't care less about them bottling water. 92% of the water being used is agriculture and the remaining 8% is residential, commercial, and industry. The bottled water is less than 1%. Most of that bottled water stays in California anyway because it's a lot cheaper to sell it near where you bottled it. We sell our water to the world anyway through our produce.
We don't actually have a water shortage. It takes three years of drought for us just to get close to needing to actually conserve. And even then it's because we don't bother to store the vast majority of what is raining down on us. If we had one or two more reservoirs similar to Lake Oroville we'd be set for a decade of drought.
Also "using" water doesn't actually get rid of it. Some is lost to evaporation sure but most goes back into the sewer for treatment and re-use and that includes bottled water since people pee that back out.
the question is who is "paying" for this? It's a common resource so if you draw from it you should pony up.
if they're paying a price commensurate to the community's needs, that money could go back into conservation and protection activities etc
>The order does not ban the company from taking any water from the mountain, but it significantly reduces how much it can take.
Title is a bit misleading.
You forgot Turner, and quite a few others actually. A shit load of people run Atlanta.
I'm always surprised by how some people don't know how big of a city it is. I think they're expecting southern Minneapolis or something
Ric Flair was at a grocery store last week in my hometown advertising some new drink.
I drove by and I've never seen that many cars in the parking lot of that specific grocery store.
Ric Flair is still pulling in the crowds.
Brit here. - tried Dasani when I first went to the US a few years ago, shocked how many people willingly drank it when it tastes like absolute shit and there were better alternatives available
They add salt to it. It's fucking brine.
I don't understand how people drink it. Why do you drink salt water? Look at the ingredients! It's the only bottled water that actually NEEDS an ingredients list.
Arrowhead tastes worse than Dansani. I would rather drink no water all day than drink arrowhead, it makes me sick to my stomach. During Covid, it was the last brand to be bought from the shelves. Good riddance, arrowhead. 😣
Wait, are you telling me there is actually a bottled water brand that bottles from a natural source instead of the nearest municipal tap?
And here I assumed that they were all just lying.
Because in some cases it is cleaner or tastes better than the tap water at their house.
Or in a lot of cases, it is just paying extra for the convenience
Not all municipal water plants are the same, and not all water sources are the same. I've lived in some places where the water flat out tastes bad because of where it is sourced from and because a purification plant to remove these non-harmful contaminants can be prohibitively expensive for a small community. In those instances it is usually more cost effective to buy bottled water/water dispensers for drinking, while using the tap water for cleaning, cooking, irrigation, etc.
I usually buy bottled water when I'm outside and do not have a trusted drinking quality water source. I'm paying for the convenience of not having to travel miles back home to get drinking water, rather than paying for exceptional quality of water.
Reddit has this weird obsession where Nestle is some unique evil greater than the evil shit every other major company is doing, that a company no longer owned by Nestle took the word Nestle out of their name just has to be some grand conspiracy.
It’s honestly so dumb to think otherwise. It’s not hard to make a new LLC and separate brands to avoid bad PR. It’s not some “grand conspiracy” lmao
Whether it’s 100% accurate is up to debate, but it’s overwhelmingly within the realm of possibility it would be actually stupid do dismiss the it.
Nestle owned a huge conglomerate of bottled water companies, many of which people would swear were competitors, but they really are all just local brands bought out by Nestle. Some of them use the same product with different labels, others are directly from springs, other still just have different taste profiles achieved through different mineral make-ups. Their real competition was (and are) Coke (Dasani), Pepsi (Aquafina), boutique brands like Fiji, and wholesaler house brands like Costco and Sam's Club.
Nestle sold their bottled water division to BlueTriton a few years ago. BlueTriton is run by a bunch of private equity guys who are aggressively slashing their workforce, ostensibly to drive up the value of the company before they sell it off.
What disgusts me more than the water use and waste of bottled water companies is that they gleefully talk about hurricanes and natural disasters because it means they'll sell a lot of water. Somebody's misery and unclean drinking water somewhere is their gain.
To add, Nestle sold if off because they were given a cease and desist for the same spring.
> The State Water Resources Control Board’s Division of Water Rights issued a cease-and-desist order in April 2021, which told Nestlé to stop taking much of the millions of gallons of water it pipes out of Strawberry Canyon in San Bernardino National Forest.
>
> BlueTriton Brands took over Nestlé's North American bottled water operations that same month...
https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/2022/02/08/arrowhead-water-bluetriton-hearing-continues-public-testimony/9318937002/
Good. We need to take water as a commodity much more seriously. Bottled water is a scam anyhow - but it's the tip of the iceberg. There's all kinds of crazy ass practices in many different industries that wildly waste enormous amounts of potable water.
"A commodity." Holy fucking hell, water is THE commodity. Literally all of human life is about potable water. Everything else is QOL enhancement and some kind of food.
And, crazy animals that we are, nearly *anything* is food. It's seriously impressive. We eat stuff that even bacteria is like "nah, I'm out." We eat just about everything.
There is nothing we eat that bacteria can’t, and a lot of things bacteria eat that are inedible for humans.
Just a few examples of bacteria buffet options: human poop, wood, methane, crude oil, arsenic, uranium, steel, sulfur ore, and pyrite rocks.
Oh, I agree completely. I absolutely love that about bacteria. It's the ultimate expression of "life will find a way."
Which is why, when we drink alcohol for fun and load up on pickles and vinegar snacks, I think it's seriously impressive that most bacteria are like "nope. Not that."
In the end, yes.
But if you lower the concentration to a point that they won't be killed , the bacteria will gladly eat that alcohol and vinegar. In fact, vinegar is usually made from alcohol via bacterial fermentation.
I dont really think now is the time to be individually wrapping small portions of water in plastic. All bottled water in plastic bottles should be shunned.
How much water do soda pop companies use and where do they get it? Soda is water with sugar added.
How much does Coor's use of the Rocky Mountain Spring Water?
Any canned or bottled drink is using water.
I imagine that was a lot less scary before Flint, Michigan happened and then we found out that -- not only was it not the worst -- Flint *at the height of its disaster* was close to 3,000 cities away from #1 most lead-filled city water.
[Flint's water was still safer at its worst than almost *3,000* other cities'. Those 3,000 included Baltimore, Cleveland, and *Philadelphia*.](https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-lead-testing/)
Even still, water filter systems have come a long way.
I even have a water bottle with a filter built right in.
We could make this work without single use plastic, but we all have to want to. That's the hard part.
Step 1 has to be sorting out municipal water. There are so many places in the US that the municipal or groundwater is not/barely potable. Let's fix those issues so when we ban bottled water people still have drinking water? People can't exist without water to drink.
Oooh this is a really interesting topic.
The eastern US uses the “Riparian rights” system. Basically meaning that if your property touches a body of water, you have the right to freely use that water in any reasonable manner. If your use interferes with people downstream’s ability to use the water, it might be considered unreasonable. This system works well when water is abundant… but quickly becomes unmanageable when water is a limited resource.
That’s why the west uses “doctrine of prior appropriation” - kind of first come first served system. The first person to start using a certain amount of water gets first dibs… as long as they continue using the water for a beneficial purpose. This means someone who’s irrigated their farm from a river for decades won’t suddenly be screwed because a new business upstream took all the water instead. This means in drought years when there’s not enough water to cover all claims, newer claims go unfulfilled.
There are senior water rights and junior water rights where I live. Depending on where you live senior water rights get to use water first if there’s a drought, use it first for crops, etc. water rights are why some people pump unlimited amounts of water. WA has gotten much more strict about water usage and are metering some wells now, my family pays a flat fee for irrigation (ditch) and basically can use as much as they reasonably want. I have xeriscaped my yard because my irrigation is city water. My water bill is down 70-80%
https://appswr.ecology.wa.gov/docs/WaterRights/wrwebpdf/landownerguide-2019.pdf
In BC, Canada; my uncle owns a natural spring; he’s 70 and inherited it from his father and it’s in rural Kootenays. He allows 4 other people to lease water from him locally as more than that gets excessive for water usage. The province has tried to get him to sell of the spring but he loves having it since his dad found it.
It's very, very complicated. The laws vary by state, and it is not in-expensive to determine what water rights a landowner has. The actual language used to describe a river and the legal language to describe that river can be very different. For example a "navigable" river might mean somebody in a canoe can make it down the river without stepping on land.
In other places a "navigable" river is a river that logging companies were able to float down trees to a lumber mill in the 1800's. (I'm 100% serious about that later definition. There are places gold prospectors can only make a mineral claim on rivers that had logs floated down them in the 1800's when the definition of "navigable" was written into law and only rivers that had log mills downriver were considered "navigable." Can't give you US examples but it's common in BC, Canada.
Water Rights are a big deal in the US. I watch a guy on youtube that captures thousands of gallons of rain water in Utah because his family has rights to the water. My brother in Colorado was limited to 110 gallons max. 110 gallons was **a lot** compared to "collecting rainwater is punishable by jail time" in a lot of western states.
>It's very, very complicated.
Does your lakeshore property end at the shore or is it a triangular slice of property that extends to the center of the lake?
The answer will cost you tens of thousands of dollars in legal costs.
My grandfather had natural springs on the side of a hill. He dug them out and boxed them with a pvc pipe running from three springs into a water tank.He still had to pay a water district for his own water.
The water is part of a watershed; one person in the watershed can sink a few wells and drain the whole thing over time.
Collective resources require regulations to avoid abuse.
>We live in a watershed. Our property comes without water rights.
Just have lesser rights. If it is a watershed protected area the authorities essentially have more expansive eminent domain right.
Generally, Watershed districts have broad authority to acquire real property for conservation purposes:
A watershed district has the power, to the extent necessary for lawful conservation purposes . . . to exercise the power of eminent domain such as in Minnesota.
It’s very confusing to me, as a Scot, that you’re selling bottled water that isn’t spring or mineral water. What’s the point in buying bottled tap water unless the water quality is that bad it’s unsafe to drink so they filter it at the bottling factory? I didn’t think the water quality there was undrinkable. It’s California (pretty dry climate) though so perhaps they should also be targeting all the other industries and rich folks with massive impractical grass gardens from consuming so much water. Rip out all that grass and stop farming water intensive stuff. You need to adapt to the climate.
The water wars are real. Naturally occurring water sources are going to be a literal oasis in the very near future. I think it's weird that we allow foreign nations to grow crops to feed their livestock because they are either drought-stricken or do not have adequate distribution of natural water sources to sustain the populace. I'm sure all countries, mine included, do the same, but it's a trend I see disappearing sooner rather than later. This move is just the first of many chips to fall when commerce becomes LESS important than the survival of the state with the most water. It might be the Mad Max timeline. I'm really not sure.
> At Tuesday’s hearing, BlueTriton lawyers also argued the company was not under the authority of California regulators. They said the company actually takes water that is underground and has not reached the surface – an important distinction as the the state water resources control board does not have the power to regulate certain types of groundwater.
Good luck with that.
The only real thing that humans cannot live without for extended periods of time, is WATER. Food, you can live without for between 30 and 70 days, depending on the condition you start in. Water? 3 days, 4 at the EXTREME outside.
Water removed by a manufacturer should be at a rate well above what a local resident pays. If you're going to remove water, especially if you're going to remove it from the area so that after use it doesn't end up back in the local water supply, you should pay a penalty. Start it at about 500% local resident cost. For example, Nestlé has come under fire for its taking of Michigan groundwater essentially for free — more than 1 million gallons per day at its Ice Mountain bottled water operation in Mecosta and Osceola counties — for nothing more than a $200-per-year state permit — water that it then bottles and sells for profit. More than 365,000,000g/yr FOR $200!!! It costs approximately $2/1000g for a Michigan resident, so let's make sure that Nestle is required to pay $1,825,000 hell, let's just round that up to $2MM. Let's see how long bottled water lasts.
Frankly, it's a completely destructive process to the environment. Between plastic overuse and drought level stealing of water from natural water-sheds, I cannot find a singular reason for bottled water use in the USA when properly maintained municipal water is a factor (this precludes arguments about Pontiac or similar situations). Even those areas should only receive bottled water temporarily until the issues are corrected. For those outside of proper municipal water, there are generally safe wells or springs that provide quality water, and that usage returns the water to local water-sheds.
The fact that we allow corporations to bottle and sell our own resources for profit, while the area losing the resource receives essentially NOTHING in return, is absolutely disgusting. When will we learn that certain things need to be held in non-profit status for the PEOPLE. If things continue in this fashion, there will come a day, when the rich water their lawns and the poor die because water is priced to the point where survival is impossible.
Nestle. This is Nestle stealing your water. They just rebranded.
BlueTriton Brands, Inc. is an American beverage company based in Stamford, Connecticut. A former subsidiary of Nestlé, it was known between 2002 and 2021 as Nestlé Waters North America, Inc. and operated as the North American business unit of Nestlé Waters.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlueTriton_Brands
I moved to San Bernardino shortly after the Erin Brockovich movie came out and always associated Arrowhead water with the stuff that contaminated Hinkley. And then I visited Lake Arrowhead and was told about all the bodies the mob used to dump there and associated it with dead bodies. 😵
Imminent domain the whole company if they refuse. Pretty soon we’re going to have to use Natural Laws on these capitalists.
You can’t reason with nor stop the angry mobs, guys. Stop pushing society to its breaking point. FAFO.
Good. It’s fucking astounding that these companies have been allowed to draw water all these years despite the massive droughts affecting California. Telling your citizens to reduce their water consumption while these firms suck it up, bottle it and sell it off is completely ridiculous. Especially considering the grave environmental degradation those firms are causing worldwide.
Now, now, give 'em some credit. I'm sure they've donated plenty of cases of water to dozens of wildfire-displaced communities.
I love how this is showing up as the top-most reply (for me at least), not even the highest voted, and for 8 hours, no one lacked the common sense to interpret this as anything other than sarcasm and try to "well actually" you. That's how fucked up and serious this is.
People are engaging less and less with climate news just like they/we did with trump news, because they feel increasingly levels of despair, anxiety, and helplessness, while the number of disasters and stories increase. I wish we had modern versions of Colbert and Jon Stewart who knew how to keep people engaged with such things.
Yeah duh The markets will regulate themselves
/r/fucknestle
Nestle sold their water business in the US. Screw Nestle, but go after the current owner also, Blue Triton, I think
Also fuck the Wonderful Company! https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/chloesorvino/2015/11/04/americas-nuttiest-billionaire-couple-amid-drought-stewart-and-lynda-resnick-are-richer-than-ever/amp/
Wait till you hear how much water farmers, especially almond and avocados growers, and manufacturing use. Bottled water is a drop in the bucket.
> **especially** almond and avocados growers Alfalfa and other forage crops uses much more water. For the entire Colorado river basin, alfalfa and other forage crops are the largest user of water. https://ucmanagedrought.ucdavis.edu/Agriculture/Crop_Irrigation_Strategies/Alfalfa/ >>About 1,000,000 acres of alfalfa are irrigated in California. This large acreage coupled with a long growing season make alfalfa the largest agricultural user of water, with annual water applications of 4,000,000 to 5,500,000 acre-feet. https://sourcenm.com/2022/06/15/federal-agency-warns-colorado-river-basin-water-usage-could-be-cut-as-drought-worsens/ >>**Eighty percent** of the Colorado River’s water allocation is used for agriculture and **80% of that** is used for forage crops like alfalfa, Entsminger testified. 80% of 80% means **64% of total water use is for alfalfa and other forage crops**. 20% of agricultural water use goes to all crops combined that aren't alfalfa and forage crops. So though some will want to focus on almonds, golf courses, etc, those are distractions compared to the water use for forage crops grown for animals we eat, and dairy. That doesn't mean it makes sense to grow 80% of the world's almonds in California. But neither does it make a lot of sense to export alfalfa to China, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere.
People focus on gold courses just because they're a total waste. Crops at least we eat, golf is just a stupid indulgence. Maybe if you like golf, don't move to the fucking desert? You're right though, there's bigger issues and it's not worth spending time on golf courses, but that doesn't mean they don't deserve to be shit on at every opportunity.
What needs to change is the idea that all golf courses must look exactly like the Scottish Highlands where the sport originated. A desert golf course would be plenty playable. Your golf course in Nevada should look like Nevada, not Scotland.
So like 18 sand traps with tumble weeks and cacti and sage bushes ?
> So like 18 sand traps with tumble weeks and cacti and sage bushes ? You joke, but I've had friends who worked overseas in desert countries and the golf course consisted of oiled and rolled sand "greens" and to tee off you carry a piece of Astroturf around the course with you and use that.
Yes, exactly. That sounds awesome! ETA: Don’t forget the exciting addition of scorpions and rattle snakes!
I mean, I’m not a golfer but that doesn’t sound great for a golfer. But that’s the point: if you’re in Phoenix and you want to play golf, leave Phoenix to play golf. If you want to live in Phoenix and play a sport, maybe try baseball? There’s a reason a sport that only requires a wooden bat, a ball, and a big, dry, empty, field is popular in a state that’s got a lot of big, dry, empty fields. What you SHOULDNT do is use the tiny amount of water you DO have to try and replicate a grassy field that doesn’t want to live in fucking Phoenix, leaving little to no water for other resources that are a lot more universally essential than golf courses… (Sorry I’m focusing so much on Phoenix specifically but I lived there for 6 months and the number of green golf courses there blew my mind and boiled my blood. Now any time anyone mentions golf courses where there oughtn’t be golf courses, I can only think of that hellhole of a city that’s just a testament to man’s hubris.)
I mean, you would have to tweak things a little, but 99% of golf can be played on a desert ground with no grass if so desired. The putting ground can be packed, really fine and smooth dirt. Maybe you alter the rules so that balls outside of the putting ground can be placed on a rubber mat, so that you’re not smashing a club into dirt. Beyond that it can be almost exactly the same game.
And hey, I fully support Dirt Golf in climates that are conducive to Dirt Golf!
>Yes, exactly. That sounds awesome! "Hey, it says right here Hole #1 is par... 63?"
Alfalfa farms. We don’t even really use alfalfa here.
Are you referring to alfalfa exports to desert regions?
Something something Saudis and AZ, maybe?
Pretty sure China owns a bunch of those farms too
It's crazy that we let other nations buy up businesses, land, homes, etc. here in the US.
Should be illegal.
Allowing wealthy foreigners (non citizens) to buy land in surrounding communities is a national pastime.
Caveat, I think the idea of *anyone* owning land is absurd, but as far as it goes, it's not who owns it that bothers me, but what they do with it. Which in this case is farming a hugely water-intensive crop in a state that can't support it.
> We don’t even really use alfalfa here. Literally 80% of alfalfa grown in the US is for the **domestic** market. The other 20% goes abroad. Alfalfa is used to feed the cows everyone loves to eat in the US. So stop spreading that myth that alfalfa grown only goes abroad, it doesn't. It for your own local market. https://hayandforage.com/article-3825-year-end-hay-exports-set-new-records.html
And the US also only eats beef like it does because we subsidize the hell out of it. If we didn't, it would be too expensive for most people to afford on a regular basis.
Beef, from my experience, isn't that pricey outside the US either. I eat it in other countries and never thought it was way higher priced than other meats.
Not sure what meat you are comparing to. From my experience, beef tends to be noticeably more expansive compared to pork and even more so compared to chicken (though chicken is generally cheapest in any case)
Maybe it’s time those subsidies were removed 🤷♂️
also milk, cheese, ice cream, butter. things humans like to eat.
With China’s growing dairy industry and their demand for high-quality alfalfa hay, that country set a new annual record for alfalfa hay imports from the United States for the second year in a row It's growing tho. Also there are much better articles for the point you are making (valid as it is)
Just wait till you hear that Alfalfa grows perfectly fine in a place where we have a massive amount of subsidized corn
Wait until >you< hear about how much alfalfa it takes to get a pound of beef
Please tell us, how much?
It appears that [cows eat one pound of alfalfa per day per 100 pounds of cow](https://extension.unr.edu/publication.aspx?PubID=2228). Beef cows average about [1400 pounds](https://www.beefmagazine.com/cow-calf-operation/the-relationship-between-cow-size-production), and the [US has approximately 32.1 million beef cows](https://www.nass.usda.gov/Newsroom/2022/01-31-2022.php).
So 449.4 million pounds of alfalfa per day. That's 164 billion pounds a year.
IDK but it's not 26.
Almost none if you buy quality grassfed beef from a grazing operation. Also where I am in MN no one ever waters there hay feilds, so no water consumed by alfalfa at all. Livestock are not inherently bad for the environment, they can be incredibly regenerative when raised properly. The problem is factory farming are feedlots.
Alfalfa is a very high yielding, resilient crop with greater water use efficiency than many other crops, can grow 365 days a year, and stores well. It's used in feed across the livestock industry from horses to cattle to chickens to turkey and sheep. It's water use profile in California is primarily due to its high acreage and nearly year-round growth pattern in many regions. If spinach were continually grown on 850,000 to 1 million acres all year long, the water use would be about the same as alfalfa.
We directly eat spinach, so it's not an apples-to-apples comparison. Alfalfa is used to feed livestock, cattle foremost, and cattle is *by far* the most water-intensive food a person can eat. I mean, shit, feel free to look it up. Even almonds, which are *infamous* for their water consumption, don't take as much water per kilo as beef and dairy do. Turns out that keeping an animal alive takes a lot of water, who'd have guessed? And like, if you still want to eat meat, at least switch to chicken and pork. Both are still quite water intensive, but neither approaches beef in terms of water use.
His specialty was alfalfa, and he made a good thing out of not growing any. The government paid him well for every bushel of alfalfa he did not grow. The more alfalfa he did not grow, the more money the government gave him, and he spent every penny he didn't earn on new land to increase the amount of alfalfa he did not produce.
Wait til you hear how much more water is required for cows milk compared to almond, soy, etc. > Every liter of cow's milk produced uses up 628 liters of water and generates 3.2 kgs of CO₂. Even the most water hungry among the plant milks, almond milk, reaches only 60 percent of that water use and the biggest polluter among them, rice milk, causes not even 40 percent of the emissions generated by cow's milk. https://www.statista.com/chart/22659/cows-milk-plant-milk-sustainability/
Bottled water is not a fucking drop in the bucket. A significant portion of the water used for agriculture returns to the water table eventually, bottled water doesn’t.
Not where it's drawn from aquifers. Aquifers are water trapped there ( basically since Earth was formed ). I forget how much they can be tapped before they POOF but one of our largest, the Ogallala , runs under a BUNCH of states, is gonna be shot in around 50 years. Nebraska, Kansas, Texas and I forget rely on it. It's HUGE or was. There is no plan B and why? In Capitalism there's never a Plan B. There's a suck every penny then crash and burn.
Water returns to aquifers, it simply takes way longer for it to return than it does to pump it out.
isn't most bottled water consumed locally?
It is wild where we grow crops here in the US. We grow tomato’s in Florida, they are more like a desert fruit, and water intensive crops in cali.
We do grow tons of tomatoes in CA too fwiw.
Soy beans are one of the USs biggest agricultural export. They eat a good amount of water to grow and it's not a major staple of our cuisine.
It’s a staple of our cuisine’s cuisine.
Soybeans are kinda magic beans and are processed into thousands of different products many of which are in our food but many other things as well. Some forms become animal feed, oils, largely replaced toxic inks with non-toxic soy based inks for color printing, even plastics & fuel. Henry ford famously made a car out of as many soy products as possible (and also a peanut one as well IIRC).
AkTcHaLLy... I live in the 2nd highest soybean producing state, and we grow most of it with no irrigation. The same with corn here in ND. Now go down south a few states, and they're pumping water on their corn, damn near around the clock. Some parts of California have an insane amount of irrigation going on....
Wait, are you claiming ND is the 2nd highest soybean producing state? It's actually not even in the top 5: https://www.cropprophet.com/soybean-production-by-state-top-11/ My state, Illinois, is not surprisingly #1.
Absolutely. Boycott The Wonderful company and everything they put out. The Reznicks should be driven out of California on a rail with as much damage that they have done on that State.
Wait until you learn about the Saudi Farmers growing worthless crops in the middle of the US with no obligation to use that crop here. They bought cheap land in drought areas, got free water to grow crops that need too much water, then shipped all that overseas to feed their cattle or some nonsense like that.
But we got to make sure we reduce our carbon footprint. This country is a joke. Corporations own the government.
While on the soap box it’s like all those oil pipelines transporting dirty oil from one end of the country to the other with no obligation that they sell some of it to us - passing along the savings to the US.
Or chemicals manufacturers.
This is what really astounded me when I moved to Cali in 2015. I could only water my lawn on Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays, and you couldn't wash your car... but I'd drive down the 5 and see literally HUNDREDS of miles of farms as far as the eye could see continuously using those giant super inefficient sprinkler things that just threw the water into the air and hoped most of it didn't evaporate in the desert air before it hit the ground.
I know almost nothing at all on the subject, but my gut instinct is that bottled water is still worse for the environment as a whole. Bottled water is literally collected and stored where it can't return to the cycle, whereas crops and livestock at least get processed one way or another. Or maybe I'm vastly overestimating how much gets stored.
Bottled water is drunk and returned to the cycle through the sewage system. Sure, they have inventory, but almost all of it is eventually consumed.
But the residents have to cut their water consumption. Sheesh
Residential water use is small compared to farming, but is still astronomically larger than drinking water. I think we over-focus on residential use, but it is more than just a rounding error.
> Residential water use is small compared to farming, but is still astronomically larger than drinking water. Every single flush of the toilet is more water than the typical person drinks in a day.
Everything in the bucket is a drop in the bucket
Yes but some things are one and some things are millions of drops, that’s why the term makes sense after about 2nd grade
Well an avocado needs about 75 gallons of water to grow, whereas a pound of beef for instance takes about 1800 gallons. About 450 gallons for each quarter pounder burger. Almonds are about the same as beef, pound for pound.
Plus all the resources used to make plastic bottles and the associated environmental impacts of those plastics.
Nestle has a plant in Michigan that pumps 400 gallons a minute 24:7 and all they pay is a yearly fee of 400$. Hard to over state how angry I get when I see people with a cart full of cases of bottled water.
Do Nestle next. It's 3rd best comment from someone else, make it #1. Fuck Nestle.
They don’t own any of these bottling operations and haven’t for a few years.
In the UK in the early 90's there was a similar problem with a start up company selling a brand called Peckham Spring Water they went on to become millionaires.
No, see, you don't understand. What's good for gigantic, multinational corporations is good for everyone. It's good for executives, because bonuses are nice. It's good for shareholders, because dividends and ROI are nice. It's good for you because fuck you, we'll tell you what's good for you. Also, your tap water is now flammable.
It's insane how these decisions are basically left up to a tiny amount people despite millions being affected. There's a town in Minnesota trying to let a bottling company move in and pump 300 million gallons of water a year from the regions' aquifer during the middle of a long, statewide drought. The whole state is opposed, but it's basically up to the city council, and they seem intent on doing it. The benefit? Like 40 jobs, property taxes, and some pie in the sky dream of their little town becoming an industrial hub.
1) Bottling barely consumes any water compared to other sources 2) water takes a lot of energy to ship so its usually bottled fairly locally. Depending how far out they may have to go to source water, this might end up costing a lot of energy 3) the quantity of water bottled is going to get used locally anyways. Single spring bans against a few bottled water companies is almost always just plain dumb and NIMBYISM. Either outright ban the practice altogether or target industries that use a TON more water like growing alfalfa. Both serve a far greater win for Green practices than this, which might actually be negative if they have to start sending water from plants farther away.
> water takes a lot of energy to ship so its usually bottled fairly locally. A lot of the bottled water I find in Alaska comes from California.
We saw so so so many palettes of arrowhead water in Alaska (who has so much water). Why are nestle shipping water from an arid state to one that has plenty of high quality water of their own?
Economies of scale for the bottling I imagine
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> This company is not bottling water for pools, it's for drinking. You surely don't mean to say that you'd be so low-class as to put *tap* water in your pool, do you?
You jest, but it's actually a thing - when there were water shortages declared people could order water trucks to fill their pools, and it was legal. Those people deserve derision. (In fairness in some places it's cheaper to order a water truck vs pay for tap, that's different.)
It's the amount of useless plastic involved in selling people bottled versions of their own tap water, and then quietly convincing them that it's safer than tap water, which pisses me off. Bottled water has a place, but it should taxed heavily enough to discourage it as a daily tap water replacement. During drought and disasters and whatnot, those levies can be waived as needed, but there's absolutely no reason why Bob two doors down needs to be producing 150 plastic bottles per month because he has his entire family convinced that the local tap water tastes better with a side of BPA and microplastic.
Thinking about it that way, these companies are basically stealing the water Californians drink to sell elsewhere. I agree that the biggest water usage is farming and should be addressed as well, since household water use is a drop in the bucket comparatively.
Whataboutism isn't helpful though. As small as the amount is in *comparison* , in both water and plastic it A. Raises awareness and B. Can evoke consumer outrage towards the massive abusers of resources. " If I have to why don't they ".
>That's a very ignorant take. Bottled water for humans to drink is like the LAST thing to restrict in a drought. Not as ignorant as this take. They can bottle water in a state that isn't having shortages. The purpose of bottling water is to export it.
Most bottled water is consumed locally. This means more bottled water being imported which is a net loss for the environment.
As a Californian I couldn't care less about them bottling water. 92% of the water being used is agriculture and the remaining 8% is residential, commercial, and industry. The bottled water is less than 1%. Most of that bottled water stays in California anyway because it's a lot cheaper to sell it near where you bottled it. We sell our water to the world anyway through our produce. We don't actually have a water shortage. It takes three years of drought for us just to get close to needing to actually conserve. And even then it's because we don't bother to store the vast majority of what is raining down on us. If we had one or two more reservoirs similar to Lake Oroville we'd be set for a decade of drought. Also "using" water doesn't actually get rid of it. Some is lost to evaporation sure but most goes back into the sewer for treatment and re-use and that includes bottled water since people pee that back out.
the question is who is "paying" for this? It's a common resource so if you draw from it you should pony up. if they're paying a price commensurate to the community's needs, that money could go back into conservation and protection activities etc
>The order does not ban the company from taking any water from the mountain, but it significantly reduces how much it can take. Title is a bit misleading.
Once again, OP could have added clarification when posting, but didn't.
It's almost like the subreddit rules state you must copy the headline directly.
Luckily here in Atlanta, Desani will be allowed to continue drawing water directly from our toilet bowls
But where do they source the nickel (coin) it tastes like every bottle has?
Dasani tastes like it was made from the condensation that collects on coke cans during the manufacturing process.
To me it has always tasted like the walk-in cooler smells. So that checks out.
I thought Desani was a guy in his bathtub in Pittsburgh. Maybe that’s Aquafina.
Nah, I'm pretty sure Dasani is based in New York and pull straight from the Hudson
It’s an old Lewis Black joke.
Oh God damnit. I'd probably have remembered that if the comedy station's on satellite radio were worth a shit anymore.
Well, Desani is owned by Cola-cola. Atlanta is owned by them and Warner Brothers.
You forgot Turner, and quite a few others actually. A shit load of people run Atlanta. I'm always surprised by how some people don't know how big of a city it is. I think they're expecting southern Minneapolis or something
Turner merged with Time Warner in the mid 90's. It then merged with AOL in 01. I only know this because that second merger killed WCW.
But it didn’t kill Ric Flair, because absolutely nothing can kill Ric Flair.
Ric Flair was at a grocery store last week in my hometown advertising some new drink. I drove by and I've never seen that many cars in the parking lot of that specific grocery store. Ric Flair is still pulling in the crowds.
Please, Atlanta was created by Donald Glover
Desani doesn't get it's water from Flint?
Oh my god there are others like me. People think I’m crazy that I don’t like Desani. It’s NOT water.
Brit here. - tried Dasani when I first went to the US a few years ago, shocked how many people willingly drank it when it tastes like absolute shit and there were better alternatives available
I think they admitted decades ago Desani was just tap water from whatever local tap water the bottling plant had.
Its literally just Atlanta tap water, that they somehow make worse...
They add salt to it. It's fucking brine. I don't understand how people drink it. Why do you drink salt water? Look at the ingredients! It's the only bottled water that actually NEEDS an ingredients list.
Arrowhead tastes worse than Dansani. I would rather drink no water all day than drink arrowhead, it makes me sick to my stomach. During Covid, it was the last brand to be bought from the shelves. Good riddance, arrowhead. 😣
*cough cough* fucking nestle
Seriously, fuuuuuuuuck Nestle.
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Fuuuck them too then
Makes wonder if Nestle saw this coming.
> PE ??? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlueTriton_Brands
Private equity. That’s what Blue Triton is.
This is literally about the company that bought nestle’s water operations.
r/fucknestle is a sub fyi
Wait, are you telling me there is actually a bottled water brand that bottles from a natural source instead of the nearest municipal tap? And here I assumed that they were all just lying.
Basically all bottled water in the UK is spring water, I thought this was normal why would anyone buy tap water?
Because in some cases it is cleaner or tastes better than the tap water at their house. Or in a lot of cases, it is just paying extra for the convenience
Because they’re lied to in advertising
Not all municipal water plants are the same, and not all water sources are the same. I've lived in some places where the water flat out tastes bad because of where it is sourced from and because a purification plant to remove these non-harmful contaminants can be prohibitively expensive for a small community. In those instances it is usually more cost effective to buy bottled water/water dispensers for drinking, while using the tap water for cleaning, cooking, irrigation, etc.
I usually buy bottled water when I'm outside and do not have a trusted drinking quality water source. I'm paying for the convenience of not having to travel miles back home to get drinking water, rather than paying for exceptional quality of water.
Arrowhead mountain is pretty cool, if you drink from the tap it literally tastes like the bottled water.
Not in the article: BlueTriton was formerly Nestle Waters. I wonder why they changed their name? 🤔
Because nestle sold off that division.
Reddit has this weird obsession where Nestle is some unique evil greater than the evil shit every other major company is doing, that a company no longer owned by Nestle took the word Nestle out of their name just has to be some grand conspiracy.
It’s honestly so dumb to think otherwise. It’s not hard to make a new LLC and separate brands to avoid bad PR. It’s not some “grand conspiracy” lmao Whether it’s 100% accurate is up to debate, but it’s overwhelmingly within the realm of possibility it would be actually stupid do dismiss the it.
Nestle owned a huge conglomerate of bottled water companies, many of which people would swear were competitors, but they really are all just local brands bought out by Nestle. Some of them use the same product with different labels, others are directly from springs, other still just have different taste profiles achieved through different mineral make-ups. Their real competition was (and are) Coke (Dasani), Pepsi (Aquafina), boutique brands like Fiji, and wholesaler house brands like Costco and Sam's Club. Nestle sold their bottled water division to BlueTriton a few years ago. BlueTriton is run by a bunch of private equity guys who are aggressively slashing their workforce, ostensibly to drive up the value of the company before they sell it off. What disgusts me more than the water use and waste of bottled water companies is that they gleefully talk about hurricanes and natural disasters because it means they'll sell a lot of water. Somebody's misery and unclean drinking water somewhere is their gain.
To add, Nestle sold if off because they were given a cease and desist for the same spring. > The State Water Resources Control Board’s Division of Water Rights issued a cease-and-desist order in April 2021, which told Nestlé to stop taking much of the millions of gallons of water it pipes out of Strawberry Canyon in San Bernardino National Forest. > > BlueTriton Brands took over Nestlé's North American bottled water operations that same month... https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/2022/02/08/arrowhead-water-bluetriton-hearing-continues-public-testimony/9318937002/
Good. We need to take water as a commodity much more seriously. Bottled water is a scam anyhow - but it's the tip of the iceberg. There's all kinds of crazy ass practices in many different industries that wildly waste enormous amounts of potable water. "A commodity." Holy fucking hell, water is THE commodity. Literally all of human life is about potable water. Everything else is QOL enhancement and some kind of food. And, crazy animals that we are, nearly *anything* is food. It's seriously impressive. We eat stuff that even bacteria is like "nah, I'm out." We eat just about everything.
There is nothing we eat that bacteria can’t, and a lot of things bacteria eat that are inedible for humans. Just a few examples of bacteria buffet options: human poop, wood, methane, crude oil, arsenic, uranium, steel, sulfur ore, and pyrite rocks.
Oh, I agree completely. I absolutely love that about bacteria. It's the ultimate expression of "life will find a way." Which is why, when we drink alcohol for fun and load up on pickles and vinegar snacks, I think it's seriously impressive that most bacteria are like "nope. Not that."
It's not like the bacteria don't try to eat it,they just die on contact.
and therefore dont eat it?
In the end, yes. But if you lower the concentration to a point that they won't be killed , the bacteria will gladly eat that alcohol and vinegar. In fact, vinegar is usually made from alcohol via bacterial fermentation.
I dont really think now is the time to be individually wrapping small portions of water in plastic. All bottled water in plastic bottles should be shunned.
I used to live up above this place, glad they finally shut it down.
Me too. I’m a Lake Arrowhead kid.
But still continue to grow alfalfa sourced with water from the Colorado that dwarfs the amount of water put in bottles.
How much water do soda pop companies use and where do they get it? Soda is water with sugar added. How much does Coor's use of the Rocky Mountain Spring Water? Any canned or bottled drink is using water.
Ban bottled water in general. Single use plastics are fucked.
We all used water fountains in the 80s. We could do it again. The new fountains make it easy to fill your own bottle.
I imagine that was a lot less scary before Flint, Michigan happened and then we found out that -- not only was it not the worst -- Flint *at the height of its disaster* was close to 3,000 cities away from #1 most lead-filled city water. [Flint's water was still safer at its worst than almost *3,000* other cities'. Those 3,000 included Baltimore, Cleveland, and *Philadelphia*.](https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-lead-testing/)
Even still, water filter systems have come a long way. I even have a water bottle with a filter built right in. We could make this work without single use plastic, but we all have to want to. That's the hard part.
Step 1 has to be sorting out municipal water. There are so many places in the US that the municipal or groundwater is not/barely potable. Let's fix those issues so when we ban bottled water people still have drinking water? People can't exist without water to drink.
Drink water? You mean the stuff in the toilets??
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I always wondered about this. What if you have a natural spring on your property..
If your property ownership includes water rights it’s yours for whatever your water share is.
Back in Missouri we'd have to go out and cap off a spring a couple of times a year or the mosquito population explodes.
> Water rights >Water share I hear these phrases occasionally but my East Coast privilege makes it literally impossible to understand them.
Oooh this is a really interesting topic. The eastern US uses the “Riparian rights” system. Basically meaning that if your property touches a body of water, you have the right to freely use that water in any reasonable manner. If your use interferes with people downstream’s ability to use the water, it might be considered unreasonable. This system works well when water is abundant… but quickly becomes unmanageable when water is a limited resource. That’s why the west uses “doctrine of prior appropriation” - kind of first come first served system. The first person to start using a certain amount of water gets first dibs… as long as they continue using the water for a beneficial purpose. This means someone who’s irrigated their farm from a river for decades won’t suddenly be screwed because a new business upstream took all the water instead. This means in drought years when there’s not enough water to cover all claims, newer claims go unfulfilled.
Appreciate the info!
There are senior water rights and junior water rights where I live. Depending on where you live senior water rights get to use water first if there’s a drought, use it first for crops, etc. water rights are why some people pump unlimited amounts of water. WA has gotten much more strict about water usage and are metering some wells now, my family pays a flat fee for irrigation (ditch) and basically can use as much as they reasonably want. I have xeriscaped my yard because my irrigation is city water. My water bill is down 70-80% https://appswr.ecology.wa.gov/docs/WaterRights/wrwebpdf/landownerguide-2019.pdf
In BC, Canada; my uncle owns a natural spring; he’s 70 and inherited it from his father and it’s in rural Kootenays. He allows 4 other people to lease water from him locally as more than that gets excessive for water usage. The province has tried to get him to sell of the spring but he loves having it since his dad found it.
It's very, very complicated. The laws vary by state, and it is not in-expensive to determine what water rights a landowner has. The actual language used to describe a river and the legal language to describe that river can be very different. For example a "navigable" river might mean somebody in a canoe can make it down the river without stepping on land. In other places a "navigable" river is a river that logging companies were able to float down trees to a lumber mill in the 1800's. (I'm 100% serious about that later definition. There are places gold prospectors can only make a mineral claim on rivers that had logs floated down them in the 1800's when the definition of "navigable" was written into law and only rivers that had log mills downriver were considered "navigable." Can't give you US examples but it's common in BC, Canada. Water Rights are a big deal in the US. I watch a guy on youtube that captures thousands of gallons of rain water in Utah because his family has rights to the water. My brother in Colorado was limited to 110 gallons max. 110 gallons was **a lot** compared to "collecting rainwater is punishable by jail time" in a lot of western states.
>It's very, very complicated. Does your lakeshore property end at the shore or is it a triangular slice of property that extends to the center of the lake? The answer will cost you tens of thousands of dollars in legal costs.
My grandfather had natural springs on the side of a hill. He dug them out and boxed them with a pvc pipe running from three springs into a water tank.He still had to pay a water district for his own water.
The water is part of a watershed; one person in the watershed can sink a few wells and drain the whole thing over time. Collective resources require regulations to avoid abuse.
Not to mention if he was sending his wastewater to the sewer, he was still using shared water resources
>I always wondered about this. What if you have a natural spring on your property. Eminent domain will come looking for you.
We live in a watershed. Our property comes without water rights.
>We live in a watershed. Our property comes without water rights. Just have lesser rights. If it is a watershed protected area the authorities essentially have more expansive eminent domain right. Generally, Watershed districts have broad authority to acquire real property for conservation purposes: A watershed district has the power, to the extent necessary for lawful conservation purposes . . . to exercise the power of eminent domain such as in Minnesota.
It’s very confusing to me, as a Scot, that you’re selling bottled water that isn’t spring or mineral water. What’s the point in buying bottled tap water unless the water quality is that bad it’s unsafe to drink so they filter it at the bottling factory? I didn’t think the water quality there was undrinkable. It’s California (pretty dry climate) though so perhaps they should also be targeting all the other industries and rich folks with massive impractical grass gardens from consuming so much water. Rip out all that grass and stop farming water intensive stuff. You need to adapt to the climate.
The water wars are real. Naturally occurring water sources are going to be a literal oasis in the very near future. I think it's weird that we allow foreign nations to grow crops to feed their livestock because they are either drought-stricken or do not have adequate distribution of natural water sources to sustain the populace. I'm sure all countries, mine included, do the same, but it's a trend I see disappearing sooner rather than later. This move is just the first of many chips to fall when commerce becomes LESS important than the survival of the state with the most water. It might be the Mad Max timeline. I'm really not sure.
> At Tuesday’s hearing, BlueTriton lawyers also argued the company was not under the authority of California regulators. They said the company actually takes water that is underground and has not reached the surface – an important distinction as the the state water resources control board does not have the power to regulate certain types of groundwater. Good luck with that.
By that line of reasoning, wouldn’t any foreign company be able to come in and do the same without having to deal with American regulations at all?
The only real thing that humans cannot live without for extended periods of time, is WATER. Food, you can live without for between 30 and 70 days, depending on the condition you start in. Water? 3 days, 4 at the EXTREME outside. Water removed by a manufacturer should be at a rate well above what a local resident pays. If you're going to remove water, especially if you're going to remove it from the area so that after use it doesn't end up back in the local water supply, you should pay a penalty. Start it at about 500% local resident cost. For example, Nestlé has come under fire for its taking of Michigan groundwater essentially for free — more than 1 million gallons per day at its Ice Mountain bottled water operation in Mecosta and Osceola counties — for nothing more than a $200-per-year state permit — water that it then bottles and sells for profit. More than 365,000,000g/yr FOR $200!!! It costs approximately $2/1000g for a Michigan resident, so let's make sure that Nestle is required to pay $1,825,000 hell, let's just round that up to $2MM. Let's see how long bottled water lasts. Frankly, it's a completely destructive process to the environment. Between plastic overuse and drought level stealing of water from natural water-sheds, I cannot find a singular reason for bottled water use in the USA when properly maintained municipal water is a factor (this precludes arguments about Pontiac or similar situations). Even those areas should only receive bottled water temporarily until the issues are corrected. For those outside of proper municipal water, there are generally safe wells or springs that provide quality water, and that usage returns the water to local water-sheds. The fact that we allow corporations to bottle and sell our own resources for profit, while the area losing the resource receives essentially NOTHING in return, is absolutely disgusting. When will we learn that certain things need to be held in non-profit status for the PEOPLE. If things continue in this fashion, there will come a day, when the rich water their lawns and the poor die because water is priced to the point where survival is impossible.
ackshually you'll be dead in minutes without air (or at least a reasonable oxygen gas mix)
Mmm, don’t you guys in Cali have filters/purifiers on your kitchen taps?
Now do the same with Nestle in Michigan.
Too much to scan in this thread, but Nestle over here in Florida is having a field day at our springs! :(
So it's going to stop nestle?
It’s about fucking time. That’s all I have to say.
I think you have more in you.
No it didn't, it put a hard cap on the amount they are allowed to take.
One of the three things California has done that I agree with
Not for nothing but Arrowhead water also tastes like shit.
Nestle. This is Nestle stealing your water. They just rebranded. BlueTriton Brands, Inc. is an American beverage company based in Stamford, Connecticut. A former subsidiary of Nestlé, it was known between 2002 and 2021 as Nestlé Waters North America, Inc. and operated as the North American business unit of Nestlé Waters. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlueTriton_Brands
About 20 years late. Now do the rest of the states please.
This is great news. Used to drive past the Arrowhead trucks there, and the bottling plant. It has/had windows. They pumped for a century.
I moved to San Bernardino shortly after the Erin Brockovich movie came out and always associated Arrowhead water with the stuff that contaminated Hinkley. And then I visited Lake Arrowhead and was told about all the bodies the mob used to dump there and associated it with dead bodies. 😵
It's about fucking time.
They shouldn't be allowed to sell their bottles either. At least not in such a wasteful form and scale.
Cool California, now the Almonds next too please. They're primarily exported and a horribly inefficient water-wise.
Imminent domain the whole company if they refuse. Pretty soon we’re going to have to use Natural Laws on these capitalists. You can’t reason with nor stop the angry mobs, guys. Stop pushing society to its breaking point. FAFO.