Privatizing the Source of Life
It was at a Bioneers conference in Northern California in 2003 that a new awareness about the water bottling business hit me like a lightning bolt. I had dropped some of my business cards while stuffing change into my bag. A young man bent down to help me pick them up, noticed the cards, looked up and said, “We need your help.” Five local officials in McCloud, CA had just sold Nestlé the rights to extract 1,250 gallons of water per minute from the aquifer at the base of Mount Shasta, for a tiny fee of $350,000. One backroom deal, a couple days of rushed public review, and the world’s largest food corporation secured access to this precious resource for the next 100 years.
Numerous local organizations responded to Nestlé’s water grab by banding together and buying back the waters. This was an exhausting battle. Now, once again, they are fighting off a bottling giant. The move by Crystal Geyser to privatize yet more water has infuriated environmentalists, local indigenous tribes, and residents of this city of 3,000 whose passion for saving this resource speak volumes about their understanding of how these waters sustain the future of their ecosystems.
These waters around the 14,179-foot Mount Shasta are the source of much of California's drinking water. The cold, mineral-rich water burbles up into numerous creeks, springs and tributaries of the Sacramento, McCloud and Klamath rivers. Much of it is captured behind the 602-foot-tall Shasta Dam, which is part of the Central Valley Project, a huge federal system that provides water for fish, irrigation, drinking water and hydropower.
Proponents of the deal argue that allowing more water bottling will be harmless, and will bring economic stimulus to this rural region. This can be true—when there is a good environmental impact study. Opponents, including the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, are skeptical, given previous battles over water use. Residents of the nearby town of McCloud have not forgotten their bitter battle with Nestlé several years ago. "There is no environmental impact review, no restrictions on groundwater extraction. Crystal Geyser has carte blanche to build as many buildings as they want," said local resident Vicki Gold in an interview with The Willits News.
In another example, Michigan’s Osceola Township was recently sued by Nestlé for refusing to grant a permit for the construction of a booster station that would increase Nestlé’s water consumption capacity from 250 gallons per minute to 400. Nestlé is paying only $200 a year for each well. It is the largest owner of quality water in the area, while nearby Flint and Detroit struggle with a dangerously bad public water supply. One can only imagine the profit Nestlé is making per bottle.
“When we’re done, tap water will be relegated to showers and washing dishes,” bottling executive Susan Wellington infamously said in 2000. She did not add, however, that this will ensure that people pay 1,000 times more for their domestic water.
Who is really behind the push to expand privatization rather than repair our public water supply? Who exactly wants the public to pay 1,000 times more for water?
Bottling companies have devised scare tactics to smear tap water as being contaminated. For example, Fiji Water launched a campaign in Cleveland featuring billboards insulting the city water supply: “The label says Fiji because it's not bottled in Cleveland". However, Cleveland’s tap water consistently tested more contaminant-free than Fiji water—despite being more than one thousand times cheaper, according to an EPA-certified test.
Water bottling is a profit-motivated business that avoids environmental oversight. Bottling plants are incredibly wasteful. Most statistics mentioned in public dialogue about bottled water only focus on the bottles—but the transportation of bottled water is harmful, too: the thousands of trucks moving in and out, day in and day out, shipping water in a much less effecient manner than simply sending water through public pipes. The effects of the bottling industry on water tables themselves are real: water tables fall, creeks dry up, animals die or leave their homes, tree growth is stunted, and wetlands become lifeless. In the case of Nestlé’s activities in Michigan, all of these consequences are confirmed in a 2000 study by environmental engineering firm Malcolm Pirnie. And on the human front, water will become increasingly expensive as demand for it increases and public supply dwindles. The real discussion must be about human lives, and the ecosystems that rely on these waters.
All of this leads to an even more serious discussion about public-private partnerships compared to public-public partnerships. It has been well-established that public water supplies—owned by the public for the public, and operated with transparency—beat out public-private partnerships when it comes to efficiency, cost savings, and equity. In other words, so-called public-private partnerships always put the “private” first. Although many cities in the US have good water, the public is confused about water quality. Today, many U.S. cities have significantly reduced public funding for public water supplies – often influenced by corporate-sponsored marketing campaigns that imply the water is contaminated or not as clean as bottled water.
Switzerland, like many wealthy countries, has an excellent public water supply and wastewater treatment system. Apparently this has not influenced the Swiss company Nestlé, which has deep government support for its corporate takeover of the waters around the world. An even larger issue is evolving—the worldwide acquisition of the earth’s water, which amounts to privatizing the right to life itself.
In their quest for profit and control on a massive scale, banks and billionaires are buying water sources. These “water barons” are betting on water becoming worth its weight in gold. This commodification of water is just as serious of a threat to life on earth as is the extraction of fossil fuels. By treating water as a commodity, these barons evade the obligation to understand water’s role in creating and sustaining all life. These water barons, who are behind such corporations as Nestlé, are strategizing how to evade water regulations and obtain the cooperation of world and local leaders. Nestlé creates a huge revenue for Switzerland, regardless of the impact on other countries. This boils down to colonization of other locales through owning their waters. However, owning one’s water supply means owning the right to life – “an inalienable right to life” that should not be for sale. Through systematic dishonesty, these water barons are attempting to sabotage local incentives to build reliable processes for delivering good water to the public.
Our public water supply should not be controlled by private companies and exploited for corporate profits. We need policies and regulations on an international level that eliminate the buying up and hoarding of water supplies. What can you do? Write to your state and national leaders to protect your waters and join organizations that are addressing water issues. Encourage friends, family, and institutions to avoid buying bottled water.
The waters belong to all the living systems on the earth. We must take action now to safeguard our future. Get to know your waters and what is yours, choose regulations to save those waters, and support restoration projects to ensure that they are clean and alive.