A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis, serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. © James Conner.

13 May 2016

Recent stories of note from the bottled water wars

There’s news of interest out of Creston, MT, and Cascade Locks, OR, on proposals to bottle and sell local water.

In Creston, report Sam Wilson of the InterLake and Tristan Scott of the Flathead Beacon, Montana’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources says there are enough valid objections to the 710 acre feet per year water right for the Montana Artesian Water Company that the issue will go to a formal hearing.

Given the DNRC’s sloppy analysis of the application for the water right, that news is not surprising. But it is welcome news for the objectors.

In Cascade Locks, reports the Seattle Times, a complicated proposal to bottle local water has become so controversial that it’s being put to a vote on Oregon’s primary election ballot next week.

I’ve come to regard both disputes as largely not in my backyard affairs. That’s especially the case in Creston, where all sorts of allegedly transcendent issues are being claimed, but I think the fundamental objection is that a water bottling factory is not compatible with the character of the local community.

There are some differences. According to Nestle spokesman Dave Palais:

…only 1.38 gallons of water are required to produce 1 gallon of Nestle bottled water, compared to an average of 5 gallons of water for 1 gallon of beer.

In Creston, as I reported last month, MAWC uses a lower figure, approximately 1.2 gallons per bottled gallon. Perhaps MAWC has a more efficient process, or perhaps it’s just more optimistic in its assumptions.

Then there’s the hypocrisy of beer brewers who use four gallons of water to make one gallon of suds, a popular product that causes great social harm, but rail against bottled water:

Thunder Island Brewery sits right along the Columbia, near where the Bridge of the Gods — part of the Pacific Crest Trail — links Oregon to Washington. Head brewer Brian Perkey said the brewery uses municipal water and pays for it.

But for Perkey, the main issue is not water.

“I see no place on this green Earth for water in a plastic bottle,” he said. “Why would I want to support people putting water into a plastic bottle for profit?”

Does he fear that clean water will sell better than hopped up water in cans and bottles?

Bottled water has the fewest manufacturing impacts of any beverage in a small container, and does great social good without doing any social harm. There can be good reasons for disallowing a particular water bottling plant in a particular place, but the argument that the product is intrinsically evil is not one of them. I'd much rather live next to a water bottling plant than next to a pig farm, a chicken coop, or a feedlot.