Upstream | December 13, 2009 | 22 comments

Millions of Taxpayer Dollars Flow to Bottled Water

source: http://www.stopcorporateabuse.org/millions-taxpayer-dollars-flow-bottled-water

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JanforGore
States in the Northeast have set aside or spent between $228,874 and $527,107 a year for bottled water, according to a new report Getting States Off the Bottle released today by Corporate Accountability International. The states surveyed include four Northeastern states: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont and Pennsylvania – all known for their high quality tap water.

The findings come as public water systems face a $24 billion annual shortfall, and during financial times where states can ill afford to be spending public dollars on such a non-essential use of an essential public resource.

“Not only is the spending patently wasteful at a time when states can not afford unnecessary expenses, but it broadcasts the absolute wrong message about our high quality tap water,” said Connecticut State Representative Richard Roy, Chair of the House Environmental Committee.

Roy is one of hundreds of public officials nationwide that are now calling for taxpayer dollars to cease flowing to bottled water. In 2008, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, representing more than 1200 mayors, passed a resolution encouraging mayors to phase out city spending on bottled water. To date, more than 100 cities have taken action to cut spending on bottled water or support public water systems as well as three states, including Illinois, Virginia and New York.

Governors and mayors are stewards of public water systems, responsible for overseeing budgets that provide the overwhelming majority of public funding for this essential public service. But the need for greater investment in these systems is growing rapidly, while public fundings for these systems languishes.

A major cause of the gap in funding has been the marketing and promotion of bottled water. Marketing campaigns, such as Nestlé’s Born Better, have convinced one in five people to believe the only place to get clean drinking water is from a bottle. And as public confidence in tap water has waned, so too has the political will to invest in public water.

“Swift action by governors to cut bottled water spending can be a strong first step in restoring public water systems and the public’s confidence in them,” said Kelle Louaillier, executive director of Corporate Accountability International.

After all, up to forty percent of bottled water sold comes from the same source as tap water. Tap water is also more highly regulated than what comes in the bottle.

Public education campaigns like Think Outside the Bottle are, however, restoring confidence in public water systems. A recent Harris Poll found that 29 percent of people switched from bottled to tap water in the last year. An overall decline in the North American bottled water market reflects this shift in behavior and attitude toward the tap. However, state action is still lagging. While each state profiled in the report has taken some steps to allocate funding towards water infrastructure – such as dedicating funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to water systems – even these steps are a drop in the bucket compared to what will be needed to close the gap.

“During these tough economic times our states need to be thinking, ‘we should only spend scarce public dollars on projects that grow the economy at large not just the bottom line for a handful of private corporations,’” said Louaillier. “Investment in public water is, in this respect, one of the wisest investments we can make.”

According to a U.S. Conference of Mayors report, every dollar invested in public water generates more than six for the economy at large in the long term.

For the full report visit www.StopCorporateAbuse.org/GettingStatesOffTheBottle
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22 comments // Millions of Taxpayer Dollars Flow to Bottled Water

  • Bren589
    • 0
      Bren589  

    • I see so many at our local Krogers store buying bottled water. I can only think to myself , What a waste of money. and the inpact it has on on our environment. I will not buy bottled water because of the damage it does to our environment and the fact that its such a waste of money.

    • 2 years ago
  • PressCore
    • 0
      PressCore  

    • There's a Bruce Springstein song called One Step on and 10 Steps Back that reminds me of the yuppie idea of buying bottled water. The plastic could only be worth 5 cents, (though it can't be redeemed) and the dollar you pay for the water is your dollar lost. If you could taste pure distilled water you'd have to be dreaming, because H2O is tasteless. You might like the taste of bottled water because of what it has in it depending on where it comes from, but water is water. And so long as it's filtered properly to remove the sewage and other contaminants, it's still essentialy the same. I have to laugh at people who have money to burn in buying a container for 20 times it's recyclable oil value though. Waste not, want not. They could instead be buying some organic fruits and vegetables, processing them through a juicerator, and getting naturaly pure water, and their minimum daily requirements of other nutrients for the same price. A fool and their money are soon parted. This kind of bullshit is what happens when Constitutional money is abandoned in favor of fiat money. You'd never see anyone from the old West buying water. But when it's held that money can be created out of thin air instead of time, essential work, and precious metals being considered money, this is the kind of human folly that ensues.

    • 2 years ago
  • realnevadagal
    • 0
      realnevadagal  

    • Not exactly. If you check on your local community budget their money comes from selling either "impact fees to hook up to water" or the fees to build a home. With our budget the way it is how do we expect each local govt to survive without those fees? Are we willing to go say without "snowplowing" during a huge storm to make up the difference? What will we trade? Should we shut down government all together? Or make it the "provider" of all?

    • 2 years ago
  • realnevadagal
    • 0
      realnevadagal  
    • Image

    • I used to think I knew what to do.... fight like the blazes to keep our sweet well. I went to every meeting about water in our area and organized and fought like a dog.... only to be attacked by those in power. Now we barely hang onto our home and get over since I shut my mouth. I don't want all the additives either. I find myself allergic to many. But, now without health insurance or money who can prove anything... and what difference did it make in the end. NONE. They build more houses... the houses sell... and the water goes to the fountains in front of them. Now we get "blended" water from the arsenic mining wells that are some of the most contaminated when we live at the base of one of the most historic beautiful mountains in the world and had underground uncontaminated sweet water. If you couldn't feel safe here... where can you feel safe. This is the view out my window and what my water supply used to look like.

    • 2 years ago
  • good_stuff
  • EdJoyProductions
  • realnevadagal
    • 0
      realnevadagal  

    • Let's not jump on any bandwagons yet! When our sweet fresh water well at the base of Mt Rose on the side of Lake Tahoe was sucked dry by the "Government Production Water wells" in the name of providing public water to new growth we had to start drinking "bottled water" and cooking with it most of the time. There is no "purification" system that will take out the putrid hard arsenic type smell and flavor in the water our system delivers to us. I get cramps and the runs when I drink it. So before we all decide to chastise us for drinking the water in bottles... let us think. Because in our area it is Illegal to use your well after they suck you dry they force you to hook up. And, if you fight them they try to find every possible way to force your home to be condemned or foreclosed on. This isn't just happening in Nevada. It is a nation wide corruption of our system. I have spoken to people in many states where the governemnt is dependent on the "growth impact fees" and especially in this time of "do anything to keep our system going like it is" there will be no change. The only full time with benefits jobs are for government or construction... so they are king. To hell with the rest of us.

    • 2 years ago
  • JanforGore
  • ryan8566
  • QuestionGeek
    • 0
      QuestionGeek  

    • This story would never fly on the Southwest coast of USA. Cause everyone knows how awful the tap water in southern california, and nevada is

    • 2 years ago
  • slimpunk
  • nhall6
  • ii386
    • 0
      ii386  

    • I couldn't understand how one could buy a product knowing that there's a 1000x markup on it. The profit margins on bottled water are sickening.

    • 2 years ago
  • JanforGore
  • lifestudentno83
    • 0
      lifestudentno83  

    • Bottled water is horrible. The water isn't purified for contaminants, it's entirely too expensive, the bottles are not environmentally-friendly, and worst of all it's really nothing more than filtered tap water. So people are expected to pay taxes to make this crap that pollutes our environment and can be taken freely from a tap? This is outright ludicrous.

    • 2 years ago
  • realnevadagal
    • 0
      realnevadagal  
    • lifestudentno83:

      If you think bottled water stinks try smelling what comes out of my tap after the local Water Resource dept forced us onto the tap. There is no system in the world that will make the flavor or smell go away... but, we get a nice pretty flier showing us how they meet all the requrements... ha ha ha... after they sucked the sweet sierra nevada's fresh water right out from under us.

    • 2 years ago
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  

    • csmonut thanks for the "rant" ;-) as I was just going to edit my last comment to add that about what is allowed to be sprayed on our food and spewed in our air in the first place, including ROUND UP. The connection between industrial agriculture and what we are finding in our water to begin with is undeniable. If we stop this at the SOURCE and actually move to sustainable agricultural practices we would then also cut down on the amount of pesticides and toxic substances found not only in our water, but on our food. Connecting the dots is crucial to fixing this problem at its source. Holding polluters ACCOUNTABLE and refunding SuperfFund would also go a long way to stopping this blatant treating of our water supply as an open sewer. And also, the new way to pollute our water, "fracking" needs to be investigated as well. Oh yes, and EPA, STOP MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL.

    • 2 years ago
  • csmonut
    • 0
      csmonut  

    • All of the reports coming out in mainstream media about how contaminated the water supply is in the US appears to be geared toward the big business end end of water sales.
      In other words...let's tell people their water supply is contaminated with all sorts of crap so botlled water sellers can keep their profit margines up.
      Yes, there are contaminants in just about every water source in the US. Pesticides, herbicides, anti-biotics, excessive nitrates...and the list could go on.
      However, many of these chemicals are in the parts per billion, and many of them ARE NOT removed in the bottles water process.
      But...and this is a BIG BUT....no one talks about the crap in our food supply. No one talks about how the crap gets in our food and water supplies.
      Wouldn't want to actually give the people the info they need to make informed decisions.

      Reverse osmosis, the method used to make bottled water from your tap water, is readily available at most Home Depots, etc. in the form of a 1 or 2 gallon tank, a couple of filters and a little spout.
      These are not expensive! The local Home Depot sells them for around 100 to 150 dollars. Consider what you pay for a bottle of water, and then consider how much water you can get from an under-sink filtration system.
      No more plactic bottles thrown away in landfills. You can use refillable water bottles.
      Cripes! people can be really ignorant.

      OK...I have had my morning rant:))

    • 2 years ago
  • JanforGore
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  
    • Image

    • http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/pubs/reports/take-back-the-tap

      Don't just lament about the state of your water. Take it back. Companies like Nestle are preying on communities to steal their groundwater to put it in plastic bottles for profit. And in many cases they are extracting billions of gallons a day during DROUGHTS. This is beyond immoral and greedy, but the more you believe your tap water is not drinkable the stronger they become. You have the power to stand up to them as many communities from Maine to California have already done to protect their public trust and their economies and call for funds for infrastructure to upgrade old systems. How much in taxpayer dollars are going to the Nestles of the world while your state's basic services are being cut? It is insanity.

      And to DC: Stop giving billions to war and start giving it to water.

    • 2 years ago
  • JanforGore
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  

    • And you can be sure companies like Nestle are now in Copenhagen pushing that bottled water is better than tap even though it is environmentally destructive and immoral. However, the deception is that many pollutants are also found in bottled water and their plastic packaging while the bottled water industry which pulls in just as much as the pharmaceutical industry has less regulation than municipal systems. The best way to enjoy tap water if you feel wary of it is to boil it first, place it in containers and drink it cold. Don't listen to the hype about all of our tap water being toxic.There are pollutants in tap water but that only means you as a citizen must fight to keep corporate control of your water out of your neighborhood. Privitization of our public trust and human right is what is causing those systems to lose quality while rates continue to increase. Call for municipal control of your water systems and kick the Nestles out. They like the Monsantos of this world care for one thing and one thing only, PROFIT.

      You can keep up with the current water news from bottled water to climate change to our spiritual connection with this liquid of life here:

      http://current.com/groups/water-is-life/

      Thanks!

    • 2 years ago
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