The World in a Bottle

We used to all just drink tap water, didn’t we? To answer this question you would have to be older than 30, because if you are younger than 30, bottled water has been a norm throughout the better part of your life.

When the bottled water craze showed up it arrived with the stamp of “healthy,” which it may well be comparatively, because making water easy to carry with you meant you would drink it instead of other beverages that were, and are, often laden with sugar and synthetic colors and flavors. Did marketing create the trend, or did demand lend itself to the marketing of it—this I do not know, and at some point there was probably a symbiosis.

The bottled water phenomenon brought the need for frequent hydration into view. Water began to circulate in this way hand-in-hand with more individuals taking up fitness routines, and even with people recovering from substance addictions. To have something stylish and accessible to sip on throughout the day became much more glamorous and validating of this human need than placing a glass under the tap. And people were questioning the quality of their tap water, but I forget if the majority of people were questioning it before the bottled water craze or because of it…

Quenching thirst with designer bottled water reached a point when it was utterly in vogue. Being handed a bottle of water at the start of a business meeting, while getting your nails done, or while in the bleachers watching a sports game with friends has become “hospitality in a bottle.” For some, dismay about plastic trash—something I personally worry over a lot—has taken the shine off the bottled water industry, and there is a movement of people carrying their own reusable, and sometimes biodegradable containers, for their water needs. But sales of bottled water are still extremely strong, and new companies continue to spring up, some adding vitamins and flavors to the water; sales have probably grown in spite of some people steering away from plastics.

I have sometimes wondered about the sources of the bottled water. “Hospitality in a bottle,” like money, does not grow on trees. And even if it did, the trees would need to be watered. As the population and global economy continues to expand so that isolated communities are rare, the recognition of our planet as supporting interconnected systems—ecological, social, economic—becomes clearer, or rather harder to ignore in terms of the way withdrawals at any point in any of these systems can mean deficits at another point or in another integrated system.

I just read an article by Alison Vekshin in Bloomberg News that was also republished in The Salt Lake Tribune: “Nestlé Bottled-Water Plan Draws Fight in Drought-Stricken Oregon.” The first paragraph explains: “Nestlé SA’s plan to bottle Oregon’s spring water is stoking a fight with lawmakers and environmental activists who say a corporation shouldn’t be allowed to profit from a natural resource as drought spreads across the state.”

In this case, the environmental crisis prompting the outcry is not the plastic bottles but water scarcity plaguing most of the state, and the possibility of harming species dependent on the watershed. Also, the social implications of water when it is made a commodity, and not one being used to quench the thirst of the residents of the region, is being debated.

The Nestlé Waters Pacific Northwest website offers these comments, and more, in the company’s defense. “Nestlé Waters proposes building a bottling plant in Cascade Locks to better serve customers in the Pacific Northwest and to bring economic opportunity to the region.”

A study of a bottled water operation, from cradle to grave as they say, could probably serve as a microcosm study of the points of contact that impact our world today. Especially since the commodity is water, something that should flow ever in a vital cycle such that the cradle and the grave concept make little sense.

Below are a few more excerpts from the Bloomberg article to consider.

In Oregon, Nestle approached officials in Cascade Locks, a town of 1,235 along the Columbia River, in 2008 with the idea of opening a bottling plant that would tap water from the city’s Oxbow Springs and bottle it under its Arrowhead brand.

Water Swap

Because the city didn’t own the rights to the spring water, it had to negotiate an arrangement with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife at Oxbow Springs. Under the plan, Cascade Locks is seeking to swap some of its well-water rights for the ability to tap the spring. The Oregon Water Resources Department will issue a preliminary decision on the proposal this summer, spokeswoman Racquel Rancier said.

Lininger and eight other lawmakers sent a letter to Oregon Governor Kate Brown last month saying the deal circumvents a public-interest review and should be considered carefully in the wake of the drought.

“We question the merit of transferring Oregon’s public-water rights so a corporation can bottle and sell our water,” the lawmakers said. “As water becomes increasingly scarce and sought-after in the West, we should not enter lightly into a deal to extract it.”

Bark, a Portland-based environmental group, is considering filing a lawsuit if the state approves the deal, said Amy Harwood, the group’s executive director.

Nestle would have to comply with water restrictions during droughts, David Palais, natural resource manager at Nestle Waters North America Inc., said in a statement.

‘Responsible Steward’

“We are also concerned about drought and how it affects families, farmers, consumers and businesses,” Palais said. “We are committed to being a responsible steward of the water resources we use.”

The deal would bring a 250,000-square-foot, $50 million Nestle bottling plant to Cascade Locks, whose unemployment rate is 18.8 percent, said Gordon Zimmerman, the city administrator. It would increase property-tax collections by 67 percent, he said.

“Every city sells water for residential and commercial use,” Zimmerman said. “This is no different. It’s a city using a resource that it has to generate jobs and economic development.”

The city gets 80 inches of rainfall annually and isn’t being affected by drought conditions, he said.

That’s not the case in other parts of Oregon, where 34 percent of the state is facing extreme drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Brown on May 22 declared drought emergencies in eight counties, adding to the seven already designated this year.

“The majority of our state is parched due to the warm winter and lack of snow,” Brown said in a statement.

Please feel free to leave a comment below or e-mail me at [email protected] with your thoughts.