Imported Bottled Water

Environmentalists have been concerned about bottled water. They say it wastes
plastic and uses a lot of fuel to transport it. But one group points toward a certain type of
bottled water that’s more wasteful than others. Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Environmentalists have been concerned about bottled water. They say it wastes
plastic and uses a lot of fuel to transport it. But one group points toward a certain type of
bottled water that’s more wasteful than others. Lester Graham reports:


Some bottles of water travel farther than others. Imported bottled water is growing in
popularity. Jon Coifman is with the Natural Resources Defense Council. He says
bottles of water imported from Europe or the south Pacific use a lot of energy in the
containers and shipping:


“It’s a bottle that gets pumped out of the ground, put into a plastic bottle made from
oil, shipped across the ocean on a boat that’s burning oil, trucked to a retailer, using
more oil. All of that for a sip of water you could be getting out of your faucet.”


Coifman and the NRDC acknowledge that bottled water can be convenient. But
they’re trying to persuade people that because of its environmental impact, bottled
water should not be appearing on the dinner table every night, no matter how trendy
the import.


For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

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Bottle Laws Expand to Water

Most states don’t have bottle deposit laws. Some of those states that do have the laws are expanding them to include deposits on bottled water and other beverages. Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Most states don’t have bottle deposit laws. Some of those states that do have the laws are expanding them to include deposits on bottled water and other beverages. Lester Graham reports:


When Ed Solomon drives up in his delivery truck, he’s not just taking
in cases of soda and other beverages:


“Most every stop we go to as we deliver products, we take the empties
out, and the crates also. But, WHOOO! Yes. Sometimes there’ll be a
lot of empties at various stops.”


Solomon delivers Faygo beverages in Michigan. That state has the
nation’s highest deposit on bottles and cans: ten cents each. And
whether it’s Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Budweiser or Miller, if distributors
drop off product, they have to pick up the empties that people bring
back for the deposit refund.


Of the ten states that have bottle deposit laws, some are adding the deposit requirement to new beverages such as bottled water.
Forty other states have no deposit law at all.


Johnny Georges operates the convenience store Stadium Party Shop in
Ann Arbor, where Ed Solomon is dropping off new product and picking up
the empties. If the law in Michigan is expanded, it would mean Georges
and his employees would have to take in a lot more kinds of empty
bottles and cans.


“I think it’s going to take a little space in my opinion because there
are so many waters out there, so many juices, so many other brands.
So, it’s going to take a little space. Hopefully we’re going to
organize it as usual. And… we’ll see.”


Not everyone is that receptive to the idea. Beverage distributors and
major grocery chains are lobbying hard against expanding the deposit
law. Distributors don’t want to hassle with picking up the empties.
Major grocery chains say they don’t like the mess of people bringing
empties into the stores. They don’t like losing floor space to make
room for bottle and can collection areas. The bigger stores also have
to invest in bar code scanners to automatically count and sort the huge
volume of empties being returned.


A lot of small stores like Johnny George’s don’t have the fancy
equipment. Here, Georges just set aside a neatly organized area where
it collects and sorts the bottles and cans. He says he knows that an
expanded bottle deposit law would mean a little more hassle, but he
doesn’t mind:


“I like the new law. I hope they pass it. That takes a lot of trash
out of the street. And it’s good for the environment in the meantime.”


And Georges isn’t the only one who thinks it would be good for the environment.
Polls show a large majority of people support the idea.


James Clift is with the environmental group Michigan Environmental
Council. He says it’s time to expand the law to other containers.
When the bottle law was written 30 years ago, beer and soda pop cans
and bottles were the biggest concerns.


“But since then, bottled water, tea, other beverages, energy drinks,
we’ve got a whole new set of drinks on the market. And they’re a
larger and larger segment of the market to the point they may become
the majority of the market in the next five to ten years.”


Clift says his state needs to catch up to the changing market, but the
majority of the states don’t require a deposit on cans and bottles at
all. And Clift argues, you can tell when you’re traveling in one of
those states:


“You know, because you see all the trash along the roadways, you see
trash cans filled with bottles and cans and it just seems so unnatural
for someone who grew up in Michigan, you know, to throw away a bottle
or a can. Luckily, we’ve been programmed to know that that has value
and has other uses.”


So people there bag or box up their empties, take them to the store, the
stores can sort them and guys like Ed Solomon can take them back to be
recycled:


“It’s hectic, yes, it really is, you know, to deal with these empties.
Yeah, but, that’s the law I guess.”


And if the can and bottle deposit law is expanded to, and other drinks, as it has been some states, more distributors
and grocers in Michigan will find the job a little more hectic… while
40 other states do little to nothing to reduce the number of cans and
bottles headed for the landfill.


For the Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Church Boycotts Bottled Water

  • Coffee hour at Knox United Church in Ottawa, Ontario. The church no longer serves bottled water. (Photo by Karen Kelly)

The latest census found the average American drank more than 23 gallons of bottled water a year. For a lot of people, bottled water is just a part of everyday life. But members of one church are arguing it shouldn’t be. Karen Kelly talked to a minister who’s helping to spread his church’s message:

Transcript

The latest census found the average American drank more than 23 gallons of bottled water a year.
For a lot of people, bottled water is just a part of everyday life.
But members of one church are arguing it shouldn’t be.
Karen Kelly talked to a minister who’s helping to spread his church’s message.

When he was growing up, Reverend Andrew Jensen lived just two blocks from a sandy beach on a
large river. But on a lot of hot days, the beach was closed because of pollution. And when it was
open, his parents were afraid to let him swim there. He says that early experience really made
him appreciate water.


“To have all of that there, to have your parents worry you can’t really touch it too much because
you might get sick… It was really disappointing. You know, you grow up on an island and you
can’t go in the water!”


Now, Reverend Jensen preaches about water. He’s the minister at Knox United Church, a
Protestant church in Ottawa, Canada.


(Fade in sounds of sermon)


“Again and again you have shown your grace to us through water… cleansing of the earth through
the flood… the exodus of the Red Sea, flowing from the rock of the wilderness…”


It’s Baptism Sunday, and Jensen is standing in front of the congregation. He’s extending his arms
over the baptismal font. The service is about the sacredness of water, the idea that it’s a gift from
God meant for everyone. Which is why the idea of bottling and selling water really bothers
Jensen.


“Water really is something we believe is a shared resource and we have to keep on sharing it. And
the more we chop it up into little bits and try to make a profit off of it, the farther we are getting
away from that basic human connectedness and from a religious perspective, that basic sense that
this is something that God has given us that’s for all of us and not just for people.”


A few months ago, the United Church of Canada officially called on its members to avoid drinking
bottled water. The campaign is part of a growing grassroots movement among churches to tackle
some of these issues on their own – in part because the federal government is backing away from
them.


For Jensen, preaching about water means talking about the dangers of it becoming a product.
The more people buy it in bottles, he says, the less attention might be paid to the public drinking
water system.


Plus, church leaders point out that the water in the bottles is often taken right from the tap – for
free – by the companies that sell it. And of course, there’s the issue of where all those bottles go
when we’re done with them.


Not surprisingly, the bottled water industry is not too happy about this campaign.


Elizabeth Griswold is executive director of the Canadian Bottled Water Association. She says the
United Church should focus its energies elsewhere.


“We don’t understand why any church would single out an industry that uses comparatively so
little water – our members use two-tenths of one percent of all groundwater taken in Canada, and
by focusing on the bottled water industry, we are missing a chance to develop long term
sustainable solutions.”


(Clinking cups)


(Congregant: “Coffee or tea, Ma’am?”)


Back at Knox United Church, members help themselves to coffee, tea and pastries. The church no
longer hands out bottled water at events. But it’s hard to tell how much of an effect the boycott is
really having.


The people who say they still drink bottled water refuse to go on tape.


But Sophia Doole and others say the church’s action has changed their behavior.


“Motivation-wise, I think it’s respect for the environment, respect for our own bodies and what
we’re putting into it and also respect for our own church and what they believe and to do to our
best to be guided by them.”


Reverend Andrew Jensen says he’s had calls from people, saying, ‘The church is against bottled
water? What kind of stupid stand is that?'”


That’s when Jensen explains that it’s really not about bottled water. It’s about clean water for
everyone – to drink, to share, and even to swim in.


For The Environment Report, I’m Karen Kelly.

Related Links

Think Globally, Drink Locally

Some people have been looking at our relationship with water from a completely different perspective. Commentator Cameron Davis suggests how we might re-define our relationship with the water around us:

Transcript

Some people have been looking at our relationship with water from a completely different perspective. Commentator Cameron Davis suggests how we might re-define our relationship with the water around us:


Something really different came across my desk not long ago. A company called H2Om was introducing and selling the world’s first “vibrationally charged” bottled water. According to the California-based company, its bottled spring water would be the first ever to be infused with the “power of intention through words, music, and thought.” Inspired by the work of Japan’s Dr. Masaru Emoto showing that water reacts positively to positive emotions, H2Om’s water from underneath the San Diego Mountains is professed to be bottled with “love” and “perfect health.”


Interesting thought for a bottled spring water company. Part of the problem with bottled water is that when you buy it, you rarely know whether your money is supporting a company that’s damaging to the source of the water.


Ecological damage aside, there’s the issue of cost. According to The Green Guide, Americans pay 240 to 10,000 times for bottled water what they’d pay for tap water. But, here in the Great Lakes region where I live, water is plentiful and consistently ranked as some of the best for drinking in the world. Bottled spring water shouldn’t be selling for those prices here, right?


Wrong. Even though bottled water is so much more expensive, and with the risk of harming the source of the water, we’re drinking just as much bottled spring water as anyone, if not more.


I have a proposition: think globally, drink locally. If you get your water from a community within a certain watershed, drink that water. You’ll be doing your part to support “homegrown” water. If you’re nervous about tap water quality, filter it and check out your municipality’s Consumer Confidence Report for water testing results.


As long as we’re drinking water from someone else’s back yard, we don’t seem to have to care for it as much. At the end of the day, maybe H2Om has a thought. But rather than paying to infuse someone else’s water with someone else’s love, let’s love and drink our own.


Cameron Davis is the president of the Alliance for the Great Lakes.

Related Links

Michigan Puts Cap on Water Withdrawals

In the Great Lakes region, Michigan is the last state to pass laws that protect the Lakes from large-scale withdrawals. The GLRC’s Mark Brush has more:

Transcript

In the Great Lakes region, Michigan is the last state to pass laws to
protect the Lakes from large-scale withdrawals. The GLRC’s Mark
Brush has more:


More than twenty years ago, the eight Great Lakes states pledged to
protect the Great Lakes from large scale water diversions. But until now,
Michigan officials never put a cap on how much water could be
withdrawn.


Mike Shriberg is the director of the Public Interest Research Group in
Michigan – an environmental advocacy group. He says it was especially
important for Michigan to pass these laws since the state is nearly
surrounded by the Lakes:


“Michigan needed to establish a precedent here saying we’re taking care
of our own water that we’re actually setting limits on who can use our
water, before we really had good standing in any regional debates over
diverting Great Lakes water as a whole.”


The new laws say any new businesses planning large scale water
withdrawals will need to get permits from the state. The laws will allow
bottled water to be shipped out of the region in containers as big as 5.7
gallons.


For the GLRC, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

Ten Threats: Bottled Water Diversion Debate

  • Some bottling companies, such as Besco, sell water, but keep it in the Great Lakes basin. Some others bottle it and ship it out of the region in great quantities. (Photo by Lester Graham)

Experts say one of the Ten Threats to the Great Lakes is water withdrawal. Water is taken from the Great Lakes for agriculture, industry, and public drinking supplies. Lester Graham reports there are many ways that water is used and shipped out of the Great Lakes basin, but few are more controversial than bottled water:

Transcript

Experts say one of the Ten Threats to the Great Lakes is water
withdrawal. Water is taken from the Great Lakes for agriculture,
industry, and public drinking supplies. Lester Graham reports there are
many ways that water is used and shipped out of the Great Lakes basin,
but few are more controversial than bottled water:


(Sound of bottling plant)


I’m watching big clear-blue water bottles, the kind you see on water coolers, are
bouncing along on a conveyer to be washed and then filled with water.
Chuck Swartzle is the President of Besco Water Treatment…


“Uh, we treat it – it’s well water – we treat it, purify it with reverse
osmosis, sanitize it, filter it and bottle it.”


Besco also bottles water in smaller containers, the kind you might buy at
the convenience store.


All of Besco’s customers are within the Great Lakes basin, so the water
will eventually make its way back to the lakes, but some bottlers
distribute water far outside the basin.


One of Pepsico’s Aquafina bottled water plants gets its water from the
Detroit River, which connects the upper Great Lakes to the lower lakes.
Aquafina’s bottled water is distributed inside and outside the basin. That
means Great Lakes water is being trucked away. It’s a net loss of water to the
basin.


That’s not anything new. Water from the Great Lakes basin in the form
of beer from Milwaukee or milk from Minnesota or any of the other
products you can think of that are mostly water are shipped far and wide
and have been for a long time, but some environmentalists say trucking bottled water
away is different. They argue it’s a lot like a recent attempt to take tanker ships
of Lake Superior water to Asia. It’s not like a value-added product that’s made
from water, it’s just water.


Bill Lobenherz is a lobbyist for the Michigan Soft Drink Association.
He says bottled water is a value-added product, just like the many others.


“Indeed, there’s a lot more water in lumber, for example, Christmas
trees, and sometimes a lot less value added to it too. You don’t have to
do that much to cut it and ship it. Cherries, baby food and other non-
consumable products like paint. What about the water we have to put in
the automobile radiators? I really don’t know that there is a distinction
there. It seems to be more of a misplaced perception than it is any kind
of environmental reality.”


“I guess I’m having a hard time getting my head around the difference
shipping water out in a truck-load of bottles and shipping it out by
tanker. What’s the real difference there?”


“I think the difference is that there’s the fear that if it’s by tanker in those
quantities, that it could be abused. If it’s in bottles, it’s really quite
controllable, because there’s so much more value added to put it in small
bottles.”


Not everyone is buying that argument.


Dave Dempsey is the Great Lakes advisor for the environmental group Clean Water Action.
He says the most recent debates about water withdrawals started when that shipping company
planned to take about 156-million gallons a year to Asia. Dempsey says a single new bottled
water plant trucks away even more than that.


“The Nestle’ project, a single project in Michigan that has been sited and
is operating takes 168-million gallons per year. So, the volumes can be
greater in bottles than in tankers.”


But that’s still not that much water compared to other uses.


According to figures in a report by the Great Lakes Commission, the
cities and industries around the Great Lakes withdraw more than 43
billion gallons a day. Much of it is used and returned to the lakes, but
nearly two billion gallons a day is lost. It’s not returned to the lakes
because it evaporates or it’s incorporated into products. Two billion
gallons a day makes the Nestle’ bottled water plant’s 168-million gallons
a year seem minor.


But Dave Dempsey argues there’s a more sinister concern. He believes
if water is treated like any other commodity, large corporations that can
profit from it will begin to horde it, and control it.


“You will hear bottled water companies say that they’re just another user
like a farmer or a manufacturer or even a city water supply, but they’re
not because they’re asserting private ownership of a public resource and
if we essentially allow that by not putting controls on the water-for-sale
industry now, I’m afraid the Great Lakes may become the world’s largest
privately owned reservoir.”


A recent agreement between the states and provinces around the Great
Lakes allows bottled water to be shipped out in bottles as large as five-
gallons, but some environmentalists say that’s a slippery slope. They say
corporations will soon be asking why just five gallons? Why not 55-
gallon barrels? And then, tankers.


The bottling industry says the environmentalists are making a big deal
out of nothing, and would do better spending their time teaching
everyone to conserve water better instead of complaining about someone
in another state quenching their thirst with a bottle of water from the
Great Lakes.


For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Diversion Debate Focuses on Bottled Water

  • Some consider shipping bottled water to areas outside the Great Lakes basin a form of water diversion. (Photo by Cris Watk)

Governors throughout the region are talking to their constituents about proposed Great Lakes water rules. They hope to have the so-called Annex 2001 rules ready to go by the end of the year. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta reports that bottled water has entered into the diversion debate:

Transcript

Governors throughout the region are talking to their constituents about proposed Great Lakes water rules. They hope to have the so-called Annex 2001 rules ready to go by the end of the year. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rick Pluta reports that bottled water has entered into the diversion debate:


Michigan just concluded its final public hearing. The state’s grappling with the potential impact of a growing bottled water industry, and the question of whether shipping bottled water should be considered a diversion of Great Lakes water.


Michigan Congressman Bart Stupak’s district touches on three of the Great Lakes. He says the simplest solution would be to simply ban any use that allows significant amounts of water to be moved out of the Great Lakes basin, whether that’s by ship, pipelines, or bottles.


“As we move towards a growing population worldwide, by 2025, water will be the most sought-after commodity in the world. We’d better have our act together, have one standard, and let’s ban the sale or diversion of Great Lakes water.”


But business groups are lobbying for less restrictive rules. They say water bottling has a tiny impact on the Great Lakes, and tight restrictions will hurt business development in the region.


For the GLRC, I’m Rick Pluta.

Related Links

Interview: Carl Pope Criticizes Bush Administration

  • Carl Pope is the Executive Director of the Sierra Club. (Photo courtesy of the Sierra Club)

As the political campaigns get into full swing this presidential election year, the environmental record of George W. Bush is being scrutinized. The big environmental groups are very critical of the Bush administration. In the first of two interviews about the Bush White House approach to environmental protection, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham talks with the Executive Director of the Sierra Club, Carl Pope. Pope and the Sierra Club are critical of the Bush administration’s record on environmental protection:

Transcript

As the political campaigns get into full swing this presidential election year, the
environmental record of George W. Bush is being scrutinized. The big environmental
groups are very critical of the Bush administration. In the first of two interviews about
the Bush White House approach to environmental protection, the Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Lester Graham talks with the Executive Director of the Sierra Club, Carl Pope.
Pope and the Sierra Club are critical of the Bush administration’s record on environmental
protection:


POPE: “The biggest environmental problem this country faces right now is the policies of this
administration. It’s kind of stunning too, when you add it all up, just how much damage they
have quietly managed to set in motion in only three years.”


LG: “Now, we’ve listened to folks in the Bush administration who indicate that what they’re
really doing is bringing some balance to dealing with the economic issues the nation faces and
how it relates to the environmental issues that we face.”


POPE: “Well, let’s look at three trends. In 1980, when Ronald Reagan was President, we began
cleaning up toxic wastes dumps in this country with the Superfund. In 2003, for the first time
because the Bush administration both allowed the Superfund to run out of money and allowed
companies to start dumping new kinds of toxins on the landscape, the American landscape
became more polluted. We started going backwards after 20 years of progress.


1972, under Richard Nixon, another Republican, we made a national commitment under the
Clean Water Act to clean up our rivers and lakes. In 2003, because the Bush administration cut
funding for clean water clean-up and because they exempted large factory feedlots from clean
water regulation, EPA had to report for the first time in 30 years America’s waterways had gotten
dirtier.


And finally, in 1902, Theodore Roosevelt, a third Republican, created Grand Canyon National
Monument. And every president since Theodore Roosevelt left us with more of the American
landscape protected than he found it. And in only three years uniquely, singularly and in the
violation of the entire trend of the entire 20th century, this President Bush has stripped
environmental protection from 235 million acres. It’s an area as big as Texas and Oklahoma that
is now open to development which was protected when George Bush became President. I don’t
think that’s balance.”


LG: “I assume that you’re not all that chummy with everyone in the White House these days….


POPE: “That’s a safe assumption.”


LG: …but I’m trying to get an insight into what you think the thinking might be behind some of
the decisions that the Bush administration makes.”


POPE: “Well, in 1970 we made a national compact in this country. It was a national
environmental compact which was: we were environmental optimists and we believed that as a
nation that we could clean up every waterway, we could modernize every power plant and we
could remedy every toxic waste dump. We said as a nation ‘You know, everybody in this country
is going to have water that’s safe to drink. Everybody is going to live in a community where the
air doesn’t give their kids asthma. And we’re going to take time to do it. The federal government
is going to help everybody. And we’re all going to do it as a community.’ I think the fundamental
problem with that compact from the point of view of this administration is the ‘everyone’ part of
it. They really don’t believe that the community should do very much. They believe individuals
should take care of themselves. If you want to have safe drinking water, get yourself your own
supply; buy bottled water. If you want to breathe clean air, move somewhere where the air is
cleaner. They really don’t believe in the idea that every American ought to enjoy certain basic
environmental amenities simply as a consequence of being an American.


And, I think what motivates them is their concern that if it’s the federal government that
is cleaning up our toxic waste sites, then people will have faith in the federal government. And
they don’t have faith in the federal government. In fact, one of their chief advisors says he wants
to shrink the federal government down to a size where he can drown it in a bathtub. And I think
it’s the fact that the environmental compact in this country was based on the idea of an
environmental safety net for everyone that they find antithetical to their view that we all ought to
be tough, we all ought to be competitive, we all ought to be self-reliant and on our own. And
they don’t like the fact that the environmental compact says wait a minute, we’re all in this
together and we’re going to solve it together.”


HOST TAG: Carl Pope is the Executive Director of the Sierra Club.

Related Links

New Bottling Plant Stirs Water Debate

  • A test well being dug in preparation for the construction of the Ice Mountain bottling plant. Perrier hopes to have the plant up and running by next spring. Photo by Patrick Owen/MLUI.

Is Great Lakes water for sale? That’s the issue on the table in Michigan right now, where the Perrier Group of America has begun construction on a 100 million dollar water bottling operation. Last year, government officials in Wisconsin rejected a similar proposal from Perrier. The Michigan plan has sparked local opposition and more. The start of the plant’s construction has given birth to concerns about whether groundwater in Great Lakes states should be considered part of the Great Lakes water basin. And if it is, some question whether it should be for sale. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Matt Shafer Powell reports:

Transcript

Is Great Lakes water for sale? That’s the issue on the table in Michigan right now, where the Perrier Group of America has begun construction on a 100 million dollar water bottling operation. Last year, government officials in Wisconsin rejected a similar proposal from Perrier. The Michigan plan has sparked local opposition and more. The start of the plant’s construction has given birth to concerns about whether groundwater in Great Lakes states should be considered part of the Great Lakes water basin. And if it is, some question whether it should be for sale. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Matt Shafer Powell reports.


Eight Mile Road in rural Mecosta County, Michigan is one of the area’s busier roads, one of the few ways to get to the interstate. It’s surrounded by thousands of acres of farmland. And at its peak, you can see the Little Muskegon River Valley as it stretches for miles across this point where Michigan becomes Northern Michigan.


(sound of construction)


When Perrier Group Project Manager Brendan O’Rourke saw this stretch of Eight Mile Road, he knew that it would be the perfect place for Perrier’s new Ice Mountain spring water bottling operation.


“Clearly, it’s a beautiful place to live and work, it has abundant natural spring water, the highway system allows for easy access to the marketplace, there’s an available work force and there’s high quality spring water.”


But local resident Terry Swier rarely uses Eight Mile Road anymore. She says it upsets her too much to see the walls of the Perrier plant rising out of what was once a cornfield. Swier is president of the group Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation, a group that formed out of citizen opposition to the plant. Since December, Swier says her group has attracted more than 12-hundred local residents. Most of them are concerned about how local streams, rivers and lakes will be affected by an operation that plans to pump more than 700-thousand gallons of water a day from the ground. But despite her efforts to stop the plant’s construction, work has continued and the plant should be ready to begin operation next Spring.


“It’s just very frustrating how they have the arrogance to say that ‘we can proceed.’ It’s like not even paying attention to the people who are here in the area.”


Perrier officials insist the company has made every effort to listen to local residents and address their concerns. They say they’ve done studies that show the environmental impact will be minimal. And they say the extra 600-thousand dollars a year in tax revenue the plant will generate will go a long way in Mecosta County. Local government officials agree. But Mecosta Township Supervisor John Boyd says he’s more excited by the possibility that Perrier may bring up to 200 new jobs to the area.


“I’ve been to meetings and they say ‘Well, what’s the tax base, what’d you gain on the tax base?’ and I say ‘Hell, I ain’t even looked at it’, because basically, we’re looking for good jobs that sustain people, that will let our kids stay here, stay in the community, and last, we’re looking for a business that will be here tomorrow when we’re gone.”


But construction of the plant and local opposition to it are only the starting points for an issue that has reached far beyond the farmlands of Mecosta County. That’s because the natural springs that lie beneath the ground there feed into the Little Muskegon River, which in turn, feeds into Lake Michigan. Of primary concern to critics is a federal law that requires the approval of all eight Great Lakes governors for any water diversion from the Great Lakes basin. In September, Michigan’s attorney general concluded that the groundwater in Mecosta County should indeed be considered Great Lakes water, and its sale should be approved by the governors. Michigan’s Governor John Engler, though, disagrees on both points and has even offered Perrier nearly ten million dollars in tax breaks. That’s something that frustrates Keith Schneider, of the Michigan Land Use Institute.


“If states are approving diversions of Great Lakes water, they need to consult each other. And the reason they need to consult each other is because we sit on the largest source of fresh water on the planet and this resource is getting ever more valuable. I mean we’re essentially the Saudi Arabia of water here.”


If it’s proven nothing else, the controversy over the Perrier plant has exposed the lack of solid, enforceable groundwater policy throughout the Great Lakes. But in Michigan, that may be changing. In the state capitol of Lansing, various legislative and environmental groups have already begun to unveil their own water control packages—they include everything from the abolishment of tax breaks for companies that bottle water to mandatory assurances that local water quality won’t be sacrificed by those companies. And some groups are calling for a law that would require companies that sell water to pay royalties in the same way that oil and gas companies do now. If it’s ever passed, such a royalty would put a definitive value on water as a natural resource. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Matt Shafer Powell in Mecosta County, Michigan.

Related Links

Quebec Considers Stricter Water Law

Canadians are looking at new measures to ban the export of water. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham has more:

Transcript

Canadians are looking at new measures to ban the export of water. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports.


If it’s passed, legislation in Quebec would prevent the export of water from that province. In a report in the newspaper Le Journal de Quebec, the Environment Minister noted that the North American Free Trade Agreement already bans shipment of water by tank, but since the term “tank” is not defined in NAFTA, the Minister feels Quebec should define clear policy. Under the measure, Quebec would still allow the sale of water bottled in containers of less than 20 liters, about the size of a water cooler jug. It would not allow any large vessels or trucks to carry water away and would also ban piping the water out of the province. Canada has been especially sensitive to water issues since President George Bush suggested earlier this year Great Lakes water could be shipped to more arid parts of the U.S. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Lester Graham.