For many topics in modern American society, wisdom can be found in the words of Benjamin Franklin. For example, the Founding Father is credited with saying, “When the well’s dry, we know the worth of water.”
That seems pertinent as lawmakers consider a bill that would limit the rights of bottling companies. Senate Bill 6278, which passed the Senate by a 28-20 vote on Monday, would ban bottling companies from extracting groundwater. Republican Sens. Ann Rivers of La Center and Lynda Wilson voted against the measure; Sen. Annette Cleveland, D-Vancouver, voted in favor.
The legislation is part of a national battle over bottling companies being approved to take water from public or private landholders and then selling it back to consumers. Several states and numerous municipalities have considered laws to curtail an industry that sold about 14 billion gallons of bottled water in 2018 and is continuing to grow.
Sen. Reuven Carlyle, D-Seattle, who introduced the Washington bill, told Stateline.org: “I was jolted to the core to realize the depth and breadth and magnitude of how they have lawyered up in these small towns to take advantage of water rights. The fact that we have incredibly loose, if virtually nonexistent, policy guidelines around this is shocking and a categorical failure.”
Interestingly, according to environmental group Food and Water Watch, about two-thirds of bottled water in the United States comes from municipal taps. The Washington bill would not prevent companies from buying and selling tap water, but instead focuses on water from natural sources.
Mary Grant of Food and Water Watch said: “As water scarcity is becoming a deeper crisis, you want to protect your local water supply so it goes for local purposes. (Bottled water) is not an industry that needs to exist.”
That increasingly is the stance of municipalities. In Randle, a town of about 3,000 residents in eastern Lewis County, discord erupted last year over a proposed Crystal Geyser operation. Some residents worried the company’s plans to pump 400 gallons a minute from local springs would deplete the local aquifer and dry up wells. A leaked email then revealed the company’s plans to sue a nearby subdivision and launch an underground public relations campaign.
Concerns seem well-founded. In 2016, Crystal Geyser paid a timber company for access to a spring that provided water for the city of Weed, Calif. The city had to find a new water supply.
Meanwhile, in Hood River County, Ore., a 2016 ballot measure was passed to ban the construction of a Nestle bottling plant that would extract more than 100 million gallons a year. And lawmakers in Montana, Michigan, Maine, Florida and elsewhere have tried to legislate a balance between the rights of residents and the rights of corporations.
None of this should be surprising. Since the beginning of civilization, control of water rights has been essential to economic potential as well as citizens’ survival. There is a reason cities are almost always built around water.
In the case of the Washington bill, critics argue that the issue should be decided at the local level. That assertion has some merit, but it also carries some danger. Privatizing a commodity that is essential to the common good can have dire consequences.
The Legislature would be wise to establish limits ensuring that the public has protections from a profit-driven industry. And consumers would be wise to use refillable bottles and get their water from the tap.
We’re guessing Ben Franklin would approve of that approach.
