(HOST) Commentator Willem Lange has been thinking about a vital resource, and pondering the question: Who owns the water we drink, and how do we keep it safe?
(LANGE) Some months ago the Montpelier Spring Water Company approached our selectboard with a proposal to sell water from a large spring in East Montpelier. In response, townspeople petitioned for a moratorium on the proposal so its environmental impacts could be evaluated and legislation enacted to define the status of groundwater; specifically, is it the landowner’s property, or a public trust?
Opponents argued that existing state laws were adequate to protect natural resources, and would guarantee responsible extraction.
Perhaps the most compelling argument was made by the former town moderator, who stated, not without evident regret, that he no longer trusted government at any level to protect us, and that local efforts were most likely to do that. The resolution passed easily. I was interested to note that several citizens who voted for it were cradling bottles of water.
Equally interesting is the separate debate about the impact of bottled water in general. Its use has become a fad; many people carry bottles with exotic labels as if they were fashion accessories.
The advertising for bottled water is no doubt extending the life of its popularity, but it’s devoutly to be wished that it ends soon. Because it’s not safer than tap water; regulations governing its purity are less stringent than those for municipal water supplies. The bottles may after several weeks of storage leach chemicals into the water – chemicals limited in tap water, but (thanks to lobbying by the industry) not in the bottled variety. The energy required to produce, package, and ship it adds significantly to global warming pollution. And only about 13% of the plastic bottles are recycled. Billions of them end up in landfills.
It’s also difficult to determine where a bottle of water has come from. Some company logos suggest high mountains and fresh-flowing streams. "Pure glacier water from the last unpolluted frontier, bacteria free," claimed the ads for an Alaskan bottled water company which apparently drew its water from a municipal system. If you ever encounter pure glacier water, I guarantee you won’t drink it unless there’s no alternative. It’s loaded with sand, gravel, and rock powder. It resembles a solution of milk of magnesia, and often produces the same results.
New England has been described as "the Saudi Arabia of water." There’s something to that. Yet someday even Saudi Arabia will be out of oil. And though popular wisdom says our aquifers will never fail, we have to remember that not long ago popular wisdom claimed there were so many old-growth white pines we’d never cut them all. Have you ever seen one? It’s critical we protect our water now, from its sources to the sea. Billions of people in the world don’t have access to safe water. Never think it couldn’t happen here.
This is Willem Lange in East Montpelier, and I gotta get back to work.