Irony, anybody?
Under severe drought since last summer, Raleigh, N.C., may run out of water by June, according to a press release from the city government.
Meanwhile, each day 400,000 gallons of city tap water (estimated) goes into a bottling plant and comes out as a brand-name bottled water, Aquafina. Under drought restrictions, that equals the daily water consumption of more than 11,000 people.
More below the fold.
Pepsico's Aquafina is not the only brand-name water to originate at the tap, as CNN viewers learned when the company admitted the source of its water last fall. Coca-Cola's Dasani is another. Even without a drought, the value to taxpayers in this business seems dubious.
Critics charge the bottled water industry adds plastic to landfills, uses too much energy by producing and shipping bottles across the world and undermines confidence in the safety and cleanliness of public water supplies, all while much of the world's population is without access to clean water.
But industry observers said such opposition is unlikely to drain U.S. sales of bottled water, which reached 2.6 billion cases in 2006, according to Beverage Digest. The industry newsletter estimated that U.S. consumers spent about $15 billion on bottled water last year. "Consumers have an affection for bottled water. It's not an issue of taste or health, it's about convenience," the newsletter's publisher, John Sicher, said.
Recently adopted "Stage Two" water restrictions in Raleigh will affect some businesses, notably landscapers, car washes, builders and restaurants. Lesser restrictions have been in place since August. Citizens have been advised to take 5-minute showers and try to keep total personal water use under 35 gallons a day.
Meanwhile,
The [bottling] company has ordered hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of equipment that it expects will save up to 10 million gallons of water a year, but such savings will be offset by expansion. Pepsi's goal is to increase the capacity at its plant by 7 percent in 2008, which will require 11 million gallons of additional water.
A councilman from neighboring Durham who was originally reported as calling for for a boycott over the matter has told the News and Observer that he didn't actually go that far.
"I don't do boycotts," Brown said at a Thursday council meeting.
But Brown said he's glad his criticism of Pepsi Bottling Ventures helped draw attention to the issue of large users of Falls Lake water. Durham does not draw from Falls Lake but does rely on water from reservoirs upstream of the lake.
On Thursday, he held up a bottle of water given to him before the meeting. It was called "Aqua Bull," a reference to Durham's Bull City nickname. The label read "refill with tap water."
Meanwhile, the News and Observer story on the bottling plant for some reason uncharacteristically led off almost like an editorial -- purpose, pooh-pooh the flap over the bottling plant.
The region's punishing drought has made Pepsi Bottling Ventures in Garner a favorite punching bag. The company, which does not rank among the Raleigh water system's top five users and which uses less than 1 percent of its water, has been painted as a villain by some residential customers, green-thumb types and even a Durham city councilman -- whose city supplies no water to Pepsi at all.
Move along here, nothing to see. Wait a minute, "Does not rank among the top five?" Uh, actually, it just happens to rank No. 6. "Uses less than 1 percent?" Uh, actually, uses more than the entire municipal government.
The lead sounds like someone on the business side of the News and Observer maybe lunches with someone from Pepsico. But the reporter did his job -- the information is in there.
RALEIGH'S 10 BIGGEST WATER CUSTOMERS
between July 1, 2006, and June 30, 2007. 1. N.C. State University 2. State of North Carolina 3. Ajinomoto 4. Wake County 5. Mallinckrodt 6. Pepsi Bottling Ventures 7. City of Raleigh 8. WakeMed 9. UDRT of NC 10.Town of Holly Springs
(By the way, Ajinomoto is food processing. Mallinckrodt is pharmaceuticals.)
It's also true that
The company...employs more than 400 people in Garner and at its Raleigh headquarters...
Water bills are secret in North Carolina, but
...Brown, the Durham councilman, said the company draws 400,000 gallons a day from Falls Lake and bottles it as Aquafina. Reimer declined to respond to Brown's assertion, other than to note that Pepsi accounts for less than 1 percent of the water distributed by Raleigh, which has averaged about 40.6 million gallons a day over the last month.
If correct, at 35 gallons a day, that's enough water for the household use of some 11,428 individuals.
Next?
Raleigh is currently drawing up its next stage of rules, dubbed Stage 3, although those may not target Pepsi directly.
Mayor Charles Meeker said the next likely targets would be large office buildings, apartment buildings and other locations where the tenants are not paying the water bill directly.