Nothing to see here!
Larry Mantle, host of
AirTalk on KPCC, had two high-profile guests on his show this week–NASA's Jay Famiglietti, who has been making the media rounds to sound the
alarm on California's increasingly desperate water shortage and Nestlé Waters North America CEO Tim Brown.
The topic was the business of bottled water in California, where Nestlé pumps tens of millions of gallons of water which is bottled and sold nationwide. It's difficult to say exactly how much water they use, cities like Sacramento, where tap water is sold to be packaged as bottled water, don't even keep track how much is being shipped away for bottling.
When asked whether Nestlé would follow the lead of Starbuck's and move their bottled water operations out of California, Nestlé Waters North America CEO Tim Brown gave a surprising response:
“Absolutely not. In fact, if I could increase it, I would.”
He went further:
"If I stop bottling water tomorrow," said Brown, "people would buy another brand of bottled water. As the second largest bottler in the state, we’re filling a role many others aren’t filling. It’s driven by consumer demand, it’s driven by an on-the-go society that needs to hydrate. Frankly, we’re very happy [consumers] are doing it in a healthier way.”
Brown did discuss some of the new water-saving methods of production Nestlé would be using at other plants, such as the plan to switch to
"zero water" production at their Modesto, California milk factory:
Work is underway to transform the Nestlé USA milk factory in the city of Modesto into a ‘zero water’ factory, meaning the plant will not use any local freshwater resources for its operations.
The project should save nearly 63 million gallons (238,000 cubic metres) of water each year, equivalent to 71% of absolute withdrawals in 2014.
A smart move, but not enough says
Jay Famiglietti:
Famiglietti, who teaches Earth system science at UC Irvine in addition to being NASA JPL's top water scientist, says Nestlé has a strong reputation when it comes to environmental stewardship. But he says bottling water still takes 30 to 50 percent more water than turning on the tap, and he's concerned companies like Nestlé or Starbucks might be using and bottling thousands of acre-feet of water in California.
Famiglietti warns that while it may not seem like much, it's more than a drop in the bucket.
“An acre-foot [nearly 326,000 gallons] is enough water to supply an entire family for a year. So, in this time when we’re being asked to flush our toilets less and less, we have to ask the question: Is this really an environmentally, ethically correct thing to be doing right now?”
With no end in sight for the
historic drought in California, residents need to be asking tough questions about the value of shipping such a precious commodity out of the state for the enormous profit of worldwide corporations. At a minimum it seems as if stricter regulations and monitoring need to be implemented right away. You can hear the entire interview with Famiglietti and Brown
here.