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by Amber

The Water Wars: Essence of Life vs. Profit

So, how much do you spend a day on bottled water? It might be time to stop buying it and haul it from your tap at home. Rinse out the bottles and refill them, because the sheer volume of bottled water sold in the U.S. becomes corporate profit, which in turn gives them the power to remove your human right to having water to drink or use without paying them for the privilege. Huh?

Sounds like something Hollywood would dream up for an action-packed script, but unfortunately, it’s playing in real time, in the real world. The more you aid and abet the opposition, the faster things you really don’t want to happen will fall into place. You see, there’s a battle going on to control all water. Not just lakes, rivers, and streams, but fresh water from any source. It’s not for your protection. It’s not to protect natural resources from pollution. It’s all about profit and total control. It’s a bad thing for the majority of the US population.

It’s also one of the four things every human needs to survive. Life is possible only when you have plenty of water, enough food, and shelter to protect you from the elements. Modern life adds money to those basic human needs. You can’t live without these, which means you will pay dearly for each and every one of them. A fact that big business is all to aware of. So now, on top of Monsanto working overtime to control seed that produces food for humans and animals, you’ve got bottled water companies taking over water sources, and yes, it appears they’ve got an acronymed regulatory body helping them gain total control.

Water: Big Business Wants To Be Paid for Every DropRight now, the Nestle Company is waging war against residents of the little town of Freyburg, Maine who are concerned about the visibly shrinking streams with the Poland Springs division sucking millions of gallons of water from the pristine aquifer the area is blessed with. Or they were, until this Nestle division began bleeding it for bottling. Check out this video, where Nestle’s CEO expresses his belief that access to water is not a human right, but a foodstuff that should be privatized and be sold because it has value.

Nestle has been sued multiple times by a Freyburg citizen’s group. The corporation has lost and appealed in all of them, with the Maine Supreme Court still finding the verdict in all but the one still pending to be in favor of the citizens. Nothing has been done to halt the draining of the aquifer, and the people fighting for their rights to abundant water are deeply in debt trying to stop the loss of their natural resources.

Meanwhile, there is a bill poised to go into effect that gives the EPA complete control of US waters – all water on or under the ground in the 50 states. They’re not just after the water control, but the land that surrounds it too. Currently, the Obama administration bill is disguised as a protective measure, but this is not the case. The EPA has attacked residential property owners and farmers alike levying massive fines against them to stop building homes, having a pond to water horses, and even establishing control over excess groundwater drained from one piece of land to another.

If you thought being fined or jailed for collecting rainwater was excessive, you’ve not seen anything yet. When farm bureaus and average citizens who see the handwriting on the wall are all in an uproar over the same issue, it’s time to take note of what’s going on. Presently, the bill is still in the comment period. If you like having access to reasonably priced municipal water, the right to have a well for residential water, and access to any fresh water – including in the ditch out front – now is the time to speak up.

As you can see, corporations like Nestle are working hard at making water a private resource you will have to pay for at profitable rates. Now it’s not lake water, stream water, rain water, or well water – it’s a foodstuff you will buy, and they aim to control it all. Not just Nestle, but a herd of large multinational corporations, who think nothing of draining a source and moving to the next one. To them, water is like oil – a commodity.

The value of bottled water is 1900 times more than the same volume from your kitchen sink. The new spelling for water is p-r-o-f-i-t. At about $1 per cup (8 oz./.5 L) x 9.67 billion gallons sold annual (2012) and a steady increase every year – it translates into huge value on a corporate bottom line. How much do you think your garden will cost you to maintain if these interests are victorious?

It isn’t better…

Check out this excerpt from a Forbes article on why minorities buy more bottled water in the U.S.:

Bottled Water Isn't Better: It's A Money Maker

The only thing missing in almost half the brands available is traces of municipal water system chlorination.

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Author

The garden played a starring role from spring through fall in the house Amber was raised in. She has decades of experience growing plants from seeds and cuttings in the plot and pots.