Message in the Bottle: Drink Tap

A proposal for a new resort complex on Belleayre Mountain, near drinking-water reservoirs in New York's Delaware and Catskill watersheds, worries Julie Shultis, an area resident. "It seems that the local politicians are trying to push this through, but the local people don't want it," Shultis says of the resort's Wildacres and Big Indian Plateau developments, citing local environmental impact and population growth as top concerns. About 100 miles downstream, the resorts could also impact the residents of New York City, 90 percent of whose drinking water comes from these watersheds, says Robin Marx, a scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

"This project is huge, we think the largest ever developed in the Catskills, with 1,300 parking spaces and 772 housing units" on what is currently forest land, Marx says. Sited in Catskill Park, the resort plans to treat its own sewage in two privately owned plants, which may not get adequate governmental oversight. And storm water running off a ridge may wash synthetic pesticides and nitrate fertilizers off two proposed 18-hole golf courses into the water supply. During these times of heightened terrorist alert, as citizens are urged to aid drinking-water security by reporting "people dumping or discharging material into a water reservoir," it's no less important to guard against the far more commonplace threat of contaminated runoff from development and agriculture (see "Why Fast Food Costs Too Much," GG #93).

Unfortunately, news of contaminants found in some drinking-water systems (see list of contaminants in "Three Simple Steps to Clean, Safe Drinking Water") has led many Americans to automatically mistrust what flows from their taps, whether or not they know if it's polluted or pure. Rather than learn the condition of their public water, more and more people are buying bottled. According to a 2001 World Wildlife Fund report, 54 percent of Americans regularly drink bottled water, consumption of which, worldwide, increases an average of 12 percent a year and costs up to 1,000 times more than tap. In another growing trend, some city governments are privatizing their water supplies. But this can raise consumers' costs, too. In the face of the increasing tendency to pay more for privatized or bottled water, concerned citizens and activists such as Shultis and Marx are working to defend our right to clean drinking water.

Following are some challenges they are facing and actions they are taking.

Water Privateers

Due to budget deficits and intensive lobbying from water companies, U.S. cities face increasing pressure to let private companies manage public water supplies, including water treatment and sewage lines, for promised savings. Atlanta, Chattanooga, Houston, Peoria and San Francisco, among others, have privatized all or some of their drinking water. The consumer pays either directly to the company, if it controls the whole system, or the utility, if only portions of the system are privatized. Atlanta's experience with United Water, a private subsidiary of French multinational water company Suez, shows one downside: Under the company's control, quality worsened to a point that consumers were warned to boil water before drinking. Although United's contract extended for 16 more years, the city dissolved the agreement in April 2003.

While public utilities can and do shut off water, private companies can make nonpayment more likely by raising the cost of water without much oversight or accountability. In South Africa in 2001, companies shut water off to the poor who couldn't pay. In 2000, public demonstrations in Bolivia forced privatizer Bechtel to abandon operations there after they doubled the cost of water. (Other multinational privatizers include the French companies Suez Universal and Vivendi, and Britain's RWE/Thames Water.) In Pekin, Illinois, in 1981, rates shot up over 200 percent after Illinois American, a subsidiary of American Water (owned by multinational RWE/Thames), acquired the private water contract from a small local company, Pekin Water Works. Residents of Felton, California, who had seen their water rates quadruple before privatization, then faced a request for an additional 57 percent under the management of the privately owned California-American Water Works.

"Who should manage our water is a moral decision," says Sara Ehrhardt, national water campaigner for the Council of Canadians, a citizens' watchdog organization. "Private companies have to be responsive only to shareholders." Yet water is not a product the poor can live without. Countering the WTO's and NAFTA's listing of water as a "good" or "service" like any other, Representative Jan Schakowsky (D., IL) has put forward a Congressional resolution for water as a human right (see Take Action, sidebar).

Environmental and Health Impacts of Bottled Water

"Anytime you buy spring water marketed by the big companies, you're supporting the lowering of lakes and rivers around the spring," says Jim Olson, lawyer for Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation (MCWC), in speaking about Ice Mountain, owned by Nestlé, which had pumped 210 million gallons (or 400 gallons a minute) annually from a spring near Mecosta until a judge ordered them to stop last December. Following an appeal, they are now pumping 250 gallons a minute. At the original rate, Dead Stream, fed by the spring, would experience a 24-39 percent reduction in flow, and at two lakes water levels would drop 3-6 inches, according to David Hyndman, Ph. D., a local hydrogeologist. He also notes that a projected drop of two inches in water level would stop Great Northern pike from spawning on a stretch of Dead Stream, dry out wetlands and kill off indigenous peat. "And there has already been a reduction in flow and water levels," says Terry Swier, president of MCWC. Michigan's legislature is now considering a comprehensive water-protection strategy that would restrict withdrawals.

In addition to such environmental harm in watersheds, bottled water causes more water to be used in making bottles. Producing one kilogram of PET [#1] plastic requires 17.5 kg of water and results in air emissions of hydrocarbons, sulfur oxides, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and carbon dioxide. And non-recycled plastic bottles can wind up right back in our watershed's streams and lakes, like salmon returning to spawn, in ever greater numbers. Whether there'll be enough water left for real salmon is anyone's guess.

Nor is bottled water always as healthy as manufacturers' marketing claims depict: In India, where sales increase 50 percent annually, recent testing found pesticides in some bottled waters. NRDC found the neurotoxins toluene and xylene and the possible carcinogen and neurotoxin styrene among other toxins in close to one fifth of the 103 bottled waters they tested in the U.S. Unhealthy chemicals can leach from plastic bottles into our water as well (see "Plastic Water Bottles").

Watershed Protection

In 2000, the EPA found that 39 percent of the nation's rivers they tested were polluted, along with 45 percent of lakes and 51 percent of estuaries. Where does pollution come from? In New York, according to James Tierney, the state's watershed inspector general, polluted runoff "is broadly accepted as being by far the largest source of pollutants currently entering the New York City Watershed," which consists of the Catskills/Delaware and Croton reservoirs. This runoff, coming mostly from housing and industrial developments, includes a wide variety of contaminants, but the main problems are:

• sediments that interfere with New York's chlorination process,
• nutrients from sewage and farms, such as phosphorus and nitrogen,
• toxic petroleum products and methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), a fuel additive in gasoline,
• pathogens such as Cryptosporidium and giardia, which are resistant to chlorination,
• heavy metals such as lead and mercury,
• and other toxic organic compounds, such as polychorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and dioxin.

The expense of building filtration plants to clean up this runoff are exorbitant: such a project would have cost New York $6 billion, had the city and state not implemented a largely successful program to protect the Catskill and Delaware reservoirs: The state earmarked $270 million in 1997 to acquire and preserve undeveloped areas in the watersheds. However, New York remains under EPA orders to build a $1.3 billion plant for the Croton reservoir by 2010-11.

At present, all 8 million New York City dwellers get their water unfiltered by treatment plants. And the city's water quality rates very well: In 2002, the only problems were an off color in Croton reservoir water on seven days, probably due to sediment, and excess iron and manganese on one day in the Catskills/Delaware reservoirs. The city therefore recommends not using tap water for baby formula, which already contains these two minerals.

In addition to preserving open space around reservoirs, which will "forestall or prevent further degradation in the future," according to Dave Tobias, director of New York City's Watershed Land Acquisition Program, the state supports sustainable farming and forestry. A Whole Farm Planning program introduces farmers to precision feeding to reduce manure (and thereby nitrogen and phosphorus), and fences off pastureland from streams. To encourage consumer support, Amy Kenyon, a program manager for New York State's Watershed Agricultural Council, is helping to create a "Pure Catskills" brand to promote the products of local farms, a directory of which should be released by May. Relying on man-made products like water deflectors, as well as natural filters such as the forest floor and tree roots, to prevent erosion, the forestry programs reduce silt and sediment that harm fishing and carry pathogens into the water supply. Conservation easements are being used to lock in sustainable agricultural or forestry land uses.

Streams are being restored to mimic their natural meander and reduce the amount of sediment entering the water from flash flooding. The state is also working to keep human waste out of the water by repairing septic systems, extending sewer lines to septic "hot spots" and upgrading all wastewater-treatment plants. They are also working with conventional farmers to keep pesticides out of watersheds.

Finally, where new development cannot be avoided, storm-water pollution plans limit the amount of impervious surfaces, such as asphalt and concrete, which increase runoff into reservoirs. Developers must show that no more phosphorus will flow off the land following development than before. On Long Island, New York, the Pine Barrens credit program converts pre-existing development rights in sensitive environments, such as watersheds, into credits for use in higher population areas.

Elsewhere in the nation, there are other interesting options for preserving watersheds. Seattle is pioneering what it calls street-edge alternatives, or "SEA streets," in its residential neighborhoods, improving its roads and drainage with curvilinear designs and swales to mimic pre-development conditions. Similar programs are also in place in Boulder County, Colorado, and Montgomery County, Maryland. But "for growing cities across the country that are just now establishing or protecting their wellheads and aquifers, the lesson is to do it effectively the first time," Tobias says. "You can always sell off resources later, but it's much harder to buy them back."

As Ben Franklin said, when the well's dry, we know the worth of water.

Resources

"Bottled Water Product Report"

"Why Bottle Water?" E. Magazine, Sept./Oct 2003

"Bottled Water" report, Natural Resource Defense Council

"Appropriating the Water," Worldwatch, Jan./Feb. 2003

The New Economy of Water, Pacific Institute

Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation

New York's Watershed Agricultural Council

Campaign for Safe and Affordable Water