Ultimately it is being used for drinking water. So I’m not too disturbed that the water is being extracted. It simply needs to not be free. That’s the community’s water. You want some? Pay for it. Hell, given the price of scheme water (not too much), trucking it can’t be that much cheaper than paying Water Corp.
I don’t have such an issue with orchards and farms taking it for free, because they’re turning around and putting it straight back into the local ecosystem. Also, that water is used for growing plants which take carbon out of the atmosphere.
But Coke? They’re taking it, putting it in bottles and removing it from the aquifer system. As though the water was theirs from the outset. It isn’t.
I’ll never understand the general public’s desire for bottled water products. I just dont get it.
But i understand other people have a desire for it, and we have the ability to commercially produce water through desalination.
So why should a business, selling a bottled water product be allowed to take water from ever lower aquifers. A capitalist friendly investment in plant and equipment would remove this as an issue. Increasing the States ability to deal with drought in two ways, by decreasing redirection of groundwater, and by increasing total water coming into the system through the bottled water.
The solution for the State is simple, tell the companies to invest in their own businesses productive capabilities.
Benefits from Governments perspective:
Increased Jobs,
Increased water security,
higher investment ties by businesses to this State,
Easy political sell to the electorate, can bat away any scare campaigns easily due to the other benefits.
Benefits for the Business
Higher level of social license for selling and claim, of ownership of the water in the ridiculous product called bottled water
Secondary markets could be opened up for surplus production allowing the bottled water company to not have to flood the market creating a race to the bottom. (It would be important for an investment of this scale to be used for the maximum productive time it can be per day.) These secondary markets might include construction, farming, LGA’s for local pools or ponds, and State Government.
Desal only for bottled water is a win-win for all. An improvement to the market for water overall.
Of course a privately owned desal plant must be regulated with ongoing inspections. It should go without saying but must be said in our world full of ‘efficiency finding’ MBA graduates.
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