Nestl� Waters Canada plan to tap aquifer worries Elora, Ont., residents

The easiest way for people to stop things like this from happening is to stop buying "fucking bottled water".

I'll bet if you went through every house in Elora you'd find at least one sealed bottle of water per. So, it's likely just another case of: when the water is taken from someone else it's okay but, FFS don't take it from us.

The larger issue is whether a private company ought to be able to freely extract a public good and sell it back to the people. I think, when it comes to water resources, most people would say "no, they shouldn't". Without clearly defined property rights, we get the Tragedy of the Commons and, for that, the people of Elora are rightly concerned.

Nestle pays the people of Ontario a royalty of $3.71 per million litres of groundwater they remove, which is almost the price that it sells a bottle of just one litre back to the same people.

Do the math - That is a ONE MILLION times mark-up. Whoever says government (a Liberal government nonetheless) isn't busienss-friendly should give their head a shake. There's no way a private wholesaler would let another company mark-up their product by 10,000%. The wholesaler would instantly jack their prices to get a bigger cut of the action.

The whole bottled water business is racket - they take groundwater or even municipal water at heaveily subsidized or ridiculously low rates for next to nothing, keep all the profits, and burden uss with the litter and recycling of the empty bottles (not to mention the pollution associated with production and transportation and recycling).

And the general public, ignorant to the world as they usually are, will have a shit fit if they can't have ther bottled water, for what they think is a "cheap" price.

Water is the commons. Simple.

If some corporation wants to privatize this, follow the European model: 90% of profits go to the people who own the commons.

Trust me I agree. We've got the same company doing the same thing out here and it's bullshit. At some point this company is going to drain the Elora aquifer and then what? With no water the town dies and the company moves on to another aquifer and does the same thing over and over and over again to other communities.

All because people are to lazy, stupid or uncaring enough to stop buying bottled water that's in reality no better than what comes out of their tap from the same companies they vilify.

Apparently in BC the royalty is even lower.... less than $3 per million litres?

Yup the price is $2.25 per million litres. So, given that they can make 2 million 500ml bottles of water out of that $2.25 and sell it for around a buck a bottle I'd say the return on their investment is pretty good and actually even better than they'll make from Elora.

But, our pointy headed leader has said her gov't will look into the price of water so, I fully expect the price per million litres to rise exponentially to somewhere around the $2.26 per million litres range.

Fuck Nestle. It's unfortunate a boycott of them seems unlikely to stir any change at all in those Randian sociopaths.

Nestle built a huge water bottling plant here in Sacramento and even though we're in a drought and every water user (business, personal, and municipal) are supposed to reduce water usage by 25% Nestle is exempt.

Don't let the bastards into Canada.

Yup the price is $2.25 per million litres. So, given that they can make 2 million 500ml bottles of water out of that $2.25 and sell it for around a buck a bottle I'd say the return on their investment is pretty good and actually even better than they'll make from Elora.

But, our pointy headed leader has said her gov't will look into the price of water so, I fully expect the price per million litres to rise exponentially to somewhere around the $2.26 per million litres range.

If BC were to actually sell water to Nestle, rather than an "administration fee
NAFTA would kick in and we'd have to sell our water to the highest bidder with no ability to limit for conservation purposes. Municipalities would also have to bid for their water, I believe. We certainly don't want to go down that road. At the moment the aquifer Nestle is using near Hope is replenishing itself, so there's no problem. As we're not actually selling the water to Nestle, afaik, we can cut them off anytime if the water starts running low. The only problem is with the sell any resource at any cost to keep taxes low crowd in power in Victoria, who may not be willing to act if necessary.

There's still a problem in that the peotof BC are still getting short changed, basically only getting one millionth share. And that cut doesn't take into account the cost of litter and recycling attributable to bottled water.

What are pop and beer producers charged for their water? Doubt it's any better. How about the litter and recycling costs attributable to those drinks. For some reason people get bent all out of shape about bottled water while ignoring the far greater presence of those other drinks. Me I'd rather drink water than pop or beer. When I'm out and about, buying bottled water seems the only way to do so.

AS for charging more for the water, read what I wrote above. The same problem applies to other large water users like agriculture.