Tax on Water Bottlers

[O3H]

Nestle should pay 5 cents per gallon to produce bottled water using the Great Lakes as a resource unique to Michigan.

http://bit.ly/ProduceBottledWater

Residents want infrastructure, but not the tax hikes involved

[bust]

Nestle should pay 5 cents per gallon to produce bottled water using the Great Lakes as a resource unique to Michigan.

http://bit.ly/ProduceBottledWater

Residents want infrastructure, but not the tax hikes involved

I hope that passes.

If not I hope Michigan at least places a moratorium on expanding pumping for bottled water to look at whether it makes sense for the State to be giving away this vital natural resource for free.

More info on the proposal:

Bill would hit Nestle with $20M annual state bottled water tax
http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/...water_tax.html

For context:

Why Nestle pays next to nothing for Michigan groundwater
http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/...to_nothin.html

Nestle wants more Michigan water
http://www.freep.com/story/opinion/c...ater/98696462/

[Meddle]

Note that the second poster knows how to post a link safely without using a Libyan domain name.

[JBMcB]

I don't have a problem with the tax, but why would it go to the state of Michigan? I was under the impression that counties handle groundwater withdrawal fees.

[DetroitNightLights]

How come we only have a bottle deposit on carbonated beverages. Don't water bottles pollute just the same as pop and beer bottles?

10 cent deposit on water and juice bottles should be a thing.

EDIT: Now I'm getting a bunch of banner ads on Dyes for water purifiers.

[Jimaz]

Note that the second poster knows how to post a link safely without using a Libyan domain name.

That's an interesting observation.

You can replace "bit.ly" in the URL with "bitly.com" if you want to avoid Libya.

The Bitly Wikipedia article explains a bit more about what's happening here. If you append a "+" sign to the URL, it will show you to where it redirects without actually redirecting you. It also shows a bar graph indicating how many people used the link at what times [[in UTC).

---

Oh, er, water. I did recently hear an ad for Nestle on the radio listing all the wonderful things they do for Michigan.

Also heard in April of this year: Nestle is allowed to pump 150 gallons of H₂O per minute by paying Michigan only $200/year. And they want more.

If my math is right, that works out to 3,945 gallons per penny.

That's one thirsty corporation!

[bust]

Also heard in April of this year: Nestle is allowed to pump 150 gallons of H₂O per minute by paying Michigan only $200/year. And they want more.

If my math is right, that works out to 3,945 gallons per penny.

That's one thirsty corporation!

Jimaz, just a point of clarification. According to the articles above, Nestlé was until earlier this year allowed to pump 150 gallons of water per minute from each of their wells. They have 4 wells. That's 600 gallons of water per minute. They pay $200 per well per year to do that. So $800 per year total.

Then they petitioned the state to increase what they can pump to 400 gallons per minute per well. That went to court and the final decision was they can now pump up to 218 gallons per minute per well. Their total legal allowed limit is now 872 gallons per minute. That's 1,255,680 gallons per day, and 5,729 gallons per penny!

However the congressman who sponsored the tax proposal says Nestlé pumps 1,100,000 gallons per day, so I guess they're averaging a little less than their legal limit from their wells: around 191 gallons per minute. That's 5,019 gallons per penny.

In any case, thirsty indeed! Or is Michigan at risk of going thirsty?

[ABetterDetroit]

This is a no brainer revenue generator especially when it is coming from a republican in this state.

What is reasonable that won't chase the jobs away still might need some figuring out but $200 annually is insanity.

Diversify the taxes as much as possible. What Michigan has been doing with property taxes has chased businesses and educated/skilled citizens out of state long enough already.

[Jimaz]

Jimaz, just a point of clarification....

That's 1,255,680 gallons per day, and 5,729 gallons per penny!

...

In any case, thirsty indeed! Or is Michigan at risk of going thirsty?

Thanks for the update.

Now I'm wondering what the markup is on the bottled water they sell back to us! Yikes!

[O3H]

For those not familiar with the internet, its international !!!
https://bitly.com/pages/about

Don't like bitly.com - don't click, it's as simple as that

I don't discriminate against religions or countries.
There are about 200 countries around the world, all with humans.

[O3H]

The state says 49 companies bottle water in Michigan.
Fresh Water is in extreme short supply world wide
http://www.j.mp/2poYDfw

http://michiganradio.org/post/why-it...ttled-and-sold

There are advantages to shortened URL's

[JBMcB]

Note that the second poster knows how to post a link safely without using a Libyan domain name.

A domain name is like a phone number. You punch it in and it connects you to another phone. It used to be that phone was in a certain physical space, but that isn't the case anymore. It's just a number identifying a route for a phone call to go to. That number could route to anywhere in the US.

The domain name system works similarly, but it could be anywhere in the world. The Libyan government controls the .ly top-level domain. All that means is that, to register an address, you pay the Libyan government some money and it's registered. Usually the government has nothing to do with it, they outsource the management to some third party company and collect a portion of the money generated. Usually this is around $50.

Now the IP address that the domain name points to can be, literally, anywhere in the world. It could be your company's private server farm in it's offices. It could be a co-located server farm in some data center in New Jersey. It could be a virtualized server farm spread across data centers all over the world, and every time you hit that address you connect to a different server farm.

Short version: I can almost guarantee you that the bit.ly address does not go to a server in Libya. If you are concerned that you are supporting the Libyan government, then yes, bit.ly probably gives them $50 a year for a domain name. Enough to buy a few reams of paper.

[O3H]

Some of us had computers since the 1980's. We built our own.
We learned MS-DOS 1.0, machine code for 8088 processors, etc.
The TCP/IP internet language became second nature to us.

If you don't like my posts, with pictures, diagrams, links, etc.
- go read some other thread, I'll continue to do - what I do.

Michigan is extremely unique, we have fresh water in abundance.
I like it, write about it, kayak on it, snowshoe on the crystalline form.

[Wesley Mouch]

All this talk about tax, but no talk about why?

Seems like greed is the reason for taxing water. We deserve the money. As we watch all the federal money flow elsewhere, I understand.

The only other motivation for taxation is because the supply of water is limited, or there's a damage that degrades our state.

So I'm curious. Is the supply limited? Or could 300 more companies start pumping?

Or are we just interested in erecting what are in effect tariffs on our Michigan goods?

[DetroiterOnTheWestCoast]

All this talk about tax, but no talk about why?

Seems like greed is the reason for taxing water. We deserve the money. As we watch all the federal money flow elsewhere, I understand.

The only other motivation for taxation is because the supply of water is limited, or there's a damage that degrades our state.

So I'm curious. Is the supply limited? Or could 300 more companies start pumping?

Or are we just interested in erecting what are in effect tariffs on our Michigan goods?

Maybe people just think that we shouldn't be giving away natural resources for free to multi-billion dollar conglomerates

[O3H]

Water/Sewer INFRASTRUCTURE is badly needed in Michigan.

Should you as a resident pay for it, or should bottling corporations ?
Those that take water and sell it for profit, should pay a tax, simple.

See first initial post # 1 , click on the link.

[Meddle]

Short version:

I know why. I know the purpose is to hide the true URL which can be highly deceptive.


I find people that use them to be untrustworthy.

[Meddle]

Water/Sewer INFRASTRUCTURE is badly needed in Michigan.

That seems to be your sole mission in life, or at least on this board. It seems to be the only thing you post about.

Might I suggest another hobby? Or at least a puppy?

[ABetterDetroit]

All this talk about tax, but no talk about why?

Seems like greed is the reason for taxing water. We deserve the money. As we watch all the federal money flow elsewhere, I understand.

The only other motivation for taxation is because the supply of water is limited, or there's a damage that degrades our state.

So I'm curious. Is the supply limited? Or could 300 more companies start pumping?

Or are we just interested in erecting what are in effect tariffs on our Michigan goods?

Goverment needs to be funded, acknowledging that simple fact is not "greed". Pretending that funds don't need to be raised through taxes is a ridiculous waste of time.

The "no new tax" mentality does nothing but leave the archaic ones we currently have increased to a point that they do exactly what you are referring to and make Michigan extremely uncompetitive with many other states.

Spread the tax pain far, wide and thin instead of fighting some stupid ideology battle endlessly and constantly rigging the deck with winners and losers why other states continue to eat right off our plate.

[O3H]

Meddle - I go with what I know, what I research, and what I like.
Clean, fresh, pure drinkable water, at all times, is a worthwhile pursuit.
I'm not an architect or tour guide or cheerleader of Detroit.
I do not hate Detroit, went to Wayne State in late 1980's.
Really don't give a shit about TV sports, or viewing via stadium seat.
I hike, bike, kayak, snowshoe, i.e I do outside sports, not watch.

Corporations need to pay taxes, and we need to close loopholes.
Government for the people, by the people. Educated voters needed.

[archfan]

All this talk about tax, but no talk about why?

Seems like greed is the reason for taxing water. We deserve the money. As we watch all the federal money flow elsewhere, I understand.

The only other motivation for taxation is because the supply of water is limited, or there's a damage that degrades our state.

So I'm curious. Is the supply limited? Or could 300 more companies start pumping?

Or are we just interested in erecting what are in effect tariffs on our Michigan goods?

Yes, the water in the area is limited, and Nestle seems to be sucking up* quite a bit of it. One use of the taxes would be to counteract the effects of removing that much water from the area.

I can't walk into a national forest to cut trees for my firewood. Why should Nestle be able to take as much water as it wants for free? Taking public natural resources for the benefit of a single company requires some sort of payment by that company back to the public.

* the article introduced me to my new favorite phrase: leaky aquitard.

[313WX]

That seems to be your sole mission in life, or at least on this board. It seems to be the only thing you post about.

Might I suggest another hobby? Or at least a puppy?

In all fairness, he's not wrong about the state of Michigan's infrastructure.

[Dumpling]

Thank you for advocating for the infrastructure.

Recently I went to Costco and bought a 40 pack of Nestle Ice Mountain
for work. [[I am still here though some coworkers and contractors are working diligently to eliminate my position so your hard-earned
sewerage ratepayer dollars can be used for infrastructure instead of employees.)

The bottled water is located in the back of the store on pallets.
Nonetheless every fourth Costco customer or so bought a package
of bottled water. Even though it is an inexpensive drink, it is far
more expensive than the water that comes out of the tap.

[[To be honest with you all I think the Ice Mountain tastes better than
my tap water at home which has metallic flavors in it lately. But I still drink the tap water at home. Here at work coworkers are somewhat concerned about cross-connections and pressure problems and drink bottled water in preference to the tap water. They boil the tap water
if that's all there is.)

So is this a paradox? What are our cost vs. quality preferences?
Currently it seems to be our best value to buy a forty pack of bottled
water for drinking each month and reserve tap water for general use.

I will also put out there that I am not in favor of increasing Nestle's
fees. In my opinion having a relatively inexpensive good tasting
bottled water is a good thing for those of us who dislike drinking
the tap water.

If a Nestle well is causing problems for the area it is in, then it
should be closed down.

But, three out of the four customers were not buying the bottled
water.

[O3H]

PUR makes a damn fine faucet filter. Used it for years in Warren.
- Change the filter as specified, some just stop, some have a light, etc.
A layer of "biofilm" will eventually occur, it's inevitable.

The four most common types of bacteria in drinking water include:
-Sphingobium, -Xenophilus, -Methylobbacterium, and -Rhodococcus.
These are mostly harmless, found in soil, on leaves, and in lakes.

YOU do have bacteria in you, in your gut. Don't worry about it.
We are chemical creatures. Bacteria is how our bodies function.

PUR water filters use activated carbon made from coconut shells because its pores are even smaller than other types of carbon filters. As a result, a faucet-mounted filter from PUR will remove chlorine; pharmaceuticals and chemicals; heavy metals such as lead and mercury; and other organic compounds that can give water an unwelcome taste and odor. However, it leaves mineral ions such as fluoride, calcium, and magnesium, which are good for the body and even improve the taste of water.

To keep even MEDDLE happy
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4385770/

[One Shot]

How about just going to the faucet with your old water bottle? With the exception of a few places aren’t we supposed to have some of the best around? And you can’t beat it for the price!