Tax on Water Bottlers

**401don** · October-22-17, 07:54 PM

When I use bottled water, which like most people I do more often than I should, I never feel I'm paying for the water. I've always felt I'm choosing to pay for the convenient packaging.

**archfan** · October-23-17, 02:00 AM

Originally Posted by O3H

...YOU do have bacteria in you, in your gut. Don't worry about it.

Great, now I'm never getting to sleep tonight.

**Wesley Mouch** · October-23-17, 06:09 AM

Originally Posted by archfan

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.

May. Seems.

Thanks for the link. The article starts with 'may', the codeword for we don't know. Its not a terrible article, but it certainly is not proof that water extraction is harmful, nor does it prove that it is not.

I'm glad that the process seems to be reasonable, and Nestle is willing to do additional tests: "To help make its case, Nestle would be "very open" to performing another pump test on the well under direct observation by the DEQ and independent scientists "as long as it's a reputable scientific organization," said Anderson-Vincent."

I'm not opposed to the royalty here. Seems like it is a public resource, and a small royalty seems reasonable.

But I'm certainly not convinced that the existence of environmental scientists who 'are concerned' means anything either.

Good news is there seems to be a reasonable process here.

**O3H** · October-23-17, 08:45 AM

Until fresh water is treated as a precious limited commodity, like gold,it will never be respected, or be perceived as something of value.

**Pat001** · October-23-17, 11:15 AM

Originally Posted by 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!

Water out of the tap via the Detroit water system is as good as bottled water you buy in the stores. That's a plus about Detroit people take for granted.

I live in a suburb where we had a community well. The water tasted/smelled bad and had so much iron in it you needed a water softener and an iron filter to make it drinkable. We switched over to Detroit city water about 20 years ago and the difference was like night and day.

**3WC** · October-23-17, 11:26 AM

What is it about MI that makes it appear to have no common sense at all?

MI should impose rules, regulations and severance taxes on water extraction identical or similar to those imposed on the oil, gas and other natural resource extractive industries.

Also, the surface owner should own all the water under the surface of his land, subject to the law of capture. Whoever obtains the rights from the surface owner to explore for and produce water should pay a severance tax in addition to any negotiated royalty to the surface owner [[or mineral owner, one who obtains the surface owner's rights). I'd love to see a class action lawsuit by landowners against the State for an impermissible taking of the landowner's water ownership.

The State's failure to adopt such policies is an abuse of the public trust and results in the squandering of a public resource.

**O3H** · October-23-17, 07:44 PM

Why anyone would bother paying the abhorrent price of plastic water bottles at any location around town is a mystery to me.

For less than $10.00 you can own a METAL Bottle for a decade.
http://bit.ly/MetalBottleH2O

A complete gallon of water, at home, is like a penny $0.01 [[or less)
Beats the hell out of a Can of Soda, or a Juice Box, etc., etc., etc.
Avoid extra calories, gluten free, diet proven, & delicious every day

**Jimaz** · October-24-17, 04:38 PM

NSFW: Lewis Black: Bottled Water

**O3H** · October-25-17, 01:51 AM

News reports had some places charging $19.00 for a case of water.
Gouging , because of a boil advisory ? Buyer beware !!!

**Jimaz** · December-09-19, 08:38 AM

Boring but on topic and recent:
Michigan STANDS UP to Nestlé, SHUTS DOWN bottling plans.

Is the well of injustice drying up for this corporate parasite?