Leora Broydo Vestel, New York Times, July 17, 2009 - Evian’s roller-dancing babies may have masses of adoring fans, but companies that sell bottled water have been getting quite the collective spanking of late.
Bottled water makers, it seems, are under seige. The Environmental Working Group, which found chemical contaminants in tests of bottled water, has begun calling for more oversight of the bottled water industry. Proponents of low-carbon lifestyles , meanwhile, are urging consumers to eschew bottled water and fill up reusable bottles with tap water instead.
Restaurants have started to pull bottled water from their menus, and cities like Toronto are delivering chilled, dispensable drinking water to public events so people won’t have to buy it.
Last week, members of Congress grilled manufacturers of bottled water about the safety and environmental impacts of their products, while a small town in Australia reportedly became the first in the world to ban bottled water entirely.
And Representative Earl Blumenauer, a Democrat from Oregon, splashed more cold water on the industry this week by introducing legislation that would tax bottled water companies and other businesses that turn profits from products containing municipal water or contribute to water pollution.
Money raised through his Water Protection and Reinvestment Act would go into a “trust fund” for water system infrastructure upgrades.
The bill includes a four cent per container tax on beverages comprised mostly of drinking water, and a 0.15 percent tax on corporate profits over $4 million for companies that depend on drinking and wastewater infrastructure to do business (a tax rate equivalent to the cost of a large pizza ($15) for every $10,000 in corporate profits, a summary of the bill) notes.
“Drinking water systems are, in effect, providing the major input to their competitors (bottled water companies),” the summary states. “In addition, the containers end up in the wastewater stream. The beverage makers should help pay for the systems they rely on.”
Joseph Doss, the president of the International Bottled Water Association, told members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce that “Bottled water companies, like other food industry companies, are trying to do whatever they can to reduce their environmental foot print,” he said.
He also argued that bottled water represents only one-third of 1 percent of the United States’ waste stream. As such, “Any efforts to reduce the environmental impact of packaging,” Mr. Doss said, “has to focus more broadly on all consumer goods.”
In addition to the ideas floated in Blumenauer’s bill, the federal government could raise $1.3 billion annually by levying a water use tax of 0.01 cent per gallon on corporations, according to a report issued this week by the Government Accountability Office. The agency also found there’s likely to be resistance to such proposals.
“Industry groups were consistently opposed to a tax on their specific product groups to support a clean water trust fund,” the GAO report notes. “In their view, their products did not contribute significantly to the deterioration of wastewater infrastructure and, therefore, should not be taxed.”
Indeed, as Mr. Doss states on the I.B.W.A. Web site, the organization “opposes singling out and imposing a tax on water-based beverages. Like all other commercial users, water bottlers pay a pre-determined rate for the use of that municipal water. It is unfair and inequitable to single out water-based beverages, including bottled water, from a myriad of other food and non-food industries and manufacturers in the U.S. that use municipal water.”