"Fears about water supplies spur opposition to bottling companies"
"by Samantha Young, Associated Press | April 13, 2008
McCLOUD, Calif. - The lumber mill closed five years ago, and so many families moved out that the town can no longer even field a high school football team.
But McCloud is hoping to turn things around by exploiting the other natural resource in abundance along the icy flanks of Mount Shasta - water.
The town of 1,300 people in far Northern California struck a deal with
The project is still awaiting an environmental review from the county and could be several years away from approval, having run into opposition from scientists, fishermen, conservationists, and some members of the community 280 miles northeast of San Francisco.
But others in town are growing frustrated by the delays and want to see something - anything - to replace the lumber mill that was driven out of business by the logging restrictions that have hurt the timber industry across the Pacific Northwest.
Yup, helping a foreign company steal water for profit sounds pretty good to me!
You can always have a beer, 'murkn!
"When they had the mill, this town was jumping," said homeowner Paula Kleinhans. "As soon as the mill closed down, people moved, they lost their jobs, and now there are no children here. It really needs industry here."
Similar disputes are playing out elsewhere around the country as water becomes an increasingly precious commodity - and a major source of legal and political controversy - because of drought, booming population, and the popularity of bottled water.
From California to New Hampshire and Florida, corporate giants such as Nestle,
Running out of food, running out of water, buddy can ya' spare a dime?
Supporters of bottling plants see them as a vital source of jobs and revenue. Others fear that pumping large amounts of water from the ground will drain wells, creeks, and streams.
"It's no longer this limitless resource," said Elaine Renich, a commissioner in Lake County, Fla., where California-based Niagara Bottling LLC wants to pump water from the region's shrinking aquifer. "It's beyond me how you can expect people to conserve water and you turn around and say a water bottling plant is OK."
That's because the ruling elites premise is ALL for US and NOTHING for ANYONE ELSE!!
That's what this whole ENVIRO-MOVEMENT is ALL ABOUT!!!
It's about PUSHING an AGENDA and feeding a bowl of shit to the American people.
Ah, what the hell, goes good with a diarrhea milkshake, doesn't it?
In New Hampshire, residents are trying to block New Hampshire-based USA Springs from pumping more than 300,000 gallons a day from 100 acres it bought.
"They are people who want to bully their way in and take our water," said Barrington, N.H., resident Denise Hart.
Opposition in Wisconsin forced Nestle to abandon plans by its Perrier subsidiary to build a $100 million bottling plant near Wisconsin Dells. In Michigan, about 200 miles northwest of Detroit, residents are engaged in a similar legal dispute against Nestle.
Bottled water is a $10.8 billion-a-year industry in the United States, with demand growing 8 percent a year. California is home to an estimated 40 percent of the nation's 300 water bottling operations.
Under the agreement negotiated by McCloud's sole governing body, an elected board that oversees water, roads, and sewers, Nestle is promising 240 jobs and payments of as much as $390,000 a year, depending on how much water is removed.
You know what, readers? I'd rather my town or county keep the water.
Other than AIR, I can't think of anything more necessary for life.
Fuck the $$$$$!!!!
The company and the board say the town will still have more than enough water for itself.
You gonna GUARANTEE that, are ya? Then GET LOST!!!!
Preliminary reviews have shown that the pumping plant would have minimal environmental effect.
Yeah, pumping the wells dry won't have much of an impact at all.
This is all about RICHERS STEALING WATER for themselves!!!!
Opponents say not enough study has been done. Among other things, they say, it is not clear what the pumping would do to the streams.
Some could become slower or warmer, perhaps harming the trout, scientists say."I wouldn't worry anyway, Americans.
Even if they didn't steal your water, you still wouldn't get any.
As you read this next piece, I want you to keep in mind the TRILLIONS that these OCCUPATIONS are costing us, the BILLIONS Bush gave to the BANKS, and the BILLIONS Israel gets from the U.S. every year.
All that money, and they couldn't find any to fix the pipes?
"Water pipelines across nation breaking; repair costs way up"
"by Colleen Long, Associated Press | April 13, 2008
NEW YORK - Two hours north of New York City, a milelong stream and a marsh the size of a football field have mysteriously formed along a country road. They are such a marvel that people come from miles around to drink the crystal-clear water, believing it is bubbling up from a hidden natural spring.
The truth is far less romantic: The water is coming from a cracked 70-year-old tunnel hundreds of feet below ground, scientists say.
The tunnel is leaking up to 36 million gallons a day as it carries drinking water from a reservoir to the big city. It is a powerful warning sign of a larger problem around the country: The infrastructure that delivers water to the nation's cities is badly aging and in need of repairs.
Uh-oh! Shit water on tap?
The Environmental Protection Agency says utilities will need to invest more than $277 billion over the next two decades on repairs and improvements to drinking water systems. Water industry engineers put the figure drastically higher, at about $480 billion.
Gee, that's about the total cost of Iraq up to the moment. Imagine that!
Bush destroyed America, readers, like he's destroyed everything he's ever touched!
Water utilities, largely managed by city governments, have never faced improvements of this magnitude before. And customers will have to bear the majority of the cost through rate increases, according to the American Water Works Association, an industry group.
So, as you are getting fucked up the ass, 'murkn, you can OPEN WIDE for TORRENTS of SHIT WATER!!!
Because ONCE AGAIN, YOU WILL BE PAYING the BILLS!!!!
Engineers say this is a crucial era for the nation's water systems, especially in older cities like New York, where some pipes and tunnels were built in the 1800s and are now nearing the end of their life expectancies.
"Our generation hasn't experienced anything like this. We weren't around when the infrastructure was being built," said Greg Kail, spokesman for the water industry group. "We didn't pay for the pipes to be put in the ground, but we sure benefited from the improvements to public health that came from it."
He said the situation has not reached crisis stage, but without a serious investment, "it can become a crisis. Each year the problem is put on the back burner, the price tag is going to go up."
Catastrophic problems can arise when infrastructure fails. An 84-year-old steam pipe erupted beneath a New York street last year, creating a mammoth geyser that rained mud and debris down on the city.
In Chicago, an 80-year-old cast-iron water main broke earlier this year, spilling thousands of gallons and opening up a 25-foot hole in the street.
In Denver, up to 4 million gallons of water gushed from a ruptured 30-year-old pipeline in February, gouging a sinkhole across three lanes of Interstate 25. The lanes were shut down for nearly two weeks.
Cleveland has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on infrastructure in the past 20 years but still must repair daily breaks.
Last month, a break in a 2.5-foot-diameter water main turned a downtown square into a watery crater and knocked out other utilities.
The amount of wasted water from these breaches is staggering.
The 36 million gallons a day that leak from the 85-mile Delaware Aqueduct in New York state amounts to more than 1 billion gallons a month. That may be a drop in the bucket compared with the hundreds of billions of water consumed in New York City every year, but the daily leak in the tunnel would meet the daily demands of drought-ravaged Raleigh, N.C.
Residents in Wawarsing, about 100 miles from New York City, blame tunnel leaks for the constant flooding in their yards and basements. Department of Environmental Protection engineers are trying to determine whether the aqueduct is really responsible for the soggy mess along Route 209 that has gotten considerably worse over the last 10 years.
David Sickles said the water just bubbles up from the cracks in the concrete in his basement - even when it doesn't rain.
"It's like there is too much water in the ground already," Sickles said, showing off the water line on the concrete wall of his basement. "There's no place for this to go."
Nearly every house has a black discharge hose running from the basement through the yard, gushing water into already-soggy patches of grass."Need some shit water tom wash down that bowl of shit, 'murkns?
Too bad; pipe broke!!!!
