Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
Dave
Mountain climber
the ANTI-fresno
|
|
|
Jan 21, 2007 - 07:13pm PT
|
just to put into context - 520 million gallons is equal to roughly 1600 acre-feet.
|
|
TGT
Social climber
So Cal
|
|
|
Jan 21, 2007 - 10:41pm PT
|
To put it even in more context the going rate for domestic water is less that $1000 per acre foot (about $600 for agricultural water). (San Diego Co. rates that are much higher than the Shasta area.)
That water district is geting more than double the going rate, probably four times or better.
So rather than " corporate hand out" there's maybe more a case to be made for "government predation" and certainly a case for SFgate leftist ignorance.
|
|
Off the Couch
Trad climber
|
|
|
Jan 22, 2007 - 12:27pm PT
|
Hi Dave and TGT: Your comments create the impression that there's nothing to worry about here. Can you provide any substantiation? Especially you, TGT? That would help us all put this into perspective (without having to rely upon your mere assertions).
Let's see where this one goes!
Jen
|
|
Wild Bill
climber
Ca
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 20, 2007 - 11:41am PT
|
Bump, to stop the insanity.
An Op-ed from yesterday noted that for the price of a bottle of Evian a San Franciscan can buy 1,000 gallons of pure Yosemite Hetch Hetchy tap water.
My favorite: People buy "water from Fiji (5,455 miles away) or Norway (5,194 miles away) and many other faraway places to satisfy our demand for the chic and exotic. These are truly the Hummers of our bottled-water generation."
The entire well-written piece is here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/02/18/EDG56N6OA41.DTL&type=printable
TGT?
|
|
Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
|
|
|
Feb 20, 2007 - 12:41pm PT
|
I'm just gonna post Bill's whole article here cause this is important stuff. I'd like to note that I've found it very, very common for folks to buy bottled water to bring to Yosemite and drink in Yosemite. This is Madness! Yosemite tap water is the best anywhere and as good as any bottled water.
Peace
Karl
++++++
Published on Sunday, February 18, 2007 by the San Francisco Chronicle
The Real Cost of Bottled Water
by Jared Blumenfeld & Susan Leal
San Franciscans and other Bay Area residents enjoy some of the nation's highest quality drinking water, with pristine Sierra snowmelt from the Hetch Hetchy reservoir as our primary source. Every year, our water is tested more than 100,000 times to ensure that it meets or exceeds every standard for safe drinking water. And yet we still buy bottled water. Why?
Maybe it's because we think bottled water is cleaner and somehow better, but that's not true. The federal standards for tap water are higher than those for bottled water.
The Environmental Law Foundation has sued eight bottlers for using words such as "pure" to market water that contains bacteria, arsenic and chlorine. Bottled water is no bargain either: It costs 240 to 10,000 times more than tap water. For the price of one bottle of Evian, a San Franciscan can receive 1,000 gallons of tap water. Forty percent of bottled water should be labeled bottled tap water because that is exactly what it is. But even that doesn't dampen the demand.
Clearly, the popularity of bottled water is the result of huge marketing efforts. The global consumption of bottled water reached 41 billion gallons in 2004, up 57 percent in just five years. Even in areas where tap water is clean and safe to drink, such as in San Francisco, demand for bottled water is increasing -- producing unnecessary garbage and consuming vast quantities of energy. So what is the real cost of bottled water?
Most of the price of a bottle of water goes for its bottling, packaging, shipping, marketing, retailing and profit. Transporting bottled water by boat, truck and train involves burning massive quantities of fossil fuels. More than 5 trillion gallons of bottled water is shipped internationally each year. Here in San Francisco, we can buy water from Fiji (5,455 miles away) or Norway (5,194 miles away) and many other faraway places to satisfy our demand for the chic and exotic. These are truly the Hummers of our bottled-water generation. As further proof that the bottle is worth more than the water in it, starting in 2007, the state of California will give 5 cents for recycling a small water bottle and 10 cents for a large one.
Just supplying Americans with plastic water bottles for one year consumes more than 47 million gallons of oil, enough to take 100,000 cars off the road and 1 billion pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, according to the Container Recycling Institute. In contrast, San Francisco tap water is distributed through an existing zero-carbon infrastructure: plumbing and gravity. Our water generates clean energy on its way to our tap -- powering our streetcars, fire stations, the airport and schools.
More than 1 billion plastic water bottles end up in the California's trash each year, taking up valuable landfill space, leaking toxic additives, such as phthalates, into the groundwater and taking 1,000 years to biodegrade. That means bottled water may be harming our future water supply.
The rapid growth in the bottled water industry means that water extraction is concentrated in communities where bottling plants are located. This can have a huge strain on the surrounding eco-system. Near Mount Shasta, the world's largest food company, Nestle, is proposing to extract billions of gallons of spring water, which could have devastating impacts on the McCloud River.
So it is clear that bottled water directly adds to environmental degradation, global warming and a large amount of unnecessary waste and litter. All this for a product that is often inferior to San Francisco's tap water. Luckily, there are better, less expensive alternatives:
 In the office, use a water dispenser that taps into tap water. The only difference your company will notice is that you're saving a lot of money.
At home and in your car, switch to a stainless steel water bottle and use it for the rest of your life knowing that you are drinking some of the nation's best water and making the planet a better place.
Take the pledge --
Signing on to sfenvironment.org or sfwater.org to register not to buy bottled water for a year enters your name in a drawing to win a free stainless steel water bottle.
Jared Blumenfeld is the director of the San Francisco Department of the Environment. Susan Leal is the general manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.
|
|
TradIsGood
Happy and Healthy climber
the Gunks end of the country
|
|
|
Feb 20, 2007 - 01:08pm PT
|
Just supplying Americans with plastic water bottles for one year consumes more than 47 million gallons of oil, enough to take 100,000 cars off the road and 1 billion pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere,
I am no bottled water fan, but if this number is true, we are talking about a massive 0.6 liter of gasoline per person per year! (Or less than a water bottle full ;-) )
The annual amount of carbon injected into atmosphere is about 6 times 10 the the 12th kilograms or about 10^13 pounds. 1 billion pounds of CO2 is about 1/4 of 1 billion pounds of carbon. So we are talking about 0.0025 % of the total.
I have no idea what it means to "take cars of the road". Tsunami? :-)
|
|
Wild Bill
climber
Ca
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 21, 2007 - 03:28pm PT
|
What's that mean, TGT?
Does ANYONE still believe the Shasta bottling plant (one million square feet) is a good idea? Aside from Nestle, of course.
|
|
TGT
Social climber
So Cal
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2007 - 04:01pm PT
|
It is if you live there and used to have a job in the logging industry and are persently under or unemployed.
|
|
TradIsGood
Happy and Healthy climber
the Gunks end of the country
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2007 - 04:05pm PT
|
Wild B - What is your stand? Are you against moving a resource from where it is located and over-supplied to where there is demand for it?
|
|
Wild Bill
climber
Ca
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 21, 2007 - 04:14pm PT
|
WHAT'S MY STAND?! DID SOME IDIOT REALLY ASK ME THAT?!
"Are you against moving a resource from where it is located and over-supplied to where there is demand for it?"
Ack - grrrrr - I'm having a heart attack reading this. Did you bother to read the Op-ed piece I posted above? The demand is not real, it is created by corporate marketing departments. AFter all, Nestle is not bottling this water in order to supply it to parched drought-plagued areas.
I'll let one of my kids, who will be paying for this tomfoolery, tell you my stand on this:
|
|
TradIsGood
Happy and Healthy climber
the Gunks end of the country
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2007 - 04:18pm PT
|
I read the op-ed piece. Even 'tards can write op-ed pieces, it seems. Snore.
How is your kid going to be paying for it?
And is name calling your normal response when you do not have a logical answer?
|
|
Wild Bill
climber
Ca
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 21, 2007 - 04:25pm PT
|
Only when dealing with idiots.
"Even 'tards can write op-ed pieces." Sounds like name-calling to me, Fred.
It is not my place to defend Nestle.
So, why don't YOU tell us how this "redistribution of a resource" is a good use of resources?
|
|
TradIsGood
Happy and Healthy climber
the Gunks end of the country
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2007 - 04:39pm PT
|
I did not say it was good. But I do not see it as evil. Many companies employ many people who are involved in moving a resource to a market. Or turning a resource into a marketable quantity. Some may be good. Some may be bad. But the consumer purchases the good if the price seems fair to him. Basic economics.
I did refute some of the silliness in the op-ed piece that Karl reproduced here.
The op-ed piece is a typical example of opinion writing expressed by the innumerate. Innumerate people often see a number and think it is BIG, without any consideration of what BIG means. Many people think of a million as a really BIG number. But if it is the count of molecules, it is a frightfully unimaginably small number, for example. Do you know how to express how small 1 billion molecules (of water, say) is?
Edit: Make it a trillion molecules of water.
|
|
Wild Bill
climber
Ca
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 21, 2007 - 04:47pm PT
|
No, you have NOT refuted anything said in that Op-ed piece. You just called its preeminent authors retarded. And claimed that anyone who can't stand the actual societal cost of bottled water is just plain unfamiliar with mathematical concepts. In sum, you have added nothing to the conversation.
Gotta go, I'm off to the oxygen bar to swill some Tahiti water.
|
|
TradIsGood
Happy and Healthy climber
the Gunks end of the country
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2007 - 05:00pm PT
|
Wrong, bucko. Already pointed out the water is a truly renewable resource. Almost impossible to prevent water from being renewable. Further, I showed what how ridiculously small the "big numbers" in the piece really were.
So retire to your oxygen bar. Breathing is important!
Maybe you will meet somebody who can explain to you how small a trillion really is! Perhaps then you won't be duped by articles such as the one you posted and Karl copied here.
"pre-eminent"! LOL. The guy is just a reporter. I have known dozens. Almost none of them were especially intelligent, and most were relatively innumerate.
|
|
Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2007 - 05:03pm PT
|
TiG is right in one sense, but still very wrong. All the resources used to sequester, bottle, and deliver water are a drop in the bucket, in terms of total resource use and waste.
At the same time, the resources used are almost entirely wasted. All developed countries have highly reliable public water supply, and water in western North America is usually highly palatable also. There's no need whatsoever for bottled water - it's almost entirely an artificial demand, part of the 2/3 of our economies that is consumption rather than need based.
In other words, it's wasteful and unnecessary, and so contrary to that thread of U.S. culture that is about thrift and prudence.
My personal related pet peeve is disposable coffee cups. Don't get me started.
We've had gradually more stringent deposit and return laws in B.C. since the 1960s. Beer, wine, pop, juice, and other cans, bottles and cartons include both a recycling fee, and a return fee that is refundable. All places that sell such containers must take them back, within reason. A high percentage are returned, both reducing litter and conserving resources.
We also have quite aggressive municipal recycling programs, now even including compostable things.
|
|
TradIsGood
Happy and Healthy climber
the Gunks end of the country
|
|
|
Feb 21, 2007 - 05:11pm PT
|
Mighty Hiker is right and wrong. :-)
It is certainly not necessary to be posting on the internet. One could argue that it is wasteful. I hope that some find the forum educational; that there minds are open enough to see that much of what they read in the newspapers and elsewhere is ridiculously over-simplified, as was this example.
As to artificiality of demand - well what does that mean exactly? Backpacks, climbing shoes, gear, all could be described as non-frugal and wasteful, I suppose.
Sorry to get off-topic with the climbing shiz. LOL.
|
|
Wild Bill
climber
Ca
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Feb 21, 2007 - 05:12pm PT
|
TiG, are you referring to this non-sequitur response of yours:
"Just supplying Americans with plastic water bottles for one year consumes more than 47 million gallons of oil, enough to take 100,000 cars off the road and 1 billion pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere,
I am no bottled water fan, but if this number is true, we are talking about a massive 0.6 liter of gasoline per person per year! (Or less than a water bottle full ;-) )
The annual amount of carbon injected into atmosphere is about 6 times 10 the the 12th kilograms or about 10^13 pounds. 1 billion pounds of CO2 is about 1/4 of 1 billion pounds of carbon. So we are talking about 0.0025 % of the total."
You must be mathematician, so let us in on the joke: how does this ditty refute the entire op-ed piece?
Yes, water falls from the sky - I'm not complaining that Shasta's ecosystem will collapse from Nestle taking the water away.
Why do I bother? edit: "I will not argue with idiots on the internet. I will not argue with idiots on the internet. I will not argue . . ."
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!