Niagara Bottling asks to take more water from aquifer

[Baitball Blogger]

Niagara Bottling, which won a bitter fight to take water from the Floridan Aquifer several years ago, wants nearly twice as much as it now pumps from the ground to bottle and sell.

The California company, operators of a pumping and bottling plant in Groveland in south Lake County, asked the St. Johns River Water Management District this week to modify a state permit, boosting its daily take from 484,000 gallons a day to 910,000 gallons. Niagara's five-year permit is set to expire in December.

"It's outrageous," said Nancy Fullerton, one of the founding members of the Alliance to Protect Water Resources and a foe of the water-bottling operation. "People hate unfair. This is unfair. They wonder why they're supposed to conserve water while Niagara's out there slurping it up."

Niagara's request meets all technical and legal requirements for approval, company spokesman Joe Kilsheimer said.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/os-niagara-bottling-more-florida-water-20130913,0,6626891.story

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. I hope they will be turned down.

This sort of greed makes me very angry.

[Liberal_in_LA]

3. me too

[Baitball Blogger]

6. It's Florida. If they donate to the right politicians, it will fly.

[tech3149]

2. Anyone want to speculate or theorize about sinkholes in Fla?

Florida is a karst region. Much of the geological structure is porous and provides generous waterflow that will support a not so strong geological structure so long as the volume of water is not restricted or absorbed beyond its capacity.
When either of those two happens the underlying substructure can not be supported and will collapse.
The states to the north are consuming more of the feed to the aquifer to compensate for reduced surface water from rainfall and increased population and consumption.
In the southern and central areas of Fla the consumption has been off the scale. Forget the massive consumption around Orlando for the tourist trade, there is also a massive drawdown for industrial Ag.
From an historically informed perspective, Florida has been engineering its own demise since about 1921 all in the name of growth and profit
Reap what you sow.
Sorry to say I have family there who will pay the price even though I advised them otherwise.

[Baitball Blogger]

7. We are in a known sinkhole region.

It's getting harder and harder to find affordable insurance.

All the short-term decisions that are made for individual profit, will have sweeping consequences for everyone else.

And I understand it's a California company. It makes no sense.

[longship]

4. Nonesense! Everybody knows that water comes from bottles!

I live in a very rural area with a very nice artesian aquifer. Most people here have wells which deliver wonderfully potable water (makes great AM coffee!), mine included. Being surrounded by the Great Lakes help a lot.

But 25 miles down the road is a huge warehouse and factory which taps into the same aquifer to bottle the same water and sell it in the mega-grocers in the area.

I go to the local mega-grocers -- all the independant ones have been gone for years -- and see the (inevitably Republican) families loading up their shopping baskets with bottled water that comes out of the same damned aquifer that comes out of their taps.

This is amongst the biggest scam ever foisted on the US, that bottled water is in anyway better than what comes out of your tap. And the companies which sell this stuff inevitably market it as "spring" or "natural" or some other adjective to give you the idea that it is somehow different than what you get out of your fucking tap.

Fuck them.

[djean111]

5. More sinkholes.

And insurance companies are busily increasing rates and denying coverage at the same time.
Just think - according to leaked TPP information, a foreign company could sue us if we said no to taking water out of the aquifer due to environmental reasons - because this affects profits - and we would have to pay damages.

[OrlandoLightBrigade]

8. TPP Rally January 31 at City Hall

Hi, we're have a rally and march at City Hall about TPP. There will be an action center where you can write your representative and we'll mail it off for you.

Here's the event:

[link:https://www.facebook.com/events/542039692559306/|