http://www.examiner.com/article/sell-china-water-from-great-lakesSell China water from Great Lakes?10/12/12
On October 12, 2012, Forbes Magazine announced that Zong Qinghou has regained first place on 2012 Forbes list of the richest people in China. He is known as the "drinks king" and made his $10.8 billion fortune with China's largest beverage producer, Wahaha, which translates to "laughing children". The company had a 24 percent increase in sales in 2012 and serves 1.34 billion customers in China with bottled water and drinks. The main water source is Hangzhou's Qiandao Lake. Hangzhou's Xin'an River had a carbolic acid spill in July 2011, causing a run on bottled Wahaha water.
In 1998, a Canadian company called Nova Group received a permit from Ottawa to sell China Lake Superior water at the rate of 160 million gallons by tanker ship. After much political and public outcry, Ottawa officials canceled the permit in 1999. Concern for protecting the Great Lakes Basin resulted in the 2006 Great Lakes Compact which was signed by President Bush in October 2008.
A loophole in the 2006 Great Lakes Compact allows the water to be called a product and sold off outside the basin. The Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact, after public interest organizations and politicians campaigned for it for ten years, was an effort to permanently safeguard the Great Lakes' twenty percent of the world's fresh water.
There have been some as yet unsuccessful attempts to close the "bottled water loophole" by people like Michigan Rep. Bart Stupak. He introduced H.RES.551 to amend the Compact and prohibit sales, diversion or exportation of Great Lakes water outside the basin. The Great Lakes Basin is a 290,000-square-mile area whose waters feed the lakes and includes parts of eight states--Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec are also affected. The resolution remains in the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law.
Michigan House Bill-5319 was introduced by Rep. Dan Scripps to establish that both groundwater and the Great Lakes water are a “public trust". It was referred to the House Great Lakes and Environment Committee in September 2009.
In February 2011, a five-year study by the U.S. Geological Survey reported that the Great Lakes region could experience water shortages in some regions. The lakes contain six quadrillion gallons, enough to spread a foot-deep layer across North America, South America and Africa. But groundwater levels have plummeted about 1,000 feet in the cities of Chicago and Milwaukee.
On October 2, 2012, Waukesha, a suburb of Milwaukee which used to rely on springs for water, because its deep wells became contaminated with radium asked to be allowed to tap Lake Michigan water for the next 80 years under the Great Lakes compact. The city plans on piping treated wastewater back to the Great Lakes Basin instead of the Mississippi River to help maintain lake levels.
The Nestlé company has been a chief litigant in the struggle over water from the Great Lakes region in addition to water supplies in other states. The Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation
website section on Nestlé outlines the group's ten years of legal issues. There is also a section on all the Michigan bills submitted. A settlement was reached with Nestlé in 2009 when Nestlé/Ice Mountain’s water pumping permit was reduced.
On the Nestlé website, you can click on a world map to see Nestlé water brands sold in each country. In China there are three--Waterman from tap water, adding minerals in purified water; Da Shan YunNan Spring from an original source in the Yunnan Mountains, untouched and natural with healthy minerals; and Nestlé Pure Life. The Nestlé site says "Nestlé PURE LIFE has become in 2008 the largest bottled water brand sold in the world." The company is in 36 countries spanning 5 continents with 64 brands.
Other Nestlé products are Perrier, Vittel, Acqua Panna, Vera, Contrex, Aquarel, Poland Spring, S.Pellegrino, Vie Pure in Algeria and Nestle Pureza vital in some Latin American Countries. Nestlé, has been acquiring water companies since 1969 when it acquired its first 30 percent stake in the Société Générale des Eaux Minérales de Vittel, in France.
Only four percent of all house bills presented in 2009-2010 were enacted according to GovTrack.US. Even H.R. 425: Great Lakes Water Protection Act, to protect the Great Lakes from sewage dumping, sits in a committee. Our government representatives must refuse large corporations cheap water for large profits and protect water resources which are more valuable than gold or oil. If they do not, one day we may be begging for Wahaha from China.