May 19, 2016

Oregon county bans bottled water production

Eco Watch

Voters in one Oregon county  approved a ban on commercial bottled water production, stopping a years-long effort by Swiss transnational Nestle to sell more than 100 million gallons of water a year from the Columbia River Gorge.

Though opponents of the proposed plant in Cascade Locks in Hood River County were vastly outspent, Measure 14-55 easily passed—roughly 69 percent to 31 percent.

According to Julia DeGraw, an organizer for national watchdog organization Food & Water Watch, which helped lead the opposition, voters were very aware of the risks of putting corporate control over the precious resource, despite the purported 50 jobs the plant would provide the job-scarce town.

1 comment:

Louis Massano said...

It's very good news that this Oregon county is banning bottled water production.

And it's also true that bottle water of all types - but especially water in huge plastic jugs - is a menace to our ecosystem.

But progressives - in this case, and in others - are getting a reputation for merely wanting to stop people for doing things - often things that ought to be stopped by people without governmental threats of punitive consequences.

This doesn't go in "The Land of the Free." People in Europe are accustomed having the government regulate them in that way for many generations going back centuries - but we're not, and by simply trying to ban people for doing things (things, I repeat, I believe we people ought not to) progressive activists are gaining a possibly unwarranted reputation for being a bunch of curmudgeons and scolds along the lines of the sainted Carrie Nation.

On the bottled water issues, progressives need to urge a total overhaul of the nation's water systems in areas of the country where the water tastes "like it was run off Luther's boots," if I may borrow a phrase from Johnnie Cash's monologue before a song he sang on his famous Folsom Prison concert album.

Where I live, the water supply still tastes awful because of antiquated service lines that are made of lead throughout the city. (Lead had been used since the days of ancient Rome and even more was used here in Northern New Jersey so that copper and other non-toxic metals could be used in war production.)

I often find Progressives harping about bottled water - but not so often about water in community water supplies that not only tastes bad, but IS bad - especially young children.

Constantly urging the banning of practices will only mean that progressives will continue to be a marginal force in American politics - until progressives start to offer urgent policy alternatives to offset the practices they want to ban. Also, the banning urge is NOT in the traditional, true progressive spirit.