The Water Wars: Why all the fuss?

POPULARITY OF
BOTTLED WATER

Bottled water consumption in the United States has tripled since the early 1990s into a $7.6 billion market with an expected increase of about 10 percent per year. On the average, Americans consume about 21.1 gallons of bottled water per year, which is just slightly lower than beer (22.6), milk (22.6) and coffee (21.9). Perrier is owned by Swiss-based, Nestle, the world's largest food company. It markets its domestic bottled water under several labels including Ice Mountain, Poland Springs, Zephyrhills, Deer Park, Ozarka and Arrowhead.

The popularity of bottled water and derived profits are increasing. Perrier/Nestle operates more than 70 pumping sites in the U.S., but needs more to meet the demand. Perrier is looking in Wisconsin. It's looking in Michigan. It's looking at any place where there's a stream of water that can be bottled and sold. There is no other business in this world quite like it. It mines the resource (water) for free, bottles it and sells it back to us at an incredible profit. Oh, yes, it also receives tax and other incentives.

WORLD SHORTAGE OF WATER

"Water, water everywhere, /Nor any drop to drink..." Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his Rime of the Ancient Mariner was describing the plight of a sailor who sees salt water everywhere but can't drink it.

While the earth's surface is composed of 86 percent water, only about one half of one percent (.5%) can be used for drinking water and most of that is underground. The world's population is growing, and its demand for potable water is staggering and increasing. It's predicted that in 2025 two-thirds of the world's population will not have sufficient drinking water.

Because 20 percent of the world's usable freshwater is in the Great Lakes Basin, obviously this is going to be a highly contested region. It's already started: in Wisconsin and Michigan.

Just as oil was the precious commodity last century, water will be this century's liquid gold. Only many times more so. You don't need oil to live, but you certainly need water.

So the race for water among the conglomerates is on. The stakes are high. The entities that control water in the future will control and dominate much of the world. It's a simple as that. The few examples disclosed here are minute compared to what's down the pipe a decade or two from now. While Perrier seems to be grabbing most of the headlines, mostly because of its arrogance and heavy-handedness, surely other bottlers are also in the arena waiting at ringside, analyzing and observing, but ready to spring into action.