The Big Thirst, page 43
Bottled-water companies, which have facilities that produce millions of bottles of water a day, are only required to test for bacterial contamination once a week, and only required to test for some contaminants once a year.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found in a 2009 study that, at best, bottled-water facilities are only inspected every 2 to 3 years—but that the EPA doesn’t have a comprehensive list of bottling companies, so “we could not determine the percentage of bottled water facilities inspected” (p. 10). What’s more, because bottled-water companies are only required to maintain records of their testing for two years (compared with 5 to 10 years for water utilities), “FDA would most likely not be aware that a contamination problem existed if a facility was not inspected within a 2-year time frame” (p. 9).
Drinking bottled water amounts to a leap of faith in the company whose water you’re purchasing and consuming.
The GAO’s 2009 study is:
Bottled Water: FDA Safety and Consumer Protections Are Often Less Stringent Than Comparable EPA Protections for Tap Water (GAO-09–610), Government Accountability Office, Washington, D.C.: June 2009 (PDF). http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09610.pdf.
23. During the Boston water-main break and outage from May 1 to May 4, 2010, even doctors were ordered to use bottled water, to scrub in before surgery.
Tracy Jan, “Residents, Businesses Race to Adapt; Water Vanishes from Stores,” Boston Globe, May 2, 2010. http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/05/02/residents_businesses_race_to_adapt_water_vanishes_from_stores.
24. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) issues an “infrastructure report card” each year, to focus attention on how the U.S. is maintaining, or failing to maintain, vital systems like roads, bridges, airports, air traffic control, schools, and water systems. The ASCE report says that actual spending on water and wastewater treatment systems (excluding dams) over the five years from 2009 to 2014 will be $146.4 billion—including the 2009 federal stimulus funds. That comes to $29.2 billion a year.
“Estimated 5-Year Investment Needs in Billions of Dollars,” Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, American Society of Civil Engineers. http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/report-cards.
25. “S.F. Mayor Bans Bottled Water at City Offices,” Associated Press, June 25, 2007. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19415446.
Sharon Plan Chan, “City of Seattle Won’t Buy Bottled Water,” Seattle Times, March 13, 2008. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004280866_webwater13m.html.
Jennifer 8. Lee, “City Council Shuns Bottles in Favor of Water from Tap,” New York Times, June 17, 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/nyregion/17water.html.
Several universities, including Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Portland, and DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, have banned sales of bottled water on campus.
26. 2008 Report on Postconsumer PET Container Recycling Activity: Final Report, National Association for PET Container Resources, p. 4 (PDF). http://www.napcor.com/pdf/2008_Report.pdf.
27. The Beverage Marketing quote about tap water comes from “Liquid Refreshment Beverage Market,” Beverage Marketing Corporation, March 24, 2010. http://www.beveragemarketing.com/?section=pressreleases.
28. Gary Hemphill, senior vice president at Beverage Marketing, says FIJI Water was the No. 1 imported brand in 2008, but fell during the recession; San Pellegrino was the No. 1 import in 2009.
29. “President-Elect Obama Drinks FIJI Water on Election Night,” FIJI Blog, FIJI Water, November 21, 2008. http://www.fijiwater.com/blog/2008/11/president-elect-obama-drinks-fiji-water-on-election-night/.
Susan Donaldson James, “Gym Rat in Chief? Obama’s Fitness Regimen,” ABC News, December 4, 2008. http://abcnews.go.com/Health/President44/Story?id=6387559&page=1.
30. The GE ecomagination commercial “Clouds,” produced by BBDO New York, is available online on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWJ7iVbKRj8.
31. GE does not break out revenue for GE Water separately. The 2009 revenue figure of $2.5 billion comes from:
Scott Malone, “GE Sees Tide Coming In for Water Business,” Reuters, August 11, 2009. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2235851820090811.
32. In order, references for GE Water’s work at the Virginia coal mine, the Algiers desalination plant, the Sydney golf course, and China’s Lake Taihu:
“Turning Mine Water Into a Useful Resource,” GE Water Press Center, March 4, 2010. http://www.ge-energy.com/about/press/en/2010_press/030410.htm.
“Hamma Seawater Desalination Plant,” GE Water Press Center, February 24, 2008. http://www.gewater.com/who_we_are/press_center/vpr/hamma.jsp.
“Pennant Hills Golf Course Goes Green,” Sydney Water, May 30, 2008. http://www.sydneywater.com.au/whoweare/MediaCentre/MediaView.cfm?ID=470.
Peter Ford, “Pollution Puts Chinese Lake Off Limits,” Christian Science Monitor, June 4, 2007. http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0604/p07s02-woap.html.
“GE Wastewater Treatment Solution to Help Restore Health of China’s Third Largest Lake,” GE Water Press Center, June 24, 2008. http://www.gewater.com/who_we_are/press_center/pr/06242008.jsp.
33. The GE Web site lists Schaefer’s discovery of cloud seeding in its timeline “The Science of Improvement,” under the title “The Rainmaker.” http://www.ge.com/innovation/timeline/eras/science_of_improvement.html.
Schaefer’s papers are archived at SUNY Albany, and the online guide to those papers includes a biographical sketch of the scientist. http://library.albany.edu/speccoll/findaids/ua902.010.htm.
34. Steven Prokesch, “How GE Teaches Teams to Lead Change,” Harvard Business Review, January 2009, p. 7 (PDF). http://www.ge.com/pdf/innovation/leadership/hbr_crotonville.pdf.
35. GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt spoke briefly about GE’s water business at the GE investors conference on December 15, 2009. An analyst asked Immelt, “Tell us what you learned from the things which were not successes. I don’t want to pick on water. But it might be a good example.”
Immelt replied, “Look, water was—we paid too much for growth that was hard to materialize. And we had no foundational point in the company to plug it into. So we ran it as a freestanding business, having paid 14 or 15 times EBITDA. So what do you learn? Don’t pay so much. And put things inside core businesses, right?”
GE Water is now a part of the larger GE division, GE Energy.
The exchange is in this presentation transcript, p. 22 (PDF). http://www.ge.com/pdf/investors/events/12152009/ge_annualoutlook_transcript_12152009.pdf.
36. Andrew C. Revkin, “Dredging of Pollutants Begins in Hudson,” New York Times, May 15, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/16/science/earth/16dredge.html.
In April 2010, GE released an accounting of its costs for the initial dredging effort on the Hudson of $561 million.
Michael Hill, “GE Says Hudson Dredging Cost $561M,” Associated Press, April 30, 2010. http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=10523307.
On its own Web site, GE said that since 1990, the company had spent a total of $830 million on the Hudson River cleanup.
“GE Reports Cost of First Phase of Dredging,” The Hudson River Dredging Project, GE Corporate Environmental Program. http://www.hudsondredging.com/phase_one_costs.
37. Delta’s Paul Patton sent me a sample of the Aria’s custom-designed four-hole showerhead, and we installed it in one of our bathrooms. It was a pleasure to use—the water did stay warmer, and the four holes created a cone of spray much wider, denser, and more even than from showerheads with five or ten times the number of holes. Without knowing in advance, you’d never guess that the Aria showerhead was using 25 percent or 40 percent less water than typical.
6. THE YUCK FACTOR
1. Carenda Jenkin, “Two Die of Thirst in Bush Tragedy,” Centralian Advocate, January 15, 2008.
The trio whose Mitsubishi Pajero ran out of water were never identified in the Australian media.
2. Paige Taylor and Victoria Laurie, “How a Simple Flat Tyre Killed Artist and Bushman,” Australian, January 16, 2007. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/how-a-simple-flat-tyre-killed-artist-and-bushman/story-e6frg6nf-1111112837559.
3. Lindsay Murdoch, “How a Desert Claimed Two Ill-Prepared Travellers,” Age, April 13, 2005. http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/How-a-desert-claimed-two-illprepared-travellers/2005/04/12/1113251629492.html.
The men were identified as Bradley John Richards, 40, his nephew Mac Bevan Cody, 21, and their dog, VB.
4. Bellinda Kontominas, “Triple-0 Review Urged by Coroner as Iredale Inquest Ends,” Sydney Morning Herald, May 8, 2009. http://www.smh.com/au/national/triple0-review-urged-by-coroner-as-iredale-inquest-ends-20090507-aw1a.html.
5. Katie Finn, “St. Luke’s Packed as City Prays for Rain,” Chronicle (Toowoomba), April 22, 2005.
6. “Toowoomba Takes Out Top Tidy Town Award,” ABC News (Australia), April 20, 2008. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/20/2221872.htm.
7. A brief history of Toowoomba is at the official Toowoomba Regional Council Web site. The precise origins of Toowoomba as the city’s name are murky—as it happens, while the Aboriginal word for swamp is tawampa, two other possibilities are equally in triguing.
The Aboriginal phrase woomba woomba means “reeds in the swamp.” And the area was known for a melon that grew abundantly, which the natives called toowoom or choowoom.
“About Council: History: Toowoomba,” Toowoomba Regional Council. http://www.toowoombarc.qld.gov.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=111%3Atoowoomba&catid=6%3Ahistory&Itemid=18.
8. “Population Estimates by Local Government Area, 2001 to 2009,” Catalog No. 3218.0, Australian Bureau of Statistics. http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/3218.02008-09?OpenDocument.
9. Leisa Scott, “Beaten, Bloody Well Unbowed,” Courier-Mail (Brisbane), September 2, 2006. http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/beaten-bloody-well-unbowed/story-e6frer7x-1111112173213.
This is a rollicking profile of Mayor Di Thorley. The word “shit” is in the first quote from Thorley.
10. Australians have routinely used the phrase “big dry” to refer to periods of drought, although the period from 2001 to 2009 has clearly supplanted previous Big Dry periods.
In 1986, the Courier-Mail in Brisbane, writing about a mid-1980s drought and its impact on cattle ranchers, wrote, “Most of south-east Queensland also had been hit hard by the big dry.” (“Double Blow as Prices, ‘Dry’ Hit QLD Cattlemen,” Courier-Mail, April 9, 1986.)
Similarly, during a drought in the early 1990s, headlines and stories relied on the phrase: Åsa Wahlquist, “Big Dry Claims NSW Wheat Exports,” Sydney Morning Herald, October 2, 1991.
The current dry period was being referred to as the “Big Dry” as early as 2002: Anna Merola, “The Big Dry: Lack of Rainfall Drying Up Hope,” Sunday Mail (Adelaide), September 8, 2002.
11. Susan Searle, “The Plan to Save Our City,” Chronicle (Toowoomba), July 2, 2005.
12. Searle, “Watering Cans Sell Out as Restrictions Tighten,” Chronicle (Toowoomba), August 9, 2005.
13. Australia uses the metric system, and all Australian water authorities measure large water volumes in megaliters—1 megaliter is 1 million liters (264,172 gallons, or 0.8 acre-foot).
Toowoomba, a town of 120,000 people, uses about 27 megaliters of drinking water a day (about 7 million gallons—60 gallons per person). Toowoomba requires roughly 10,000 megaliters of water a year; under tight water restrictions, the city has been using 9,000 megaliters a year, about 24 megaliters a day.
Toowoomba’s three reservoirs hold 127,000 megaliters of water when full—a 10-year supply. But the capacity is actually relatively small; the reservoirs would only serve 1.2 million people over that 10 years. The total volume of Toowoomba’s reservoirs, when full, would only serve the needs of Las Vegas for three months.
In the U.S., the basic measure of large volumes of water is the acre-foot—the amount of water covering an acre of space (43,560 square feet), to a depth of one foot. 1 acre-foot is 325,841 gallons.
1 acre-foot is equal to 1.2 megaliters.
Toowoomba uses 27 megaliters of water a day—Las Vegas uses 1,520, New York uses 4,164 megaliters of water a day.
14. In order of appearance, here are references for information on the Occoquan Reservoir, in Fairfax County; the Orange County, California, recycling facility; and Singapore’s NEWater effort:
Rob Davis, “Where Water Reuse Isn’t a Dirty Word,” Voice of San Diego, January 7, 2009. http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/environment/article_068e2ad1-1b57-5313-936c-ebd65aca818a.html.
Randal C. Archibold, “From Sewage, Added Water for Drinking,” New York Times, November 27, 2007. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/27/us/27conserve.html.
NEWater: Plans for NEWater, PUB: Singapore’s National Water Agency. http://www.pub.gov.sg/newater/plansfornewater/Pages/default.aspx.
15. The annual list of the richest Australians is compiled by the Australian business magazine BRW. As of the May 2010 list, Clive Berghofer was listed at No. 118, with an estimated net worth of A$340 million (US$307 million).
He was No. 110 in 2009.
BRW posts the lists online, but a subscription is required for access: “Rich,” BRW. http://brw.com.au/lists/rich.
Below is the story from the Toowoomba Chronicle about the 2010 list:
Jim Campbell, “Berghofer on BRW Rich List,” Chronicle, May 28, 2010. http://www.thechronicle.com.au/story/2010/05/28/340m-wealth-berghofer-brw-list/.
16. The venues in Toowoomba bearing Clive Berghofer’s name:
• Clive Berghofer Arena, Toowoomba
• Clive Berghofer Events Center, Toowoomba
• The Berghofer Pavilion, Toowoomba
• Clive Berghofer Stadium, Toowoomba
• Clive Berghofer Recreation Centre, at the University of Southern Queensland
And, at St. Vincent’s Hospital, Toowoomba, the Clive Berghofer Intensive Care Unit.
In Brisbane, the capital of Toowoomba’s state of Queensland, Berghofer donated money to the Queensland Institute of Medical Research, which now has the Clive Berghofer Cancer Research Centre.
17. “Clive Casts Doubts on Water Plans,” Chronicle, July 27, 2005.
I interviewed Clive Berghofer in person. The quotes in this paragraph come not from the initial story about his opposition from the Chronicle, above, but from a magazine story on Toowoomba’s water issues that ran during the recycling battle:
Roy Eccleston, “Bottoms Up—Aqua Blue,” Australian, July 29, 2006.
The story is no longer available on the Australian’s Web site, but its full text is here:
“Bottoms Up—Aqua Blue,” Travestonswamp.info, July 29, 2006. http://www.travestonswamp.info/forum/viewtopic.php?t=737&sid=071a0e066b4d086ce3b9e55291f13150.
18. Wendy Frew, “The Yuk Factor,” Sydney Morning Herald, September 5, 2005. http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/the-yuk-factor/2005/09/04/1125772411914.html.
19. Searle, “No Sign of Scientists to Answer Questions,” Chronicle (Toowoomba), August 23, 2005.
20. Peter McCutcheon, “Residents Oppose Toowoomba Recycled Water Proposal,” 7:30 Report, ABC, March 22, 2006. http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2006/s1598458.htm.
“Chronicle: Oct. 8, 2005: Petition—MP Asks Council to Delay Water Plans,” Water Futures, October 8, 2005. http://waterfutures.blogspot.com/2005/10/chronicle-oct-8–2005-petition-mp-asks.html.
The text of the Toowoomba petition to parliament and to MP Ian Macfarlane is here:
“Recycled Sewage Water for Drinking,” Closed E-Petition, Queensland Parliament Petitions. http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/view/EPetitions_QLD/ClosedEPetition.aspx?PetNum=528&1Index=-1.
21. The data on what’s in purified recycled water in Australia come from an “expert advisory panel” of the Queensland Water Commission, appointed to provide technical guidance on purified recycled water.
The panel reported in a letter to the Queensland Water Commission, with a full technical report attached:
Paul Greenfield, Chairman, Expert Advisory Panel, Vice Chancellor, University of Queensland, letter to Elizabeth Nosworthy, Chairwoman, Queensland Water Commission, February 20, 2009 (PDF). http://www.qwc.qld.gov.au/myfiles/uploads/purified%20recycled%20water/Interim%20water%20quality%20report/Interim%20water%20quality%20report.pdf.
The concentration of acetaminophen is described on p. 5. (Acetaminophen is known in Australia as paracetamol.)
The amount of bisphenol A that a typical person would consume per day is from:
“Monograph on the Potential Human Reproductive and Developmental Effects of Bisphenol A,” NIH Publication No. 08–5994, National Toxicology Program, Center for the Evaluation of Risks to Human Reproduction, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, September 2008, p. 5 (PDF). http://cerhr.niehs.nih.gov/evals/bisphenol/bisphenol.pdf.
22. In the U.S., there is no cabinet secretary exclusively for water at the national level. Of the 50 state governments, just two have a cabinet-level water official—Arizona and Idaho both have a director of water resources. Minnesota has an advisory group called the “water cabinet,” composed of state officials from several departments.
During 2008, Australian Minister of Water Penny Wong was mentioned in 1,007 newspaper stories and radio broadcasts, versus 1,102 stories for then Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon (using a Nexis search of stories in which the name of each appeared at least three times). Fitzgibbon resigned in June 2009 as a result of questions about travel costs.
In the year after his departure, from July 2009 to July 2010, Penny Wong appears in 704 stories; the new defense minister, John Faulkner, appeared in 1,281 stories.
23. The A$30 billion of spending in Australia just on water projects related to the Big Dry is likely conservative. As of 2010, the New York Times reported that Australian cities had A$15 billion (US$13 billion) in desalination plants either built or under construction.
The A$30 billion comes from Australia’s water utility association, the Water Services Association of Australia (WSAA), cited in this story:
