“After the act was passed by the government, the BC Liberal government, in 2016, there was six years of notices, public press releases, discussions with professional organizations, in some cases even personal contact with water users to encourage them to register,” Ralston said, adding that there won’t be enforcement at this point against anyone who has registered but not yet received a licence.
Well, I for one never heard about this.
One thing they could have done is linked it directly to ALR property taxes. That would have ensured most people impacted would be aware.
For those not on ALR, link it to the business license. This would have required getting cooperation from all municipalities, but surely that’s possible.
Then you’re only left with people without a business license who aren’t in the ALR: that’s a pretty small group that could mostly be addressed directly.
Currently, companies such as Nestlé are able to access water from B.C. for free. Regulations set to be in place starting in 2016 will see Nestlé charged $2.25 to bottle a million litres of water.
Residential water is certainly more expensive than that, not to mention the issues with plastic water bottle waste that Nestle creates. Why is is this way? Big companies get special treatment compared to ordinary citizens all the time, but that’s as much of the ‘why’ as I can really explain
25+ years ago I drove truck and the two main destinations I worked with were the Coke & Pepsi (whatever whatever) bottling plants in a major city in Alberta. I will qualify my anecdote with the fact that I was not politically aware at that time (my early 20s) and frankly I didn’t give a shit about that, and the laws/regs may well have changed since then (I doubt it) but it was very well understood that each major city has a bottling plant for your given fizzy bevvy of choice (as well as the “bottled water” they serve in their lineup, Aquafina and Desani or whatever it would be now, all the same shit).
Each plant, in each city, was literally making your fizzy water of choice (as well as your bottled water of choice) by pulling from the same city water supply that delivers your tap water. They might run it through a couple further reverse-osmosis filters or something, but they might not. TL:DR when you buy Desani or Aquafina (or Coke or Sprite or whatever whatever) from your local sev, or gas station… you’re buying your own city tapwater mixed with a highly concentrated syrup that arrives to the plant in 50gal drums… or… you’re literally buying your own tap water with maybe a layer of filtration that you could install in your own home.
It’s pretty much that simple. What ever major city you live in (or near), you can look up the address of the nearest bottling plant. It’s always in the industrial area. And… it’s always pulling tap water to do its thing. I know that hasn’t changed since I was a kid. I bring all this up to say the evil corps are definitely doing us all wrong by charging 3 or more bucks per liter of our own water to sell back to us… but the fun part that most people miss is they’re taking already purified and treated water from the city supply (not “pure river/spring water from some magical place”) to profit from. To say that another way, they’re making a fucking killing on what comes out of your taps at home.
Thanks for sharing! Let’s also not forget our increasing awareness of global issues with amassing plastic waste and the unlikelihood that Nestle and other manufacturers will ever have to pay anything for that. Meanwhile, plastic bags from brick and mortar stores in Toronto are banned. On my former university campus, stores were forbidden to sell bottled flat water and there were fill-your-own-reusable bottle stations in many places - I thought that was a step in the right direction, considering the country we live in and how ubiquitous equal-quality water is available from our taps (as you point out) (and in most, but not all, of Canada). Personally, I’d love to see a tax on single-use plastics in such a way that the biggest polluters (ie, industry and corporations) pay the biggest share, not mom and pop shops and low-income people, etc.
Exactly. Industry always gets overlooked when drought hits and water restrictions kick in. I mean I don’t love seeing people watering their lawns in a drought (let’s not even start on golf courses etc) because I think it’s dumb, but if you look up how many millions of gallons per day industries like O&G/fracking use, it’s obscene that normal folk are shamed into conserving while they (industry) don’t even get a mention in mainstream media.
Yup. Like how if normal folks get into debt trouble, they’re on their own. Corporations on the other hand get bailouts with minimal conditions attached
Interesting article. They really highlight how blindsided some people are while still showing that the government seems to have made an effort over the last 6 years to alert farm owners of the updates, including hundreds of thousands of notices and flyers.
Droughts are a mess, and ensuring residential access remains consistent is definitely a higher priority than business use, which isn’t just food farms but sod farms, car washes, and other non-vital water use cases.
A good idea for them to set up the ability to turn off water access for those business ahead of time, as I’m guessing these droughts won’t go away any time soon
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