WATER
Poland Spring accused of defrauding consumers by peddling water from ‘phony’ springs
“Not one drop” of Poland Spring water is spring-fed, claims the 325-page lawsuit on behalf of consumers from Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.
A federal judge in Connecticut on Thursday gave the green light to a class-action lawsuit claiming the bottled water company’s owner, Nestle SA, defrauded customers by filling their bottles with ordinary groundwater
The Science of Flint’s Water Crisis
https://youtu.be/BAIXmt58iBU
In 2015 and 2016, headlines throughout the United States were captured by a human-made water crisis in Flint, Michigan: a chain of events that resulted in the city’s approximately 100,000 residents being exposed to dangerous levels of lead contamination in their tap water due to financial decisions made at the state level.
A DIY Groundwater Model
https://www.sciencefriday.com/educational-resources/diy-groundwater-model In many places, water for municipal and household use comes from underground aquifers. If the groundwater in such a place became contaminated, the consequences could easily affect entire cities or more.
National Drinking Water Alliance https://www.drinkingwateralliance.org Readers interested in learning more about water safety and policy in the United States may want to check out the National Drinking Water Alliance (NDWA). This network of organizations aims to “ensure that all children in the U.S. can drink safe water in the places where they live, learn and play” and describes its website as “the nationwide clearinghouse for essential drinking water research and resources.”
The Center for Great Lakes Literacy https://www.cgll.org
North America’s Great Lakes account for approximately 20 percent of the world’s surface freshwater an excellent educational resource.
2016 The Resnicks’ Kern County Water Bank water deal.
A legal cloud has long shadowed the Resnicks’ water deal. The Kern County Water Bank was originally acquired in 1988 by the state to serve as an emergency water supply for the Los Angeles area—at a cost to taxpayers of $148 million in today’s dollars.
In 2014, a judge ruled that the Department of Water Resources had turned the water bank over to the farmers without properly analyzing environmental impacts.
A new environmental review is due next month, and a coalition of environmental groups and water agencies is suing to return the water bank to public ownership. Adam Keats, senior attorney at the Center for Food Safety, describes the transfer of the water bank to the Resnicks and other farmers as “an unconstitutional rip-off.”
And here’s a key fact to consider against this backdrop: The Resnicks aren’t just pumping to irrigate their fruit and nut trees—they’re also in the business of farming water itself. Their land came with decades-old contracts with the state and federal government that allow them to purchase water piped south by state canals. The Kern Water Bank gave them the ability to store this water and sell it back to the state at a premium in times of drought.
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/04/lynda-stewart-resnick-california-water
2016 Resnick’s bought H2O $28 sold $196 to CA during drought $30 million profit.
According to an investigation by the Contra Costa Times, between 2000 and 2007 the Resnicks bought water for potentially as little as $28 per acre-foot (the amount needed to cover one acre in one foot of water) and then sold it for as much as $196 per acre-foot to the state, which used it to supply other farmers whose Delta supply had been previously curtailed. The couple pocketed more than $30 million in the process. If winter storms replenish the Kern Water Bank this year, they could again find themselves with a bumper crop of H2O. Meanwhile, the fight between farmers and smelt has plodded on, with the Resnicks becoming prominent advocates for pumping even more water south to farms. In 2007, a group called the Coalition for a Sustainable Delta began using lawsuits of its own to assign blame for the estuary’s decline to just about everything except farming: housing development in Delta floodplains, pesticide use by Delta farms, dredging, power plants, sport fishing, and pollution from mothballed ships. The coalition’s website doesn’t mention the Resnicks, but it originally listed a Paramount Farms fax number, and three of the four officers on its early tax documents were Resnick employees. http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/04/lynda-stewart-resnick-california-water
Nearly a Quarter of US Now in Drought
http://www.courthousenews.com/2016/08/12/nearly-a-quarter-of-us-now-in-drought.htm
2014 State failed to analyze effects of water bank, judge rules
A court ruling issued Wednesday could throw up obstacles to operation of a Kern County groundwater bank that has helped billionaire Stewart Resnick build a nut empire in the southern San Joaquin Valley. In the latest development in a two-decade legal fight, a Sacramento County Superior Court judge found that the state Department of Water Resources didn’t properly analyze the environmental impacts of the Kern Water Bank, which is partly controlled by Resnick’s Paramount Farms enterprise.
Meet the California Couple Who Uses More Water Than Every Home in Los Angeles Combined How megafarmers Lynda and Stewart Resnick built their billion-dollar empire.
Lynda Resnick and her husband, Stewart, also own a few other things: Teleflora, the nation’s largest flower delivery service; Fiji Water, the best-selling brand of premium bottled water; Pom Wonderful, the iconic pomegranate juice brand; Halos, the insanely popular brand of mandarin oranges formerly known as Cuties; and Wonderful Pistachios, with its “Get Crackin’” ad campaign. The Resnicks are the world’s biggest producers of pistachios and almonds, and they also hold vast groves of lemons, grapefruit, and navel oranges. All told, they claim to own America’s second-largest produce company, worth an estimated $4.2 billion.
Billionaires Behaving Badly: Lynda and Stewart ResnickWhen a Mother Jones reporter was in the country writing an expose on Fiji Water, she was snatched up by police from an internet cafe and detained.
Robert Thomas Zephyrhills Natural Spring Water Company
Crystal Springs Preserve owner Robert Thomas speaks during the unveiling of WaterVentures, Florida’s Learning Lab at Crystal Springs Preserve in partnership with Zephyrhills Brand 100% Natural Spring Water on January 9, 2013 in Crystal Springs, Florida.
Zephyrhills, population 14,000, has long made its name on water. But it was when the bottling plant south of town began filling 4 million to 5 million bottles of water every day.
Every day, 30 million gallons of water gush from the Floridan aquifer into Crystal Springs. Nestled in what is now a 525-acre wildlife preserve, the springs are almost alien in their beauty: impossibly clear, perpetually cool and, in spots, the same turquoise color as the Zephyrhills label.
Florida springs have been suffering in recent years due to pollution such as fertilizers and nitrates. “They convinced us that this water was somehow better than the water in our taps even though it’s no better, and then convinced us to pay 1,000 or 10,000 times more for it,” she said.
Nestlé Waters North America, Inc. corporate giant Nestle, which also owns Perrier and other bottled water brands. Based in Stamford, Connecticut with 7,500 employees nationwide.
What If All The Ice Melted On Earth? ft. Bill Nye
WATCH ‘The End Of The Arctic’
SIGN THE PETITION: http://bit.ly/arcticasap