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| Silver Glen Springs in Florida's Ocala National Forest Photo: Phillip Lott |
Bottled Water Is Sucking Florida Dry
Florida has the largest concentration of freshwater springs in the world, but they are being devastated by increasing pollution and drastic declines in water flow. Some springs have dried up from overextraction; others have shown signs of saltwater intrusion and harmful algae blooms.
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| Ichetucknee Springs Photo: Phillip Lott |
At least 60 springs discharge from the Floridan aquifer into the Santa Fe River, which runs 75 miles through north-central Florida. This aquifer is the primary source of drinking water in the state. The state and local governments have continued to issue water bottling extraction permits that prevent the aquifer from recharging.
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| Silver Springs in decline for years due to urban and agricultural pumping and pollution |
The answer to this problem is simple: No more extraction permits should be granted, and existing permits should be reduced with the goal of eliminating bottled water production entirely in Florida. At the very least, corporations should be taxed for the water they now extract free of charge. That revenue can be used to pay for water infrastructure projects.
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| Helene Spring Seminole State Forest Photo: Phillip Lott |
In the next few months, Nestlé is set to renew its permit at Ginnie Springs, one of the most popular recreational attractions along the Santa Fe River. The permit allows Nestlé to take one million gallons per day at no cost, with just a one-time $115 application fee.
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“When the bottling companies come in, they’re taking the water away and we get no benefit,” said Michael Roth, president of Our Santa Fe River, an environmental nonprofit.
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| Blue Spring the spring run is now clouded with lyngbya cyanobacteria Photo: Phillip Lott |
While other large water bottling companies purchase water directly from municipal water sources in Florida, Nestlé, the largest bottled water company in the world with 48 brands in its portfolio, takes water directly from the source. Nestlé’s free water extraction has incited community pushback in San Bernardino, Calif., where the company gets water for its Arrowhead brand from a national forest struggling with significant drought, and in Osceola County, Mich., where residents are fighting against the company in court to prevent surges in water extraction from local resources.
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| De Leon Springs State Park Photo: Phillip Lott |
The Florida Springs Institute in August reported that groundwater extractions need to be reduced by 50 percent or more in North Florida to restore average spring flows to 95 percent of their previous levels. From 1950 to 2010, average spring flows in Florida declined by 32 percent as groundwater use increased by 400 percent.
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| Ichetucknee Springs spring surfing at the Ichetucknee head spring Photo: Phillip Lott |
“There is no more water to give out from the Santa Fe River,” said Robert Knight, an environmental scientist and the executive director of the Florida Springs Institute. “The aquifer levels are coming down about an inch per year on average. Every year the aquifer level drops there is less pressure and flow at the springs.”
Dr. Knight noted that average flow in the Santa Fe River has declined 30 percent to 40 percent. The Florida Springs Institute rates Ginnie Springs’s ecological health a D-plus.
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| Madison Blue Spring The water bottling plant is adjacent to this lush wonderland. Shameful! Photo: Phillip Lott |
He cited another Nestlé water bottling operation in Florida, at Madison Blue Spring, where declining spring flows worsen periodic backflows into the springs from the Withlacoochee River it feeds into, contaminating the aquifer. Untreated wastewater discharged into the river upstream in Georgia has made Madison Blue Springs frequently unsuitable for water bottling. The water at Ginnie Springs suffers from nitrate pollution from wastewater, pesticide and fertilizer runoff, which can cause algal blooms and hurt human health.
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| Juniper Springs typically mobbed on a summer afternoon Photo: Phillip Lott |
Nestlé has incensed other communities in the United States. In Michigan, the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians and the grass-roots nonprofit organization Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation filed an appeal of a decision to allow Nestlé to increase water pumping from 250 gallons per minute to to 400 gallons per minute from a spring aquifer in Osceola County.
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| Fanning Spring frequently flooded with backflow from the Suwannee River due to drastically reduced flow Photo: Phillip Lott |
In April 2018, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality approved Nestlé’s application to increase water extraction to 400 gallons per minute. Nestlé pays a $200 annual administrative fee to extract millions of gallons of water from Michigan every year. Residents of Flint have noted that while Nestlé pays practically nothing for water, they are faced with high bills for poisoned water and have to rely on purchased bottled water.
Osceola Township, the site of Nestlé’s well, is also appealing a ruling that allows Nestlé to build a booster pump and extract more water.
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| Fanning Spring head spring area full of lyngbya cyanobacteria Photo: Phillip Lott |
“This is a poor, rural township. Nestlé goes to towns like these with economic promises of development of jobs, and gives nothing back,” said Peggy Case, president of Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation. “Other bottled water companies tend to purchase their water from municipal water systems. They’re not drawing it from springs that are part of the public commons.”
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| Pitt Spring Photo: Phillip Lott |
Her group has fought Nestlé since it began water bottling operations in Michigan in 2000. In 2009, the group won a settlement to reduce Nestlé’s water pumping by nearly half at its operation in Mecosta, about 25 miles south of Osceola Township.
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| Salt Springs backflipping into Salt Springs can be kind of tricky these days as its flow rate is reduced and water levels fall dangerously close to limestone rocks below the surface Photo: Phillip Lott |
In California, environmental groups are also battling Nestlé’s water bottle operation in the San Bernardino National Forest, an area suffering from drought.
“All the climate change modeling that has been done suggests Southern California mountains are going to get drier and hotter,” said Ileene Anderson, a senior scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity.
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| Fern Hammock Springs Photo: Phillip Lott |
The United States Forest Service is monitoring Nestlé’s water extraction to determine the effect on surface water flows. Nestlé reported pumping 45 million gallons of water from forest springs in 2018, for which it paid nothing more than an initial $2,000 federal permit fee. The California Water Resources Control Board is investigating whether Nestlé has taken more water from the springs than authorized.
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| Ginnie Springs Photo: Earth Focus on Instagram |
For residents near Ginnie Springs, Fla., where Nestlé is set to expand its bottled water operation, the town frequently issues boil-water advisories and Florida taxpayers spend millions of dollars annually on aquifer recharge programs. Florida should prioritize providing safe drinking water for its residents, rather than bottling that water to resell elsewhere.
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| Cypress Spring located in Vernon, Florida, Cypress is no longer accessible by land because it was bought by Nestlé Photo: Facebook Cypress Springs Adventure |
In the early 1990s, only one small company pumped and bottled water inside the boundaries of the Suwannee River Water Management District that oversees the famed river and hundreds of Florida's deep-blue springs.
But over the next decade, as bottled-water sales began to float upward to steady 10% annual increases, bottled water companies of all sizes began to spring up all over Florida. In the Suwannee district today, three of the world's largest bottlers pump springs along the Suwannee and Santa Fe Rivers: Nestle Waters North America, a unit of Swiss giant Nestle SA, the world's biggest food and beverage company; Atlanta-based CCDA Waters, owned by Coca-Cola and French food and beverage powerhouse Danone; and DS Waters of America, the top company for home and office water delivery in the U.S.
Around 60 bottling-related companies operate elsewhere in the state. They range from boutique firms that will slap a company logo on bottles of water to "water dealers" that pump water from various parts of Florida and sell it to bigger bottlers. What begins as a free resource passes from dealer to bottler for some 5 cents a gallon. Consumers eventually pay up to 100 times more.
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| Silver Glen Springs Photo: Phillip Lott |
Nestlé Waters North America has requested a permit allowing it to pump up to 1.152 million gallons of water a day from the springs for bottling. Nestlé pays nothing for the water.
A request by the Nestlé food company for a new permit to withdraw water from Ginnie Springs in Gilchrist County has led to a raft of questions from the Suwannee River Water Management District and opposition from environmentalists.
Nestlé Waters North America has requested a permit allowing it to pump a maximum of 1.152 million gallons of water a day from the springs for bottling. Nestlé pays nothing for the water.
Permits have already been approved by the Gilchrist County Commission to expand the bottling facility, which is a short distance from Ginnie Springs off County Road 340.
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