Next time you go out to dinner in a big city, you might get a big surprise. While many restaurants no longer automatically serve a glass of iced water at the table, many now are beginning to charge a surcharge for water. Often it is bottled water of the high end variety as restaurants look for ways to improve their bottom line without raising main dish prices. It kind of reminds us of the airline industry's hefty charges for baggage.
If California is a trendsetter with New York being an East Coast example touted continually by the media as an additional example, we can expect this to be gaining steam nationwide. And perhaps it is just a sign of things to come with water in general.
What do I mean? Well, since water is becoming scarcer in supply with the corresponding demand growing as population increases, this idea may not be just a way for restaurants to increase profits. It may be the introduction of a new way of life, one which many of us will not find pleasing.
Now I know that in dire situations like the current California drought, strong measures have to be put in place to try and extend the supply as long as possible. But even in the case of California, bureaucratic mischief and incompetence can often be a bigger cause of the problem than overuse by the general public. Examples abound such as the cutoff of water flow in the Central Valley for vegetable crops so that an obscure fish, the snail darter, could continue in existence. Now I don't know much about the snail darter or what indeed is its impact on the food chain, but I can tell you that when vegetable and fruit prices get too high, people just have to substitute a less balanced diet. So much for Moochelle's healthy eating example.
And what about the existence of a huge leak at the Waterworks headquarters building in Los Angeles which went undetected and uncorrected for an extensive amount of time? When questioned about it, a representative of the department just shrugged it off as something that was being corrected according to established priorities. Meanwhile many rural residents now have no running water in their households.
The problem in California is not isolated just in that state. Many state water supplies are just one major drought from disaster. Here is Florida, the main source of our potable water, the aquifer, is showing serious signs of degradation both in terms of water flow and water quality, with pesticides and other chemical-based finding their way into the water supply from runoff. To date, everyone talks about it but positive action is woefully inadequate as current state land zoning, if developed to its maximum potential would allow the state to grow by five hundred percent, from our current approximately twenty million residents to one hundred million.
Will that ever happen? Since good economic trend data and what it means to the volume of growth more than a short time out is shaky at best in today's climate, we'll just have to wait and see. But my point is this: as water becomes more valuable as a commodity, many opportunistic ventures are likely to corner the market on water with the loser being, of course, the average American citizen.
If you think it's not already happen perhaps a quote from the Chairman of the Board of Nestle, one of the largest bottled water distributors in the world, will convince you. Chairman Peter Braebeck made a public statement that water is not a public right. After all, his company is drawing huge volumes from the troubled Colorado River for their water operations. And while technically he is correct, water is a need not a right, I would refer anyone to one of the key points of our Declaration of Independence. If we possess inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, how can there by life without water? We need to carefully consider this and what the ramifications are to our very existence.
Someone better get some large scale desalinization plants and distribution plans in order and quick. When states like Florida completely eliminate the springs and the wetlands with wall to wall and coast to coast high rises throughout, what are we going to do when the well runs dry? Start thinking ahead, America, while we still have time, because you can't be free for long if you can't find water.
We need to protect what we have so that a national water crisis doesn't engulf us as the other ones have. Thinking ahead, developing logically and not just for a quick buck and having leaders who are willing to face the reality of what's around them instead of running continuous campaigns for self-preservation them will go a long way to get us on the right track.
If California is a trendsetter with New York being an East Coast example touted continually by the media as an additional example, we can expect this to be gaining steam nationwide. And perhaps it is just a sign of things to come with water in general.
What do I mean? Well, since water is becoming scarcer in supply with the corresponding demand growing as population increases, this idea may not be just a way for restaurants to increase profits. It may be the introduction of a new way of life, one which many of us will not find pleasing.
Now I know that in dire situations like the current California drought, strong measures have to be put in place to try and extend the supply as long as possible. But even in the case of California, bureaucratic mischief and incompetence can often be a bigger cause of the problem than overuse by the general public. Examples abound such as the cutoff of water flow in the Central Valley for vegetable crops so that an obscure fish, the snail darter, could continue in existence. Now I don't know much about the snail darter or what indeed is its impact on the food chain, but I can tell you that when vegetable and fruit prices get too high, people just have to substitute a less balanced diet. So much for Moochelle's healthy eating example.
And what about the existence of a huge leak at the Waterworks headquarters building in Los Angeles which went undetected and uncorrected for an extensive amount of time? When questioned about it, a representative of the department just shrugged it off as something that was being corrected according to established priorities. Meanwhile many rural residents now have no running water in their households.
The problem in California is not isolated just in that state. Many state water supplies are just one major drought from disaster. Here is Florida, the main source of our potable water, the aquifer, is showing serious signs of degradation both in terms of water flow and water quality, with pesticides and other chemical-based finding their way into the water supply from runoff. To date, everyone talks about it but positive action is woefully inadequate as current state land zoning, if developed to its maximum potential would allow the state to grow by five hundred percent, from our current approximately twenty million residents to one hundred million.
Will that ever happen? Since good economic trend data and what it means to the volume of growth more than a short time out is shaky at best in today's climate, we'll just have to wait and see. But my point is this: as water becomes more valuable as a commodity, many opportunistic ventures are likely to corner the market on water with the loser being, of course, the average American citizen.
If you think it's not already happen perhaps a quote from the Chairman of the Board of Nestle, one of the largest bottled water distributors in the world, will convince you. Chairman Peter Braebeck made a public statement that water is not a public right. After all, his company is drawing huge volumes from the troubled Colorado River for their water operations. And while technically he is correct, water is a need not a right, I would refer anyone to one of the key points of our Declaration of Independence. If we possess inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, how can there by life without water? We need to carefully consider this and what the ramifications are to our very existence.
Someone better get some large scale desalinization plants and distribution plans in order and quick. When states like Florida completely eliminate the springs and the wetlands with wall to wall and coast to coast high rises throughout, what are we going to do when the well runs dry? Start thinking ahead, America, while we still have time, because you can't be free for long if you can't find water.
We need to protect what we have so that a national water crisis doesn't engulf us as the other ones have. Thinking ahead, developing logically and not just for a quick buck and having leaders who are willing to face the reality of what's around them instead of running continuous campaigns for self-preservation them will go a long way to get us on the right track.
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