Full text of the letter to your governor

The Honorable Governor of [State]
Address
Date

Dear Governor [NAME]:

Like most states across the United States, [name of state] has high quality public water systems.  We are writing to ask for your leadership in protecting them. For over three years Corporate Accountability International has been leading the Think Outside the Bottle Campaign to raise awareness about the environmental and social impacts of bottled water and to galvanize support for strong public water systems. Nationally, three out of four people regularly drink bottled water  -- that’s more than twenty-six gallons per person each year, more than double the rate from ten years ago .  State governments contribute to this trend when purchasing bottled water for offices, meetings, and other state-sponsored events.

As we work to stimulate our economy, spending taxpayer money on bottled water is a misallocation of limited resources.  For example, in 2007 the city of San Francisco audited its spending on bottled water and found that it was spending nearly $500,000 each year, leading Mayor Newsom to cancel all city-spending on bottled water . Furthermore, bottled water undermines confidence in [name of state’s] public water supply and pollutes the environment. Plastic water bottles in the U.S. require the equivalent of more than 17 million barrels of oil a year to manufacture, and over 80 percent end up incinerated, buried in our landfills or are discarded on our roadways or in our waterways as litter.

Governor [NAME], we want to extend the opportunity for you to become a local and national leader on this issue by ending state contracts with bottled water suppliers, promoting public water systems across the state, and advocating for a renewed national commitment to water infrastructure funding.

We hope you have followed the recent national attention on the negative impacts of bottled water and the growing concern about of the privatizing (or commoditization) of our water. Increasing numbers of cities, restaurants, institutions, and individuals are turning back to the tap and away from expensive, branded bottled water.  The U.S. Conference of Mayors passed a resolution at their 2008 annual meeting encouraging cities across the country to phase out government use of bottled water and promote the importance of strong public water systems. Already, more than 60 major cities have responded to this resolution and have taken common sense actions to protect the environment, save money, and restore confidence in our public water supplies.  We are eager to see similar actions taken at the state level.

Recent studies show that government spending on public water systems pays huge dividends for our economy .  Public water systems are the backbone of our country’s infrastructure, public health and economic prosperity—it’s time we start nurturing them. Yet, last year, the American public spent more than $15 billion buying bottled water . This at a time when our public water systems are in need of increased public support, facing at least an annual $22 billion shortfall between what these systems require and what is allocated.

As our state’s leading public official, we ask you to sign the enclosed Think Outside the Bottle Pledge to signify your support for strong public water systems. We look forward to working with you on this important issue.

Sincerely,

(Signatories included)

i) U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  “Analysis and Findings of The Gallup Organization’s Drinking Water Customer Satisfaction Survey,” August 6, 2003.

ii) “Bottled water continues tradition of strong growth in 2005,” Press Release, Beverage Marketing Corporation, April 2006, http://www.beveragemarketing.com/news2aaa.htm.  Accessed 16 August 2006.

iii) Vega, Cecilia.  “Mayor to Cut of Flow of City Money for Bottled Water,” The San Francisco Chronicle.  June 22,2007.

iv) Arnold, Emily and Janet Larsen.  “Bottled Water:  Pouring Resources Down the Drain,” Earth Policy Institute, February 2, 2006, http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2006/Update51.htm.  Accessed 6 February 2007.

v) Krop, Richard Ph.D.; Hernick, Charles and Frantz, Christopher.  “Local Government Investment in Municipal Water and Sewer Infrastructure: Adding Value to the National Economy.”  The Cadmus Group, Inc.  Commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ Water Council.  August 14, 2008.

vi) Fishman, Charles.  “Message in a Bottle,” Fast Company, June 2007.  “Bottled Water:  More than just a story about sales growth,” Press Release International Bottled Water Association, April 9, 2007, http://www.bottledwater.org/public/2007_releases/2007-04-09_bevmkt.htm.  Accessed June 2007.

vii) “The Clean Water and Drinking Water Gap Analysis.” Office of Water, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Sept. 30, 2002. http://www. epa.gov/safewater/gapreport.pdf; Accessed 27 March 2008.