Statement: Before the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Water Infrastructure Finance Commission

Thank you, Senator Eldridge, Representative Dykema and other members of the Commission for the opportunity to offer testimony on behalf of Corporate Accountability International and our members regarding the importance of public investment in water infrastructure across the Commonwealth.  We are a 30 year old membership funded organization that has been waging and winning campaigns challenging irresponsible and dangerous corporate actions and protecting people.  
 

My name is Kristin Urquiza and I direct our Think Outside the Bottle Campaign.  Through Think Outside the Bottle we have worked with thousands of our members to educate millions of people across the country about the environmental and social impacts of bottled water and the importance of strong public water systems.  We are also strong advocates for infrastructure investment at the local, state and national level, as well as the need to protect access to water and water resources for the common good verses profit.
 

Today, I’m prepared to share with the Commission the links between the rise in the bottled water industry and the decline in financing for our public water systems and share our recommendations on how to bolster support for these systems and share ways to help meet the capital needs of municipal water systems.
 

Members of the Commission, we are in the midst of a global water crisis that stands to have a tremendous impact on people here in the Commonwealth and around the world unless we act now. In the face of this crisis, some corporations have seen an opportunity to profit directly from supplying water – something that is essential to life – as well as driving a market away from public water systems and to a highly priced alternative, bottled water. 
 

Bottled water corporations have attempted to change the way people think about water.  They have done this with advertising campaigns such as the recent Nestlé’s “Born Better” – implying that water in a plastic bottle is somehow better than what our cities provide to us via the tap.

The marketing has worked: during the past decade polls showed that three in four people in the U.S. were drinking bottled water regularly. And we’re amongst the worst here in the Commonwealth: In 2008 Massachusetts residents consumed a staggering amount of bottled water – ranking sixth in the nation in the amount of bottled water consumed: 300,800,000 gallons – enough bottled water to circle the globe over 11 times.

The marketing has been so effective that even the cities and states charged with the stewardship of our tap water are spending millions on bottled water and is an extreme example of how the bottled water industry’s manufactured demand pushes what we don’t need and destroys what we need most.  Here in Massachusetts we just entered a new bottled water contract in May valued at $1.5 million dollars. 
 

We know that the industry marketing claims are unsubstantiated – during our nation’s history we have taken significant steps to ensure Americans weren’t denied access to safe clean drinking water because of their means - making a national commitment to strong public water systems and clean water laws that have been critical to health and equality in the U.S.  Unfortunately, our public water systems don’t have the same advertising dollars that the world’s largest food and beverage corporations have and thus are on an unlevel playing field.

 

And what’s the result of this marketing? As the bottled water industry has grown, the political will to adequately fund public water systems in the U.S. has diminished. The gap between what these systems need and the funding available to them is more than $22 billion each year and growing.   Yet, investment in infrastructure can be a win for the economy  and job creation - The US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis estimates that for each additional dollar of revenue (or the economic value of the output) of the water and sewer industry, the increase in revenue that occurs in all industries is $2.62 in that year. The same analysis estimates that adding one job in the local water and sewer industry creates 3.68 new jobs in the national economy to support it.

 

Here in Massachusetts, Governor Patrick has started to address this by directing $185 Million in federal funding toward our state water infrastructure for this fiscal year and by establishing this Commission.  Despite this we’re still faced with estimated funding backlog of well over a billion, and spending scarce public dollars on bottled water sends the absolute wrong message to the public about the quality of the tap.  
 

Therefore, we offer the following recommendations to the Commission: 
 

1. Recommend that the Patrick administration join the states of Colorado, Illinois and New York and the dozens of cities across the country to issue an executive order that urges further promotion of Massachusetts tap water, eliminates unnecessary state spending on bottled water and prioritizes reinvestment in public water infrastructure as part of state budgeting

2. Partner with organizations such as the Responsible Purchasing Network that can give technical guidance on the issue of phasing out bottled water spending.

Reinvesting these dollars into infrastructure will not completely solve the funding gap; however, even these modest steps are important during these economic times when every dollar counts, and the symbolic value is critical in winning over the minds of citizens of the Commonwealth so that they value and are committed to supporting these systems.

We appreciate and commend the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Water Infrastructure Finance Commission for taking the time to seriously consider the issues discussed here today.  Thank you for inviting our organization to offer our comments, and we stand ready to assist you in your efforts.