BOTTLED WATER EXPORTS MINISCULE The amount of water exported in bottles is so small that it is irrelevant to the important discussion on better managing New Zealand’s freshwater resources, Environment Minister Dr Nick Smith says. www.foodtechnology.co.nz 15 landscape, ecological and cultural values – just rubs salt into the wound, locals against the proposal say. “New Zealanders care too much about the state of our environment and our rivers to allow a company to take so much water and to have bulldozers and diggers in public riverbeds and rainforest at Tuning Fork Creek, in the Arawata River and at the Neil's Beach with no chance for the public to participate in council decision-making.” SO DO WE CARE? On the face of it, taking a resource essentially for free or little cost, and selling it overseas for huge profits to vast marketplaces doesn’t sit well with many Kiwis. Other examples over the past few months have included a proposal to collect 800 million litres a month of glacial waters from Lake Greaney and Lake Minim Mere, pump it 20km downhill through an underground pipeline to a reservoir, then piped 2km underwater to 100,000 tonne tankers waiting to transport it to China, India and the Middle East. The company Alpine Pure says it would take only a fraction of the water that falls as rain on the Southern Alps – managing director Bruce Nisbet says “we’ve started chilling the champagne” – but environmentalists are adamant New Zealand should not be giving away its most precious natural resource for free, particularly when domestic water supplies are increasingly subject to contamination scares. Coca-Cola – which has an annual revenue of more than $60 billion - draws millions of litres of water from ancient underground aquifers for $40,000. Its source, the Blue Spring in Putaruru, is world renowned for its colour and clarity, and classified as a natural taonga. A Chinese company planning on buying a Bay of Plenty water bottling plant wants to dramatically increase its water take. Otakiri Springs currently pays $2003 in compliance costs each year for 700,000 litres a day, and Nongfu Spring Natural Mineral Water wants to increase that to five million litres a day. At the same river, New Zealand company Oravida takes 400,000 litres a day. “We’re subsidising them to make a profit,” Whakatane District councillor Mike van der Boom says. “We just want our water preserved, a sustainable take.” In Kaiapoi, Japanese company Suntory Holdings – with an annual revenue of more than $30 billion and the owner of Frucor – bottles its South Island-sourced water for its H2Go and Mizone products; whilst Kiwali water – sold in 40 US states – is American owned; and a Latvian company sells water under the Tongariro Springs brand. However, supporters say beverage giants are making the most of an opportunity that Kiwis should have done years ago – rather than turn the water into milk, we should have sold it in its purest form instead. Canterbury’s Water Rights Trust’s Roger Young says perhaps we should be applauding overseas companies for being innovative when we weren’t. “Bottling the water itself is both economically and environmentally friendly.” About 250 litres of fresh water goes into producing a litre of Canterbury milk. New Zealand Initiative head of research Dr Eric Crampton says all over the Canterbury plains, farmers have drawing rights for water for irrigation. “New ones don’t draw that much ire, but there are growing worries about nitrates leaching into groundwater and about streams drying up in Christchurch. “If another typical-sized dairy operation opened up, though, there wouldn’t be much hoo-hah. But open up a water bottling plant to ship water directly to China instead of running it first through a cow to turn into milk, to dry and turn into powder and waste water, well, folks get upset. “Because New Zealand awards consents to draw water but nobody puts a price on water, critics see this as profiteering on an unpriced resource.” It’s a comment that protest group Bung the Bore founder Jen Branje hasn’t a bar for. “We want a ban on all bottled water exports until we have legislation in place to protect it,” she says. “It is being given away willy-nilly for free.” THIS ALL HAPPENS IN... a country where century-old legislation says no one owns the water. According to government figures, New Zealand’s annual freshwater resource is 500 trillion litres, of which 2% is extracted. Last year saw 71 consents for “the taking of water for bottling,” and Prime Minister Bill English is not keen to make it an election issue, although he has announced an expert water panel will look at the issue of options in the future. It appears the Government is understanding the deep-held concern from voters, although Green party spokeswoman Catherine Delahunty says the issue can’t wait until the election. “National’s failure to charge commercial users of water is one of the reasons why many rivers and aquifers are in such a poor state," She says. If we value our water, we should put a price on its commercial use. Our view is that if they’re taking it, and they’re profiting from it, they should pay for it.” Is there any answer? Only time (and maybe a general election) will tell. We use a million times more water for irrigation, town water supply and industry than that for bottled export. Bottled water exports are such a small fraction that it is a distraction to the important debate about how New Zealand better manages its freshwater resources. New Zealand’s annual freshwater resource is 500 trillion litres, of which 2% or 10 trillion litres is extracted. Statistics New Zealand reports that last year 8.7 million litres of bottled water was exported, down from 9.8 million litres in 2015. This means bottled export is 0.000002% of the total water resource, or 0.0001% of the total water extracted. There is a real fairness problem with charging bottled water for export and not other water users. It would be odd from a health perspective to be charging a company bottling water, but not charging for the company that makes fizzy drink or beer. Nor would it make economic sense to charge the company bottling water for export, but not the company using the water to produce wine or milk. There may be a better return for New Zealand with less environmental problems in exporting the water rather than spraying it on land, adding fertiliser and producing milk, noting that each litre of milk takes an average 400 litres of water to produce. The argument that the water bottling company may be foreign does not hold water when many larger water users in other industries like dairying and wine also have overseas investment. Freshwater management in New Zealand does need to improve. We have introduced a requirement for councils to set minimum flow requirements in our waterways and compulsory metering. This has resulted in a significant number of red zones where further water extraction is prohibited. A technical advisory group is working on how New Zealand can better allocate freshwater, and will be reporting back to Government by year’s end. The key to reform will be ensuring it is based on sound science and good data.
FT-Apr17-eMag
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