This essay is a video review, a look at what research says about the subject, and a personal opinion of the research. The video detailed the citizens of one town in Maine who feel that they are being exploited because of the extraction of water by Nestle. The research says that no one has found any harm being done to the environment, and it seems that the complaint is that the citizens of the town are not sharing in the wealth of water the state has deemed is not theirs to control to begin with. The opinion states that the issue is greed on both sides becaue there is no environmental issue.
Environmental Economics
Water is needed for life like few other natural resources. The Earth and the human body are both made up of more than 75% water, and they both require this simple concoction of one hydrogen and two oxygen atoms bonded strongly together more than anything except maybe sunlight. For millennia the water supply has been a constant. It did not cost anything, but it was always subject to vagaries such as disease and shortage due to drought. Now water is being bottled and sold, and the world water market has been estimated as worth $800 billion in U.S. currency. The bottled water industry and its effects in the small towns where the water is "mined" are the subjects of this video.
Throughout the video, average citizens talk about how water is used in their small towns and how that use is being usurped by profit-hungry corporations such as Nestle. Due to the fact that it is cheap to extract and bottle the product, and also because it is very profitable to sell the product, Nestle and others are making huge profits while providing very little in the way of payment to the communities that it takes the water from. The gist of the video is that the communities are suffering because they are not sharing in the profits, and the environment is suffering because the water is being mined and then shipped to new locations around the world. The main voices in the video are authorities who worked in presidential administrations (Carter's and Clinton's) as economic advisers.
Economic Issues
The main point covered in the video with regard to economics is that the towns from which the water is being taken are not receiving any of the profits from the extraction. There is no mention (except for a vague segment in which a town was mysteriously without water for a day-and-a-half while Nestle continued to extract water in 2004) of the extraction of the water actually hurting the people or the water tables in the area. However, the town which is the main concern in the video does have to get its supply from a deep well rather than the springs which used to supply the town. Tax money seems to be the issue. This is a gold mine for the company that does not have to pay heavy taxes on the water they extract to the town or state, and can sell the water at a huge profit.
Another economic issue that was not eluded to specifically is the damage caused by water transportation from the large tankers. This could cause infrastructure damage that is then paid for by the citizens. Another reason for there to be some tax taken for the extraction of the water.
Personal Opinion
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