H2Uh-Oh

From Arrowhead to Volvic, Fiji’s not the only bottled water with a PR challenge.

Photo: Courtesy of the manufacturers

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Sam’s Choice (Wal-Mart)

WET REGRET Water comes from the Las Vegas municipal supply. A test by the Environmental Working Group found it had 200% of the allowable trihalomethane, a carcinogen, and included several chemicals known to cause DNA damage.

Dasani (Coca-Cola)

WET REGRET Coca-Cola‘s bottling plant near the village of Plachimada in Kerala, India, began pumping groundwater in 2000. When wells dried up and villagers couldn’t irrigate their fields, Coke offered a goodwill gesture: heavy-metal-laced sludge from the plant to use as fertilizer. After company ignored years of protests—and two government orders to install wastewater treatment and provide drinking water to villagers—the state ordered Coke plant to close in 2004. (Coke won the right to reopen the next year.)

Arrowhead (Nestlé)

WET REGRET Nestlé is seeking a permit to pipe 65 million gallons a year from a spring in rural Colorado. When critics raised concerns about the effect of climate change on local water supplies, Nestlé said it was “illogical” to base decisions on changes “many years in the future.”

Volvic (Danone)

WET REGRET Last fall, Japan recalled 570,000 bottles of the French water after finding the toxic paint chemicals xylene and naphthalene in the bottles.

Deer Park (Nestlé)

WET REGRET In the middle of a drought, convinced officials to let it pump water from Florida’s Madison Blue Spring State Park for 14 years for no fee except a $230 permit (more than offset by nearly $1.7 million in tax subsidies).

Ice Mountain (Nestlé)

WET REGRET Pays nothing (other than small lease and $85 yearly well fee) to pump from a Mecosta County, Michigan, spring. Citizens sued, saying the plant would damage nearby waterways, and prevailed. But Nestlé appealed and this past July won the right to continue pumping up to 200 gal./minute.

International Bottled Water Association

WET REGRET Created @Bottled H20Babe on Twitter: “A lover of bottled water, a convenient, refreshing beverage that shouldn’t be restricted by governments or false claims.”

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate