California Water

Although his abode is a total mess, Wally is determined to keep his promise and host a OCDs Anonymous meeting later this afternoon.  Yet, on Thursday morning 7/17/2014, he had done nothing toward his goal of becoming a Licensed Private Investigator in the State of Colorado.

But after reading an article by Tom Harper about how Nestle is taking hundreds of millions of gallons of water per year, out of California's water supply for its bottled water-bottling operation (Arrowhead and Nestle Pure Life), despite the three year drought, Wally couldn't seem get California water out of his mind. 

Having lived in Colorado for over thirty years, he realized that he shouldn’t really give-a-shit about California water.  But unlike most everything else in the United States, he also knew that this isn’t about California.  “It’s really about the water,” Wally said to some friends.  “Fucking H2O, and some asshole believes that it’s not a universal right, but his to sell to whomever can afford it.”

Although the water is part of California’s water supply, the rights were purchased from the Cabazon Water District for $3 Million around ten years ago.  The Morongo Band of Mission Indians, a sovereign nation and new owners of the rights, in turn, entered into a contract with the Perrier Group, which is owned by Nestle, to bottle their Arrowhead Water at the $26M plant.  And despite the long and severe drought, there may be little that anyone can do about it.

And since air and water are the two most important resources for survival, it only makes sense to privatize them for profit.  Eventually, someone may figure out a way to privatize the very air we breathe, but until then, corporations are either buying up, or just plain stealing all the water. 

Wally suspects that privatization of water is one of the best kept secrets of the multinational corporations, and he is seeing it manifest in third world countries.  But Wally also knows that those third world countries are merely an experiment for what is coming next.  “Before you know it,” Wally is now telling friends, “privatized water will be in your neighborhood.”

Meanwhile, Wally still has two cases of Arrowhead stacked in his tiny apartment.  He says he’ll stop drinking that brand when the cases are empty.  “But I don’t know what I’ll do when I’m done,” he said to a checkout clerk at a nearby Whole Foods.  “Denver water tastes like piss.”