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National Parks Being Lobbied To Do Away With Bottled Water, Install Filling Stations

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A lobbying effort is under way to get more national parks to phase-out bottled water in favor of reusable water bottles and water-filling stations, such as this one at Arches National Park. Kurt Repanshek photo.

It's been more than a year since bottled water and corporate America collided at Grand Canyon National Park, and the push continues to get more national parks to phase out packaged water in favor of fresh tap water and refillable bottles.

Next week National Park Service officials at Yosemite and Mount Rainier national parks, Independence Hall National Historical Park, and Golden Gate National Recreation Area will be presented with over-sized postcards urging them to phase out disposable water bottles.

At Corporate Accountability International, a non-profit that works to encourage cleaner environmental habits, officials intend to make March 27 a "national day of action ... in a heated battle between those who are fighting to get billions of plastic bottles out of our waste stream, and Coca-Cola (owner of Dasani), who is throwing hurdles in the way of those parks that want to become bottled water free."

Coca-Cola rose to the limelight back in November 2011 when an email trail seemed to indicate the beverage maker was pressuring the National Park Foundation to urge the Park Service not to ban disposable water bottles at Grand Canyon National Park. At the time, Park Service officials said they weren't bowing to corporate pressure but simply conducting due diligence on the impacts of such a ban. For instance, they said at the time, how might the safety of visitors to Southwestern parks such as the Grand Canyon, Arches, and Canyonlands be impacted by a ban?

Ultimately, Grand Canyon officials, who had installed water filling stations early in 2011, were able to phase-out bottled water and put to use filling stations they had installed

Kristin Urquiza, who oversees the "Outside the Bottle and Public Works Compaign" for Corporate Accountability International, says more parks need to follow Zion, Hawaii Volcanoes, and Grand Canyon national parks in phasing out the sale of disposable water bottles.

At the same time, she was critical of an extensive memorandum (attached below) Park Service Director Jon Jarvis sent out to his superintendents in the wake of the Grand Canyon uproar that directed the steps they would need to take to phase-out bottled water. That memo called for superintendents to, among other things, review the amount of waste that could be eliminated from their park; consider the costs of installing and maintaining water filling stations for visitors; review the resulting impact on concessionaire and cooperative association revenues, and; consult with the Park Service's Public Health Office.

Then, too, they must consider "contractual implications" to concessionaires, the cost and availability of BPA-free reusable containers, and signage so visitors can find water filling stations. Also, they need to take into consideration safety considerations for visitors who might resort to drinking water "from surface water sources with potential exposure to disease" or who neglect to carry enough water with them on hikes.

"That is a clear indication of how Coke, stepping in, really is putting pressure on the Park Service to make it much more difficult for additional parks to follow suit," maintained Ms. Urquiza during a phone conservation. "Coke and the other bottlers, Nestle and Pepsi, there were several conference calls that were organized with Park Service employees and representatives from the big bottlers, asking them to put a hiatus on additional bans, and really working to stop this from happening in additional places."

To get more parks to phase-out bottled water, the non-profit has been working with stakeholders in and out of national parks, including concessionaires, "to help give Park Service (superintendents) the support they need to really move forward on implementing a 'bottled-water-free' policy in their parks," she said.

While none of the four parks has given "firm commitments" to moving forward with a ban, said Ms. Urquiza, talks have been ongoing to examine the feasibility of such a ban.

"The real exciting feedback that we've been getting is that water in the parks is an incredibly important issue for superintendents," she said. "They want to figure out how to minimize the amount of waste, to promote public water."

The organization plans to organize efforts this fall in Washington, D.C., to lobby the Park Service to hold firm to its original plan of having refillable water stations in 75 percent of park visitor centers by 2016, while encouraging parks to discontinue the sale of disposable bottled water.

On March 27, next Wednesday, the non-profit hopes superintendents at Yosemite, Mount Rainier, Independence Hall, and Golden Gate will commit to moving forward with a ban of disposable water bottles. "Our hope is that the superintendents can make a public commitment to implementing bottled-water-free policies," Ms. Urquiza said. "We're really hopeful, and see this as a win-win for parks.

"... At the end of the day, it's really sending the wrong message for our national parks to be promoting bottled water," she added.

At least one reusable bottlemaker, Vapur, has been talking with national parks about installing water-filling stations for visitors. Company officials, however, have declined to discuss what progress they're making.

Comments

EC, I don't see how it could be anti-corporate America. The best corporations figure out a way to leverage markets. If one angle closes, another one opens up, as is the case here with the reusable bottle companies working to fill the niche.

And as someone else pointed out, if the Park Service spends less money cleaning up litter and hauling it away, it can put those $$$ to better use somewhere else in the parks. That makes better business-sense for the parks, no?


Ah Justin, an unsourced Sierra Club article.


You can read the same story at The Traveler, and elsewhere if you have access to Google:

/2011/12/nps-director-jarvis-allows-parks-ban-disposable-plastic-bottles9180


Shows you Kurt is much more honest in his reporting than the Sierra Club. Kurt identified the source and disclosed those numbers were an "estimate". The Sierra Club article stated it as fact.

But neither were able to identify what the "net profit" was relative to the profit generated from the plastic bottles nor account for the cost of building, maintaining and supplying water stations.


if the Park Service spends less money cleaning up litter and hauling it away, it can put those $$$ to better use somewhere else in the parks.

Kurt,

If plastic bottles generate $500 of incremental cost but $25,000 of incremental profit, then no, its not putting $$$ to better use. Its losing money that could be used somewhere else in the park. Its the equivalent of cutting a tour that cost $100 to run but generates $500 in revenue. It makes no economic sense - not to mention, it doesn't meet the visitors' needs.


But it's not the NPS that's making the $$$ from water sales, it's private corporations that take the money and return a tiny percentage back to the parks.


Maybe that would be a good basis for a story. What does the concessionaire pay for his lease and what percentage of sales does he give to the park? I would love to see a line by line operating account of one of these major parks. Transparency anyone?

Why not rather than banning, if collection and disposal is really the issue, require the concessionaire to pay a fee per bottle sold to cover that cost. At less than 1 cent per bottle, it seems that it would be little burden to the concessionaire or his customer. Or, as has been suggested before, put a deposit on the bottles with the unclaimed funds going to collection and disposal.

If the economics were truly the issue, there are many other alternatives to banning that wouldn't cost the parks nor inconvenience its visitors.

Alas - economics isn't really the issue.


ecbuck, if you read the attatchment at the bottom of the article, the section of Elimination actually does take in to consideration economics. But it is only part of the whole issue, not the only part. For you, it seems to be the only part.


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