The US Forestry Service ordered a private equity firm to stop pumping water from California’s San Bernardino mountains (see Blue News here). As Leana Hosea, founder & journalist with the UK organistion WATERSHED (formerly 18 yrs BBC & 2016 Knight Wallace Fellow) writes, Blue Triton acquired these water rights when they bought a bottled water firm. Since then, pumping increased, but 94-98% isn’t bottled but used for «undisclosed purposes». Although the Forestry Service has repeatedly asked what the water is being used for, the firm don’t seem keen to tell them. Conservationists say the increased pumping has reduced the creek to «a trickle», she writes based on an article by Ian James, published in the LA Times on August 8.
Last year, Laura Bliss reported on a pattern of corporations acquiring bottled water firms – gaining rights to pump water – an increasingly scarce resource. The article was part of Bloomberg‘s terrifying «water grab» series, on corporate buy ups of water resources. In Florida, Ryan Smart, told her:
«there’s way less vegetation. The river has shrunk. You don’t see as many fish. It’s like watching a family member get sick.»
In the UK, private equity firms have bought into water companies, where firms like Macquarie («the Australian vampire») are alleged to have drained resources & loaded companies with debt.
