Another bottled water company has plans to extract millions of litres of water from New Zealand. And this time, it wants to drain our pristine world heritage sites, pipe it all the way to the coast and then ship it off to foreign markets. And they’ll pay next to nothing for it.
Alpine Pure wants to collect 800 million litres a month of the untapped glacial waters of the South Island's Lake Greaney and Lake Minim Mere, paying local councils a token for the privilege. The government is basically giving away New Zealand’s most precious natural resource for free.
But SumOfUs have won against big water companies try to steal New Zealand's water before -- just last June, 40,000 SumOfUs members spoke out against the corporate buyout of water in the Canterbury Plains. And two weeks after 60 concerned Kiwis delivered our signatures to the Ashburton District Council, the deal was cancelled. If we fight back now, we can protect NZ's water once again.
Tell the English government: Protect NZ's precious water resources
As more and more government consents are granted to the bottled water industry, companies are now looking to more remote parts of New Zealand to access untainted water supplies, like the untouched glacial water from Lake Greaney and Lake Minim Mere on the edge of the Mount Aspiring National Park.
But these water deals are a terrible idea -- New Zealand has just faced a series of contamination breaks in several water systems, with some communities struggling to access clean, safe water supplies. Some Kiwis are forced to boil or buy back their water - at a cost of around $3 a litre - while their freshwater reserves are being exploited by corporate multinationals for a pittance.
Thousands of New Zealanders have already rallied outside local councils nationwide to demand that public access to clean safe water is put before private profit.
And now, more than ever, we need to call on the government to urgently step in and protect the nation’s freshwater springs and lakes from corporate profiteering.
Ensure English puts legislation in place to protect NZ's precious water resources
More information
EcoWatch. 27 March 2017.
The Guardian. 27 March 2017.
