As our state continues to suffer from a withering drought, I am calling on you to protect our public trust waters. With climate change an ever-increasing concern, it’s crucial to preserve our Grade A drinking water and protect our watersheds, not only for the immediate future but for generations to come. We need to ensure adequate water supply for our homes, environment, agriculture, businesses, and recreation before allocating it irretrievably to private corporations.
 
Last year we saw a multi-national water bottling company establish itself in our state with virtually no public input or state oversight.  Niagara Bottling of California received local tax abatements and unprecedented discounts on water and sewer rates (Clean Water Project rates) on up to 1.8M gallons/day of Grade A municipal drinking water.  No environmental review or state permitting was required. No expiration date on its claim to state waters was placed.  While drought warnings were sent to much of the state asking residents to conserve, this corporation was preparing to ship millions of single-serve plastic water bottles out of the watershed and beyond state borders. To our dismay, our current state drought plans do not include mandatory restrictions on this large-scale extraction until long after residents are voluntarily cutting back and reservoirs are at dangerously low levels.
 
SB-753 recognizes critical issues confronting Connecticut’s water supplies and environment as major water bottlers move into our state.  However, study alone is essentially a call to inaction for 2 more years. As such, SB-753 is flawed if left without revision. We need legislation NOW that provides sensible, reasonable oversight of any sizeable expansion of the bottled water industry:

• Protect the state’s waters during a drought:  limit water bottling while watersheds are stressed and residents are conserving- it’s ALREADY happening.
• Require a permit for any large expansion of water bottling so we know there’s enough water for both our drinking needs and our environment- for now and for decades to come. Place a moratorium on major expansion of water bottling while an appropriate permit is developed.
• Ensure water rates are not incentivizing over-use of water:  lowering rates for super-users contradicts the conservation ethic this natural resource requires.  
• Support public clean water infrastructure by requiring corporations profiting from Grade A CT water to pay their fair share.