Having an enhanced water…

Having an enhanced water management strategy is a good idea. Water should be maintained available for use by public and municipalities as priority uses. Any commercial or private usage should be considered secondary, especially in times of low water availability. Creating a more science based system dependent on data is critical to good management techniques. Having a system where commercial applications may need to be forced to slow down so that municipal / domestic / environmental supplies can be maintained is a good management strategy.

Specifically focusing on water bottling activities for restricted usage is fundamentally wrong. All industries use water on differing quantities. Excluding one industry alone solely due to public outcry is nothing more than knee jerk reaction to pacify the very few that complain the most, moreover most of these complaints are made without facts supported by science. The water bottling industry in Ontario already have some of the most complicated and stringent PTTW conditions for monitoring in all of Ontario. We need to rely more on science rather than emotion to make good resource management choices. I am not pro bottled water but as educated people we must look at facts rather than the inflamed misinformation that is being spread by special interest groups.

Comparatively, of all the non alcoholic pre-packaged beverage types bottled water is the most efficient conversion from raw to finished product when one considers the amount of water used in the process. For example water conversion rates from raw product to finished product are something like:
Bottled water 1L = 1.39L water used
Coffee 1L = 1040L water used
Milk 1 L = 1020L water used
Orange juice 1L = 850 L water used
Soda 1L = 254L water used
Almond milk 1L = 1000L water used
Based on the data above we should be looking at a number of other industries as bottled water seems to use the least amount of water in their process.

Another area the regulating authority needs to look at is open loop geothermal for residential applications as there are thousands of homes pumping groundwater to waste for heating and cooling purposes year round - most are also above the PTTW demand requirements.