To the Editor,
Re: People have right to water concerns, Letters Aug. 7.
Once again June Ross makes unsupported and misleading statements with regard to her disdain for the companies that sell bottled water.
Ross claims taxpayers do not pay for the water itself. If that is the case, why does the nice man from the city read my water meter, and why does the city send me a bill based on my consumption?
In Nanaimo the tap water is only treated with chlorine, whereas water taken from the municipal source in Vancouver is filtered four times and treated with UV, reverse osmosis and finally is ozonated. They are not, in fact, selling us the same quality of water that comes from the tap.
Apparently, the Vancouver Island Health Authority would agree, as they have ordered Nanaimo to spend $72 million on a water filtration plant as our current water is not deemed to be safe in its present form.
The claim that plastic bottles used to transport water now fill up huge portions of our oceans is once again unsupported opinion. I presume Ross has not been at the bottle depot lately – there are tractor trailers filled with empty plastic bottles daily.
If Ross wishes to ban all plastic bottles, perhaps she would explain the alternative. Glass bottles? Aluminum cans?
The claim that these bottles are releasing dangerous toxins into the water is another unsupported opinion.
What is the opinion of Health Canada? Are they knowingly putting Canadians’ health at risk? Again, is the intention to ban all plastic bottles?
I am not a shill for the bottled water companies, and drink water from my tap, but I also would like the opportunity to buy a bottle of water if I find myself thirsty and have not brought along a bottle from home.
City council, in a decision that was likely as much about pandering to CUPE, has decided to waste thousands of tax dollars making drinking water available at all civic facilities so they can justify not allowing the sale of bottled water from vending machines.
I hope they will also be banning all drinks that come in a plastic bottle.
Jim Taylor
Nanaimo