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Air and Water: A Healthy Environment

The integrity of ecosystems depends on air quality and both the quality and quantity of water. Access to air and water are also fundamental human rights.  Thus, making ethical decisions about our use of air and water requires understanding how nature purifies both, and then relying on this knowledge to provide access for everyone to clean air and water.

We begin with the ecology of the atmosphere, and consider how we should respond to air pollution and the increase of greenhouse gases. Then we consider the water cycle, and confront the problems of water pollution and the scarcity of clean water. Finally, we confirm that protecting a healthy environment makes more sense than depending on economic markets to allocate our use of these precious resources.

THE EARTH’S ATMOSPHERE

In the biosphere air and water intermingle almost everywhere. The atmosphere contains water particles, and water in the oceans, lakes, and streams absorbs the gases of the atmosphere. Plants absorb carbon dioxide from the air using solar energy in the process of photosynthesis, which produces needed materials for the plants and releases oxygen into the atmosphere as a waste product. Animals breathe in oxygen, and exhale carbon dioxide. Both plants and animals require water, which is the medium for the metabolism of every organism.

Life on earth also depends on nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus compounds1 as well as chemicals using carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. A water molecule, which is the most common molecule on earth, is made up of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen. Carbon is the sixth most common atom on earth, but carbon dioxide (an atom of carbon plus two atoms of oxygen) makes up only a small fraction of the atmosphere. Nitrogen, which is the second most common element in our bodies, is an essential ingredient for the proteins and nucleic acids needed for life. Nitrogen must be “fixed” (in compounds) to be utilized by plant and animal cells, and this occurs in the atmosphere due to lightning and in the soil because of bacteria.

Sulfur is found in rocks and ocean sediment, and enters the atmosphere with volcanic eruptions, forest fires, and as bacteria decomposes organic matter.  Plants and animals require sulfur for proteins and enzymes, but sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere may react with water to form sulfuric acid. (Similarly, nitrous oxides in the atmosphere may react with water to form nitric acid.) Because this is natural, plants have evolved to withstand rain that is slightly acidic. 

Phosphorus is essential for life on earth, as it forms part of the structural framework of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) and RNA (ribonucleic acid), is used in cell walls and bones, and is involved in energy transfers using ATP (adenosine triphosphate) within cells. Because it is highly reactive, phosphorus is never found as a free element in nature. Where phosphorus is scarce in the natural environment, life will also be scarce.

Ozone (a molecule with three atoms of oxygen) is in the air naturally, as it is produced from oxygen by lightning. In the upper atmosphere, the “ozone layer” prevents ultraviolet light (which damages organic tissue) from reaching the earth’s surface. In the lower atmosphere, ozone levels are naturally too low to harm plants and the respiratory organs of animals. 

Air and water are only “polluted” by the presence of these substances when the concentration is too high. Too much sulfuric acid in the atmosphere causes “acid rain” that kills plants, and too much ground-level ozone harms plants and animals. Humans are not the only cause of pollution, as natural events such as forest fires and volcanic eruptions contaminate air and water. Nonetheless, as ethical beings, we are responsible for our impact on the biosphere.

AIR: POLLUTION AND GREENHOUSE GASES

The US Congress passed the Clean Air Act in 1963 and the Air Quality Act in 1967. In 1970 it amended these in the Clean Air Act Extension, which charged the newly formed Environmental Protection Agency to develop and enforce regulations to protect the public from airborne contaminants known to be dangerous for human health. These laws reflect a growing awareness of our duty to restore and maintain nature’s capacity to purify the atmosphere.

In 1977 Congress again amended the Clean Air Act, this time to require the EPA “to make a special effort to clean the air in national parks, wildlife refuges and other places of ‘scenic’ and ‘historical’ value it hoped to leave in somewhat better shape for future generations.”2 Yet, no administration since, “Democratic or Republican, has paid any attention to this mandate.”3 As a result, air pollution now impacts one in three national parks.

There have been efforts, however, to reduce lead poisoning, petrochemical smog in urban areas, acid rain where power plants are burning soft coal, the hole in the ozone layer due to chlorofluorocarbon gases (CFCs) entering the stratosphere (above thirty thousand feet), and the new threat caused by the increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Lead

Lead is found naturally in water, but there was little lead in the air until, in the 1920s, lead was added to gasoline to improve the efficiency of the automobile engine. Within two decades the dangers for human health were clear.4 “Longterm exposure to lead, even in low concentrations, can cause improper brain functioning and development. Scientific studies have clearly established the link between lead intake and the intellectual impairment of children. Unlike some contaminants, lead does not flush out of the body with body fluids. Once ingested, it remains in the fat and body tissue for life.”5

Public health officials pushed for government regulations that would ban the use of lead in paint, require that lead pipes used to carry drinking water be replaced with copper or plastic pipes, and end the use of lead from gasoline (because particles of lead were introduced into the air with engine emissions). In 1976 the EPA banned the use of lead in gasoline, and since then concentrations of lead in the air have dropped more than 90 percent.6 

Other sources of lead in the atmosphere are “from solid waste, coal, oil, iron and steel production, lead smelters and tobacco smoke.”7 A recent study endorsed by the EPA’s Clean Air Science Advisory Committee (CASAC) concludes that there is no safe human level for exposure to lead.8 Because of the continuing danger, the EPA monitors not only lead, but also five other air pollutants—ozone, soot,9 sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and nitrous oxides.10

Smog

In the 1950s smog in urban areas began to endanger human health. This “photochemical smog” is due to sunlight causing nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds to react, which produces airborne particles and ozone.11 Scientists created a catalytic converter to reduce nitrogen oxides to nitrogen and oxygen, to oxidize carbon monoxide into carbon dioxide, and to oxidize unburned hydrocarbons into carbon dioxide and water.12

In 1976 the EPA required all new cars to have catalytic converters, and now these devices neutralize about 90 percent of the harmful emissions produced by automobile engines.13 Since catalytic converters have been required in the United States, “Emissions of carbon monoxide have dropped by 32 percent even as driving has increased 127 percent.”14

In 2008 the EPA “lowered the amount of ozone that should be allowed in the air for it to be considered healthy,” but the “Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, created by Congress to advise the EPA” has protested that the “new air quality standard for smog fails to protect public health as required by law and should be strengthened.”15 Research in 2008 also indicates that high levels of ozone in the lower atmosphere “can decrease forest growth by as much as 30 percent,” and interfere with “the ability of bees and other insects to follow the scent of flowers to their source, undermining the essential process of pollination.”16

Reducing ozone in the lower atmosphere to levels that are harmless will require substantial investment in mass transit, engines for vehicles that produce fewer emissions, lower-cost housing in cities enabling people to live closer to where they work, and higher gasoline prices that motivate people to walk, bicycle, ride mass transit, and use car pools.17

Acid Rain

Acid rain is due largely to excess amounts of sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere. It is not only a problem in North America and Europe, but also in Asia and Latin America.18 In Europe, the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP) regulates emissions of both sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides.19

In the United States, utility companies burning coal with a high content of sulfur produce 70 percent of this airborne sulfur dioxide.20 Acid rain reduces the yield of crops, kills pine trees, and renders lakes sterile by killing the small plants in the water. “The contaminated smoke is sent high into the air by the heat of combustion and the height of the smokestacks. Strong winds can carry the damaging gases for long distances before they fall to the ground.”21

The Clean Air Act of 1990 directed the EPA to regulate the emissions of power plants. “Under the provisions of this act, regulators were required to study the records of each utility company. From this information, they calculated the amount of sulfur dioxide that had been generated by each factory in the preceding years. Because sulfur dioxide gas is the most frequent pollutant,

this figure determines the tonnage of pollutants, or allowances, allotted to each factory or power plant.”22

This allowance defines the “cap” (limit) of the sulfur dioxide emissions from a power plant and reduces this amount over time. Power companies that lower their emissions below their cap may sell the “extra allowances” to other companies, and a company exceeding its cap must pay a penalty. Under this regulatory program, “Emissions of sulfur dioxide have dropped by 35 percent even though the gross domestic product has more than doubled.”23

This “cap-and-trade system” lowers the level of contaminants, but does not end pollution. In 2003, when an overload of the electrical circuits in northeastern North America shut down several power plants, scientists measured the air pollutants a day later. In comparison with measurements made a year earlier, there was “a 90 percent drop in the sulfur oxides that cause acid rain, a 50 percent drop in the nitrogen oxides that generate smog, and an increase of aerial visibility of 40 miles (64 km).”24

Laws that limit sulfur dioxide emissions and require catalytic converters have reduced the contaminants in the atmosphere causing acid rain and smog.25 Yet, acid rain continues to destroy forests, and smog in the United States “causes more than 50,000 hospital cases a year.”26 These economic “externalities” are substantial costs.

Ozone in the Upper Atmosphere

The presence of nitrogen oxides in the upper atmosphere continues to damage the ozone layer protecting life on earth, as nitrogen oxides react with ozone in direct sunlight.27 In the stratosphere ozone deflects ultraviolet light that, if it reached the earth, would “kill fish and shrimp larvae near the surface of the oceans, stunt the growth of plants, and contribute to vision problems and skin cancer in humans.”28

The ozone layer in the stratosphere was stable until chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were invented in 1930 for use in air conditioners. In the 1940s these synthetic gases, which are odorless, nontoxic, nonflammable, and chemically inert, were also used in aerosol dispensers. In 1973 researchers found that CFC molecules exposed to undiluted light in the stratosphere break up, releasing chlorine gas that reacts with ozone and produces oxygen. Five years later the US Congress banned CFCs in aerosol dispensers, despite arguments by CFC manufacturers that scientific evidence of the danger to the ozone layer was inconclusive. 

In 1986 a large hole in the ozone layer was confirmed, and a year later scientists verified the presence of chlorine molecules in this hole. At the end of 1987 the UNEP launched the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, which came into force as international law in 1989. The Montreal Protocol oversees phasing out CFCs.29 This protocol is an example of successful international regulation. The battle for the Montreal Protocol was won because proponents: were able to define the issue as a serious threat to public health, made the precautionary principle the standard for intervention, gained credibility when the ozone hole over Antarctica was discovered, and had a more effective lobbying network than the opposition.30 Production of CFCs is to end in 2010, but CFCs will continue to pose a threat, as these gases in refrigerators and air conditioners made before 2000 may be reused.

Greenhouse Gases

Water vapor and other natural gases in the atmosphere act like a glass ceiling, letting the light through and blocking much of the heat radiating from the earth. This is known as the greenhouse effect, as this process is how glass warms a greenhouse. Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrous oxide, methane, fluorocarbons, and hydrofluocarbons.31

The greenhouse effect of the atmosphere is natural and sustains life.32 Since the industrial era, however, the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen by 30 percent33 and “the rate of growth increases every year.”34 This increase, which is causing rapid global warming, is largely due to burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas).35 To slow global warming, we must lower carbon dioxide emissions, which requires reducing our consumption of fossil fuels.  Chapter 15 considers ways of doing this.

WATER: QUALITY AND SCARCITY

Nature purifies water through the hydrologic cycle. Evaporation from streams, lakes, and oceans leaves impurities behind. If the atmosphere is not polluted, then rain will bring clean water back to earth. Impurities added to water in the atmosphere, or picked up in streams from rocks and sediments, are filtered out by plants growing along streams and wetlands that absorb organic material and minerals. Water in underground aquifers has been filtered by the soil and purified by bacteria in the ground that transforms chemicals into nutrients. 

What is our duty to maintain these ecosystem processes, and to restore eco - systems when these functions are damaged? We look first at the stress now on surface water and groundwater ecosystems. Then we consider our choices in treating water, and how we might protect access to water where there is scarcity.

Surface Water

In 1972 the US Congress passed the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments, which were later modified and are now known as the Clean Water Act (CWA). The purpose of this act is “to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation’s waters.”36 The CWA requires protecting streams and wetlands, as these provide essential ecosystem services such as filtering out sediment. “Too much sediment can fill up reservoirs

and navigation channels, damage commercial and sport fisheries, eliminate recreation spots, harm aquatic habitats and their associated plants and animals, and increase water filtration costs.”37

Streams and wetlands also filter and process organic material, such as manure, leaves, and dead insects, and chemicals, such as nitrogen and phosphorus compounds in fertilizers that run off fields and golf courses. “In headwater streams and wetlands, more water is in direct contact with the streambed, where most processing takes place. Bacteria, fungi and other microorganisms living on the bottom of a stream consume inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus and convert them into less harmful, more biologically beneficial compounds.”38

In one study of small streams, nitrogen and phosphorus were removed before traveling less than sixty-five feet (twenty meters).39 Where the forest surrounding a small stream is replaced by fields or lawns, however, grasses along the bank of the stream trap sediment and expand, shrinking the width of the moving water. This greatly reduces the cleansing capability of a stream, causing nitrogen and phosphorus to travel five to ten times farther.40 In Appalachia from 1986 to 1998 more than nine hundred miles of streams were buried because of mining operations, and in Maryland more than half of the streams of the Rock Creek watershed were destroyed when the area was developed.41 Land development in the twentieth century throughout the United States has destroyed over ninety million acres of wetlands.42

Laws addressing water pollution distinguish between point source pollution (from factories, mining, landfills, and leaking sewage treatment facilities) and nonpoint source pollution.43 Point source pollution is addressed by efforts to ensure that wastewater released into the environment has been properly treated, so it is safe for the designated uses of the area, such as fishing or agriculture. The direct discharge of wastes from point sources into streams and lakes is regulated by the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES), a permit system established by the Clean Water Act and administered by the EPA.44

Prevention is the best way to reduce point source pollution.45 Remember the three Rs? Reducing waste dumped in landfills, for example, means fewer pollutants washed into nearby streams. Reusing water in industry lowers demand for clean water, reduces the wastewater requiring treatment, and minimizes the volume of treated wastewater discharged into the environment.  Recycling paper reduces demand for trees, which means there are more trees maintaining soil and preventing runoff. Also, producing recycled paper takes less water than making paper from raw wood.46

Nonpoint source pollution in the United States is largely due to storm water runoff, which carries pollutants from surface areas, such as roadways, parking lots, golf courses, farm fields, and construction sites. into storm gutters and streams.47 The EPA says that nonpoint source pollution is the main cause of contaminants in our water, and that this is largely due to industrial agriculture.48

Agricultural runoff contains phosphorus used in fertilizer and animal feeds. Phosphorus is a limiting nutrient in plants, as the supply of phosphorus is usually lower than other nutrients. When storm water runoff brings phosphorus into a water system, algae thrive, but too much phosphorus causes eutrophication. “When thick blooms of algal growth block sunlight from reaching the plants below, the decay of dead algae uses up the available oxygen in the water, suffocating fish and sometimes causing whole populations of species to be lost.”49

The intensive use of fertilizer and animal feed (containing phosphorus and nitrogen) has led to a global catastrophe. By 1994, “significant eutrophication problems were being reported in 54 percent of all lakes and reservoirs in Southeast Asia, 53 percent of those in Europe, 48 percent in North America, 41 percent in South America, and 28 percent in Africa.”50

Nature cleans water in watersheds that maintain the natural processes of sedimentation, biodegradation, filtration, and sorption (both absorption and adsorption, when a substance adheres to the surface of another material). When constructing highways or buildings disrupts watersheds, we should restore these natural processes.51 Sedimentation works best in standing water, so we need to construct storm water runoff ponds that allow surface water to collect.

Biodegradation, filtering, and sorption occur where water is in contact with soil and plants, and is most effective when water is moving slowly across a large surface area. This means developed areas should have grass-lined, flat drainage ditches (called swales). Because surface water runoff not only spreads chemical

pollutants but also erodes soil, it is important to reduce the velocity of storm water runoff by using swales, ponds, and boulders where the velocity is great, by planting grass and other vegetation to hold the soil, and by capturing eroded sediments as close to the source as possible.52

Dams to produce power and levees to control flooding often interfere with the natural cleansing provided by rivers and streams.53 Holding water behind a dam expands the surface area and exposes the water to more sunlight. As the water temperature rises, the amount of oxygen in the water decreases, causing a decline in the fish population and an increase in algae. Dams and levees also interfere with the migratory routes of fish.54

Our ethical presumption is that sustainable development requires restoring and managing natural systems of water purification, as these ecosystem processes are the most effective (and least costly) way to maintain the health of land and clean water for our use.55

Groundwater

Surface water, due to the hydrologic cycle, is a renewable resource. Groundwater, however, for all practical purposes is a nonrenewable resource, because on average it takes fourteen hundred years to replenish an underground aquifer.56 About 97 percent of the liquid freshwater on earth is underground, but these reserves are shrinking.57 “Today, aquifers supply water to more than half of India’s irrigated land. The United States, with the third highest irrigated area in the world, uses groundwater for 43 percent of its irrigated farmland.”58 Groundwater is also the main source of drinking water for 1.5 billion people.59

As aquifers are depleted, surface water may decline. A study of fifty-four streams by the US Geological Survey found that groundwater is the source of about half the flow of surface water. Also, aquifers stabilize wetlands by providing water during the dry season and absorbing water when rains are heavy. Pumping water from aquifers tends to remove moisture from the earth’s surface, which in agricultural areas increases the need for irrigation and dries up shallow wells. 

Because surface water seeps into groundwater, pollutants in surface water eventually reach aquifers. DDT has been banned in the United States for more than thirty years,60 but now is present in groundwater. Nitrate contamination (which may cause cancer) is a problem in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota,61 and the fissured aquifers of southern California, Florida, and Maine are polluted.62 Chemicals also enter groundwater from landfills and from leaking petroleum storage tanks.

In addition, the process of extracting groundwater may pollute it. In the 1970s the World Health Organization (WHO) began a well-drilling program in Bangladesh to reduce disease from contaminated surface water, and today 95 percent of the people there drink groundwater from aquifers. Recently, however, arsenic has been found in this water. It seems that oxygen entering the aquifers during pumping has oxidized iron pyrite sediment around the aquifer, causing the arsenic to dissolve and contaminate the groundwater.63

Finally, an aquifer near a sea may be contaminated by salt. A full aquifer drains to the sea, but as the aquifer is emptied seawater may flow back into the aquifer. “Because of its high salt content, just 2 percent of seawater mixed with freshwater makes the water unusable for drinking or irrigation.”64 The aquifers under the heavily populated cities of Manila, Jakarta, Madras, and areas of Florida are now threatened by seawater.

Increasingly, therefore, groundwater will have to be treated before it can be used. Furthermore, because aquifers offer only a limited supply of water, it will not be long before aquifers are unable to provide the quantity of water now used for agriculture, manufacturing, and drinking. Our ethical presumption, therefore, should be “to improve social and individual well-being per unit of water used.”65

It is estimated that more than 40 percent of the world’s peoples live in river basins suffering from water stress, and that more than eighty countries with about 40 percent of the world’s population are experiencing water scarcity.66 Countries that have dry ecosystems and sufficient funds often import “virtual water” in the form of grain, as it takes about a thousand tons of water to grow a ton of grain.67

Population growth, however, as well as greater consumption of beef, is raising the demand for grain. This means more water will be allocated for cash crops and cattle grazing, and less water for other uses. “Water is available only if water sources are regenerated and used within limits of renewability. When development philosophy erodes community control and instead promotes technologies that violate the water cycle, scarcity is inevitable.”68

Allowing the market to determine the use of water and its price will not ensure its conservation and best use. “Market assumptions are blind to the ecological limits set by the water cycle and the economic limits set by poverty. Overexploitation of water and disruption of the water cycle create absolute scarcity that markets cannot substitute with other commodities.”69

In India, for example, “even as capital investment was being poured into water projects [to support irrigation for growing export crops], more and more villages were running out of water [to drink and grow their own food].”70

Clearly, public and private investment in recycling wastewater makes sense. “Israel recycles 75 percent of its water,” and Orange County, California, “will pump 70 million gallons of treated sewage into the aquifer under the county, thereby replenishing the volume of underground water and ensuring available supplies for the county’s growing population.”71

Water Treatment

Governments must also invest in more effective water treatment systems. Chemical pollution is pervasive, as virtually “every industrial facility in the United States that manufactured or used toxic chemicals has historically polluted air, land, and water resources.”72 There are now about eighty-five thousand chemicals in use in the US, and two thousand more are added each year. The EPA does not review every toxic chemical, but only the three thousand chemicals produced or imported into the United States at levels greater than one million pounds annually. A study by the General Accounting Office of 236 facilities manufacturing pulp and paper, pharmaceutical, and pesticides found that 77 percent of the toxic pollutants identified were not being controlled through the EPA point-source permit process.73

Pesticides are used everywhere but often not regulated. The EPA lists twentyone pesticides (four of which are banned), and the World Health Organization lists thirty-one pesticides (eleven on the US list and another twenty of concern). The European Union enforces the precautionary principle by requiring that drinking water be free of pesticides,74 but US water regulation provides less protection. In a 1997 test of ten drinking water sites in California, seventeen of the twenty-five pesticides detected were not being regulated under the EPA’s primary drinking water standards.75

The Clean Water Act established programs to control water quality in watersheds by enforcing “the maximum daily pollutant load allowable” from each source. This requires identifying what pollutants are to be measured, and what level of contamination is unacceptable. In effect, CWA regulation makes it acceptable “to pollute the environment up to specified water quality standards and not worry about unregulated chemicals.”76

In the United States the permissible pollution approach also applies to regulating facilities that purify water for human consumption. The EPA sets maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) for the pollutants that must be treated, and there are now about ninety contaminants on this list. Since 1996 the EPA has also been required to publish a list of contaminants that are not subject to MCLs, but are “known or anticipated” to occur in public water systems.77 This contaminant candidate list (CCL) includes about fifty chemicals and ten microbiological contaminants.78

The process of studying and setting an MCL for a chemical that is known to be dangerous can be lengthy. Arsenic, for example, is known to cause cancer, but the EPA did not propose an MCL for arsenic until 2001 (perhaps because it is costly to measure). Then it took five years for the EPA to enforce this MCL in public water systems.79

There are also problems with water treatment techniques. Two chemicals commonly used to combine small particles (to facilitate their removal from water) have been identified by the US Public Health Service as “reasonably anticipated to be human carcinogens.”80 Also, the use of chlorine and bromine to destroy biological contaminants produces toxic halogenated compounds, most of which are not covered by the EPA’s primary drinking water standards.81

Pharmaceutical pollutants that are not covered by the primary drinking water standards “have been shown to survive the treatment process,” which is generally used in publicly operated treatment systems.82 In 2001 a report published by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) found that “virtually all humans have some ‘background’ level of industrial chemicals in their bodies.”83

Who has the duty to ensure that chemicals are safe? If we affirm the precautionary principle, industries have this responsibility. Some companies have voluntarily accepted this duty,84 and the FDA requires companies manufacturing drugs to ensure that these chemicals are safe before they are sold. Many of the industrial chemicals in the environment are as dangerous as pharmaceutical drugs. Therefore, it seems reasonable that these substances should meet the same burden of proof before being released into the environment. 

Implementing such a system, however, would not remove the tens of thousands of chemicals already in our water, so governments have a duty to remove these in water treatment facilities. Is it sufficient to meet the Environmental Protection Agency’s MLC standards? Affirming the precautionary principles, as in Europe, would mean local governments in the United States have a duty to use the best available technology (BAT) to make our water as safe as possible.  This means using ozone and ultraviolet light now and more effective forms of treatment as these are developed.

As water treatment impacts our human right to safe water, those who argue the BAT standard is too costly bear the burden of showing that this is a compelling reason for setting aside our ethical presumption.85 In California, water utility managers estimate that using “advanced treatment technologies should add only 15 to 25 percent to a water utility’s budget.”86 In areas where there is a shortage of water, treatment programs may find it cost effective to use new techniques for recycling wastewater to supply the drinking water that communities require.87

ECONOMIC PREDICTIONS: SHORTSIGHTED

Clear air and water are essential for a healthy environment and for human health, which is why the purpose of the Clean Water Act is “to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation’s waters.”88 In this statement the word integrity is used in a scientific sense, but there is an ethical implication as well. We should restore and maintain the integrity of the nation’s waters, because we have a duty to care for the ecosystems that sustain life on earth, protect the human right to clean air and water, and preserve these ecosystem functions for future generations. Will doing our duty be cost effective?89 There is ample evidence that restoring and maintaining natural systems that cleanse water “saves much money, both capital and operating costs.”90

Nonmarket Goods

Life on earth depends on the atmosphere and the hydrologic cycle.91 The air is not a commodity to be priced by the market, and no one “has a right to overuse, abuse, waste, or pollute water systems.”92 Everyone has a human right to clean air and water.93

In 1985 the Supreme Court of India restrained the mining of limestone quarries in the Doon Valley, arguing that the law must protect “the right of the people to live in a healthy environment with minimum disturbance of ecological balance and without avoidable hazards to them and to their cattle, homes and agricultural land and undue affection of air, water and environment.”94 This decision rests on a moral argument that community rights, which secure the necessary social conditions for human dignity, outweigh individual property rights.95

Also, to protect human rights, we must resist the privatization of water.96 The World Bank failed to do this in Maharashtra, India, where it subsidized the construction of tube wells and mechanized pumping systems for irrigation, although 80 percent of the water supplied was used to grow sugar cane as a cash crop. This may make “economic sense” for those with the financial capital to invest in sugar cane production, but as a consequence “public wells and shallow wells owned by small farmers have run dry.”97

As long as the market price of removing groundwater from aquifers is simply the cost of extraction, this water will not be assessed economically as a “scarce” resource. Yet, it is that for billions of people wherever the integrity of ecosystems is being degraded, or where access to water for domestic use is restricted because of irrigation or the privatization of water.

Our ethical presumption, therefore, is that the cost of using air and water has to increase when the use of the resource is polluting, or wasteful, or violates a human right. Also, the public costs of monitoring air and water, and treating water to make it safe, must be paid, and these costs should be assessed in a way that is proportional to “bad” uses of air and water. Good uses should be cheap, and bad uses expensive.

Although the cap-and-trade approach has reduced sulfur dioxide emissions, setting a cap and providing tax credits for companies reducing emissions below their cap might be more effective in providing incentives for companies to invest in conservation.98 Also, offering tax credits would not encourage trade in a “bad” (pollution), as the cap-and-trade approach does, but instead would reward companies for (the “good” of ) reducing pollution.

Certainly, without legal mandates most corporations will not internalize the long-term environmental and social costs of the air and water pollution they create. Therefore, we should support government regulations that impose these long-term costs fairly on manufacturing and agribusiness.

Bottled Water

As a final example, consider the present market in bottled water, which is growing rapidly all over the world. In India, where shallow wells are drying up due to pumping water from aquifers for irrigation, between 1992 and 2000 sales of bottled water increased tenfold. In 1998 alone the number of plastic water bottles sold in India was estimated at 6 billion.99

Yet, research in the United States has shown that 25 to 40 percent of bottled water is tap water, and a 1999 study revealed that “one-third of the 103 brands of bottle water tested contained elevated levels of bacteria, inorganic chemicals, and/or organic chemicals.”100 Bottled water is a fraud or an expensive convenience, and this privatization of water undermines support for public access.101 Selling bottled water raises India’s GNP and thus counts as economic development, but the main beneficiaries are those able to invest in the water-bottling industry.

Using plastic to bottle water adds nothing to water quality102 and adds energy costs to making water available. Marketing bottled water has also increased the global debris of plastic now covering about 40 percent of the surface of the oceans,103 which threatens these ecosystems.

“[T]he plastic polymers commonly used in consumer products, even as single molecules of plastic, are indigestible by any known organism. Even those single molecules must be further degraded by sunlight or slow oxidative breakdown before their constituents can be recycled in the building blocks of life.

There is no data on how long such recycling takes in the oceans—some ecologists have made estimates of five hundred years or more. Even more ominously, no one knows the ultimate consequences of the worldwide dispersion of plastic fragments that can concentrate the toxic chemicals already present in the world’s oceans.”104

The short-term costs of producing bottled water are unnecessary,105 and the long-term costs of removing this debris from the environment are enormous.  To prevent this pollution, corporations producing bottled water (or other plastic containers) should be required by law to implement recycling programs that meet a high standard of compliance, or to modify their products so the plastic will degrade and be recycled naturally within a reasonable period of time.

Restoring Ecosystems

I have argued that the likely long-term consequences of restoring and maintaining the earth’s air and water ecosystems do not give us reason to set aside these ethical duties, but instead confirm them. At least, I suggest, the following three ethical presumptions meet this test.

Prevention is best. Preventing air and water pollution requires emphasizing point-source intervention. Strategies that tax actions, which are “bad” for the environment and provide incentives for actions that are “good,” will likely have the best results.

Polluters should pay. Applying this presumption to every industry ensures competition among companies to reduce their “pollution tax” by reducing their pollution, and allows businesses to pass on to consumers (in the price of each product) the costs of minimizing pollution and cleaning up the environment. 

Better safe than sorry. This version of the precautionary principle rejects the permissible pollution approach, which puts the burden of proof on governments to show that chemicals are unsafe. As we expect pharmaceutical drugs and our food to be safe, we should also expect that manufactured products will not harm the integrity of the earth’s ecosystem or our health. Therefore, we should support laws that make producers liable for the safety of their products.  Also, we should support the taxes necessary to ensure that water treatment systems use the best available technology to purify drinking water.

NOTES

1. The importance of nitrogen and phosphorus for life is discussed in more detail in chapter 12. 

2. Editorial, “Parks in Peril,” The New York Times (Mar. 24, 2008), online at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/24/opinion/24mon1.html.

3. In March 2008 “the antiregulatory brigade in the Office of Management and Budget killed ozone standards that would have offered stronger protections for plants, trees, crops and wildlife. And the Environmental Protection Agency, ignoring protests from its own regional offices and the National Park Service, is nearing approval of regulations that would make it easier to build coal-fired plants near parks and wilderness areas without installing pollution controls.” Ibid. 

4. “[S]cientists have long known that smoking while pregnant or exposure to lead, for instance, can damage a fetus and that recent research is broadening the list of hazards.” Alister Doyle, “Fetuses, Babies Said at High Risk from Pollutants,” Reuters (May 24, 2007), online at http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSL2416652320070524.

5. Kenneth M. Vigil, Clean Water: An Introduction to Water Quality and Water Pollution Control,second edition (Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University Press, 2003), 128. 

6. John Heilprin, “EPA May Drop Lead Air Pollution Limits,” News Center (Dec. 7, 2006), online at http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1207–01.htm. For example, see Michael Milstein, “Unleaded Gas Helps Create an Unleaded Columbia Gorge,” The Oregonian (Oct. 15, 2007), online at http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/11924151376020.xml. “In the 1990s, scientists found unusually high levels of lead in rock-dwelling lichens, which are used as barometers of air quality in the gorge because they soak up whatever pollution drifts by. But the United States removed lead from gasoline starting about two decades ago. That has paid off for the gorge: In new analyses, scientists have found that lead has nearly disappeared from gorge lichens.”

7. Ibid.

8. “Debate Over Lead in Air,” Environmental Science and Technology (Jan. 31, 2007), online at http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2007/jan/policy/rr_lead_air.html.

9. “Inhaling diesel exhaust triggers a stress response in the brain that may have damaging long-term effects” due to very small particles of soot that “are able to travel from the nose and lodge in the brain.” “Diesel Fumes Can Affect Your Brain, Scientists Say,” Reuters (Mar. 10, 2008), online at http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSL1044145320080311. 

10. John Heilprin, “EPA May Drop Lead Air Pollution Limits,” News Center (Dec. 7, 2006), online at http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1207–01.htm. 

11. “Smog,” online at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smog.

12. “Catalytic Converter,” online at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalytic_converter.

13. J. S. Kidd and Renee A. Kidd, Air Pollution: Problems and Solutions (New York: Chelsea House, 2006), 71.

14. “Clean Air Act,” Foundation for Clean Air Progress, online at http://www.cleanairprogress.org/clean-air-pollution/clean-air-act.asp.

15. “While business lobbyists wanted the smog requirement unchanged, most health experts had argued that even stronger measures were needed.” H. Josef Hebert, “EPA Advisors Slam New Smog Rule,” Bay News 9 (Apr. 10, 2008), online at http://www.baynews9.com/content/ 88/2008/4/10/339029.html. In early May a federal judge ruled that the EPA had “violated legal deadlines for updating the nation’s clean-air standards on carbon monoxide.” Bob Egelko, “Judge Orders EPA to Hurry on Carbon Monoxide,” San Francisco Chronicle (May 7, 2008), A-2, online at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/08/MNJR10I1HQ.DTL. 

16. “[S]cent-bearing hydrocarbon molecules released by flowers can be destroyed when they come into contact with ozone and other pollutants.” Juliet Eilperin, “Air Pollution Impedes Bees’ Ability to Find Flowers,” The Washington Post (May 5, 2008), A03, online at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/04/AR2008050401737.html. See also Juliet Eilperin, “Ozone Rules Weakened at Bush’s Request,” The Washington Post (Mar. 14, 2008), A01, online at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/13/AR2008031304175.html.

17. These issues exist in many cities in the world and in some cases are being effectively addressed.  See Thomas Fuller, “Breathing Easier as the Battle for Blue Skies Pays Off,” The New York Times (Mar. 6, 2007), online at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/06/world/asia/06thai.html.  18. James Gustave Speth, Red Sky at Morning, 53.

19. United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, online at http://www.unece.org/env/.

20. See Bernie Woodall, “Texas Leads List of Dirtiest US Power Plants,” Reuters (Jul. 26, 2007), online at http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSN2645126520070726.  21. J. S. Kidd and Renee A. Kidd, Air Pollution, 75.

22. Ibid., 78.

23. “Clean Air Act,” Foundation for Clean Air Progress, online at http://www.cleanairprogress.org/clean-air-pollution/clean-air-act.asp.

24. J. S. Kidd and Renee A. Kidd, Air Pollution, 83.

25. In late 2007 the EPA joined in settling a lawsuit against American Electric Power (AEP). At issue was “whether the utility had adequately updated its aging plants with new pollution-control technology when it modified them, an issue that falls under the [EPA’s] New Source Review rule. Under Tuesday’s settlement, the utility has agreed to install controls on the sixteen plants it has expanded over the years, which will effectively remove 1.6 million tons of pollution from the air annually by 2018. The [Bush] administration has repeatedly questioned the value of enforcing the current rules, and the settlement guarantees that AEP will not face federal prosecution if its activities over the next decade trigger this sort of federal review. Although the nine state attorneys general and thirteen environmental advocacy groups that are party to the lawsuit praised the administration for Tuesday’s settlement, they explicitly rejected this prosecutorial amnesty in the consent decree. . . .” Juliet Eilperin, “EPA Joins Settlement of Lawsuit but Adds a Waiver,” The Washington Post, (Oct. 11, 2007), A03, online at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artoc;e/2007/10/10/AR2007101002389.html.

26. J. S. Kidd and Renee A. Kidd, Air Pollution, 83.

27. Ibid., 94.

28. Ibid., 92.

29. “Montreal Protocol,” UNEP, Ozone Secretariat, online at http://ozone.unep.org/Treaties_and_ratification/2B_montreal_protocol.shtml.

30. Reiner Grundmann, “The Strange Success of the Montreal Protocol,” International Environmental Affairs 10, no. 3 (1998): 197, in James Gustave Speth, Red Sky at Morning, 182. 

31. The substitutes for the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) prohibited by the Montreal Protocol, which are called HCFCs (hydrochlorofluorocarbons), are now known to be “stronger greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide,” so there is an urgent need to develop replacements for HCFCs that “are not toxic, do not deplete the stratospheric ozone layer, and do not contribute to global warming.” J. S. Kidd and Renee A. Kidd, Air Pollution, 117.

32. “Just like any other planet, the Earth absorbs the sun’s heat and radiates it back towards space. But greenhouse gases counteract that heat loss, trapping heat, and reflecting it back towards the Earth. The more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the more heat that is trapped. The less the amount of greenhouse gases, the less heat that is trapped. Earth has just the right amount to help life flourish. Too many of these gases, as is the case on Venus, would create a runaway greenhouse and a sizzling hot surface. On the other hand, without any greenhouse gases, much of the sun’s heat would be lost, and the Earth would become a frozen wasteland with an average temperature of 0 degrees fahrenheit (-18 degrees celsius).” “Greenhouse—Green Planet,” NOVA, online at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ice/greenhouse.html.

33. Thomas R. Karl and Kevin E. Trenberth, “Modern Global Climate Change,” in Donald Kennedy, ed. Science Magazine’s the State of the Planet: 2006–2007 (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2006), 89.

34. J. S. Kidd and Renee A. Kidd, Air Pollution, 152.

35. James Gustave Speth, Red Sky at Morning, 16.

36. Federal Water Pollution Control Act, As amended November 27, 2002, Section 101(a), in Joseph Orlins and Anner Wehrly, “The Quest for Clean Water,” in Yael Calhoun, ed., Water Pollution (Philadelphia, PA: Chelsea House, 2005), 4.

37. Joseph Orlins and Anner Wehrly, “The Quest for Clean Water,” in Yael Calhoun, ed., Water Pollution, 32.

38. Ibid., 35.

39. Ibid., 34.

40. Ibid., 35.

41. Ibid., 36. Restoration of waterways is very difficult. See Cornelia Dean, “Follow the Silt,” The New York Times (Jun. 24, 2008), online at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/science/24stream.html.

42. Kenneth M. Vigil, Clean Water, 16.

43. “In 1977, as a result of pressure from industry, the focus in the United States shifted from control-point discharge regulation to water quality standards. Tacitly, this shift marked a move away from pollution as a violation to pollution as permissible.” Vandana Shiva, Water Wars, 32.

44. EPA regulation, however, has not been effective. In 2005, the latest date for which information was available, “More than half of all industrial and municipal facilities across the country dumped more sewage and other pollutants into the nation’s waterways than allowed under the Clean Water Act. . . .” Zachery Coile, “Pollution Pouring into Nation’s Waters Far Beyond Legal Limits,” San Francisco Chronicle (Oct. 12, 2007), A-1, online at http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/12/MNIPSOF76.DTL.

45. This is true, of course, throughout the world, where the problems are often greater than in the United States. For instance, “Lake Tai, the center of China’s ancient ‘land of fish and rice,’ succumbed this year to floods of industrial and agricultural waste.” Joseph Kahn, “In China, a Lake’s Champion Imperils Himself,” The New York Times (Oct. 14, 2007), online at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/world/asia/14china.html.

46. Kenneth M. Vigil, Clean Water, 61–62. Because paper, like most materials, has not been designed for recycling, the process is more inefficient than it might be. Effective recycling requires products designed for recycling. William McDonough and Michael Braungart, Cradle to Cradle, 56–58.

47. Heavy rain and runoff may also contribute to increased point-source pollution. See Peter Fimrite, “Rain Brings Sewage into San Francisco Bay,” San Francisco Chronicle (Feb. 26, 2008), online at http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/26/BA6UV906K.DTL.

48. Joseph Orlins and Anner Wehrly, “The Quest for Clean Water,” in Yael Calhoun, ed., Water Pollution, 48.

49. Elena Bennett and Steve Carpenter, “P Soup: The Global Phosphorus Cycle,” in Yael Calhoun, ed., Water Pollution, 47.

50. Ibid., 48.

51. The “capital cost of ‘natural’ stormwater management is about 10 percent of that of concrete and operating costs are similarly less.” James J. Kay, “On Complexity Theory, Exergy, and Industrial Ecology,” in Charles J. Kibert, Jan Sendzimir, and G. Bradley Guy, eds. Construction Ecology, 95.

52. Kenneth M. Vigil, Clean Water, 67.

53. “Fifty-year-old levees blew up in a dramatic display of dirt and smoke Tuesday, freeing lake water as part of an unprecedented wetlands restoration effort to save protected fish and cool the water wars that have divided the Klamath Basin for decades.” Gail Kinsey Hill, “Levee Blast Signals a Truce in Water Wars,” The Oregonian (Oct. 31, 2007), online at http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1193801124304310.xml. 

54. Kenneth M. Vigil, Clean Water, 56.

55. This will require legislation with incentives and disincentives for producers to design products that are not harmful to the environment, such as soaps that will likely end up in streams. This has been done and has been shown to be cost effective. William McDonough and Michael Braungart, Cradle to Cradle, 146–147.

56. Payla Sampat, “Groundwater Shock,” in Yael Calhoun, ed., Water Pollution, 66. 

57. “Research shows that in many parts of the world water tables are continuing to fall and rivers are drying up.” Haider Rizvi, “Washington Pressed to Lead as Water Tables Continue to Fall,” OneWorld.net (Jul. 27, 2007), online at http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/151746/1. In China, “the groundwater of the northern plains has dropped precipitously, reaching an average 1.5 meters (5 feet) per year by the mid-1990s. Between 1965 and 1995 the water table fell 37 meters (121 feet) beneath Beijing itself.” Edward O. Wilson, The Future of Life, 36. 

58. Payla Sampat, “Groundwater Shock,” in Yael Calhoun, ed., Water Pollution, 68.

59. Ibid., 67.

60. DDT was banned by the EPA in 1972. “United States Environmental Protection Agency,” online at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPA.

61. Kenneth M. Vigil, Clean Water, 125.

62. Payla Sampat, “Groundwater Shock,” in Yael Calhoun, ed., Water Pollution, 73.

63. Ibid., 79.

64. Ibid.

65. Italics added. Donald Kennedy, ed., Science Magazine’s State of the Planet: 2006–2007, 64.

66. James Gustave Speth, Red Sky at Morning, 16. In general, “When water use falls below 1,700 cubic meters per person per year, a country encounters water stress through lack of adequate supply. When water use falls below 1,000 cubic meters, there is water scarcity, meaning a significant and often severe restriction on material welfare at the individual level and on development prospects at the national level.” Norman Myers and Jennifer Kent, Perverse Subsidies, 122.  67. This is why the Middle East as a whole imports 30 percent of its grain. Norman Myers and Jennifer Kent. Perverse Subsidies, 122. “As food prices escalate and water scarcity extends worldwide, the best solution to both issues would be a global reduction in wasted food.” Ben Block, “Conserve Water Through Food Efficiency, Report Says,” Worldwatch Institute, online at http:// www.worldwatch.org/node/5751.

68. Vandana Shiva, Water Wars, 12.

69. Ibid., 15.

70. Ibid., 12.

71. James Flanigan, “The Growth Opportunities of Clean Water,” The New York Times (Jun.

19, 2008), online at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/19/business/smallbusiness/19edge.html. 

72. Patrick J. Sullivan, Franklin J. Agardy, and James J. J. Clark, The Environmental Science of Drinking Water (Burlington, MA: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann, 2005), 74. 

73. Ibid., 66, 166. See also “Drug Traces Found in Tap Water,” The New York Times (Mar. 10, 2008), online at http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-PharmaWater-I.html. 

74. Ibid., 27.

75. Ibid., 117.

76. Ibid., 81.

77. Ibid., 115.

78. Ibid.

79. Ibid. See also “Arsenic in Drinking Water,” EPA, online at http://www.epa.gov/safewater/ arsenic/index.html.

80. Patrick J. Sullivan, Franklin J. Agardy, and James J. J. Clark, The Environmental Science of Drinking Water, 96. Carcinogens are substances known to cause cancer.  81. Ibid. Generally chlorine is added to water being distributed to combat microbes in the pipes of the system.

82. Ibid., 170.

83. Ibid., 181.

84. Proctor & Gamble, for instance. See http://www.pg.com/company/our_commitment/environmental.jhtml.

85. The costs of using BAT will vary for many reasons, and in some situations these costs may be sufficiently compelling to justify setting this presumption aside.

86. Patrick J. Sullivan, Franklin J. Agardy, and James J. J. Clark, The Environmental Science of Drinking Water, 218.

87. Randall C. Archibold, “From Sewage, Added Water for Drinking,” The New York Times (Nov. 27, 2007), online at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/27/us/27conserve.html. 

88. Federal Water Pollution Control Act, as amended Nov. 27, 2002, Section 101(a). 

89. In China, “Fuqing is one of the centers of a booming industry that over two decades has transformed this country into the biggest producer and exporter of seafood in the world, and the fastest-growing supplier to the United States. But that growth is threatened by the two most glaring environmental weaknesses in China: acute water shortages and water supplies contaminated by sewage, industrial waste and agricultural runoff that includes pesticides. The fish farms, in turn, are discharging wastewater that further pollutes the water supply.” David Barboza, “In China, Farming Fish in Toxic Waters,” The New York Times (Dec. 15, 2007), online at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/15/world/asia/15fish.html.

90. James J. Kay, “On Complexity Theory, Exergy, and Industrial Ecology,” in Charles J. Kibert, Jan Sendzimir, and G. Bradley Guy, eds. Construction Ecology, 95. 

91. Climate change due to global warming will affect the hydrologic cycle, probably causing more rain in some areas and greater drought in others. Jon Gertner, “The Future Is Drying Up,” The New York Times (Oct. 21, 2007), online at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/magazine/21water-t.html.

92. Ibid.

93. Under the ICESCR governments have a “core obligation” to ensure the minimum conditions for health, which includes clean air, and “an adequate supply of safe and potable water.” Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, “The Right to the Highest Attainable Standard of Health,” General Comment No. 14, E/C.12/2000/4 (Aug. 11, 2000), 43.c, online at http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(symbol)/E.C.12.2000.4.En?OpenDocument. See also Rebecca Brown, “South African Win Landmark Victory for the Human Right to Water,” OneWorld.net (May 5, 2008), online at us.oneworld.net/link/gotolink/addhit/83722. 

94. Vandana Shiva, Water Wars, 7.

95. Ibid., 30–31. Shiva argues that, “Community rights are necessary for both ecology and democracy. Bureaucratic control by distant and external agencies and market control by commercial interests and corporations create disincentives for conservation. Local communities do not conserve water or maintain water systems if external agencies—bureaucratic or commercial—are the only beneficiaries of their efforts and resources.”

96. Amit Srivastava of the India Resource Center reminds us that international law affirms: “Access to potable water is a fundamental human right.” Aaron Glanz, “Coke Faces New Charges in India, Including ‘Greenwashing,’” OneWorld.net (Jun. 6, 2007), online at http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/150028/1.

97. Vandana Shiva, Water Wars, 10.

98. By putting “a national cap on greenhouse gas emissions and running a national auction for emissions permits under the cap, the federal government could [probably] accrue tens of billions [of dollars] annually,” which might be better than simply a cap-and-trade program. “When Europe first tried regulating greenhouse gases under a cap-and-trade program, in 2005, it gave away, or ‘grandfathered,’ emissions permits to its power generators, which made modest changes in their operations and then sold the permits to others at a premium. The result: windfall profits for the power companies. Europe is now switching to emissions auctions and plans to finance programs promoting climate protection, economic growth and energy security with the proceeds.” Ian Bowlers, “Want to Buy Some Pollution?” The New York Times (Mar. 15, 2008), online at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/15/opinion/15bowles.html.

99. Vandana Shiva, Water Wars, 100–101.

100. Patrick J. Sullivan, Franklin J. Agardy, and James J. J. Clark, The Environmental Science of Drinking Water, 124.

101. “According to the Washington, DC–based Earth Policy Institute, consumers spend about $100 billion on bottled water each year. By comparison, experts estimate that just $15 billion per year, above and beyond what is already spent, could bring reliable and lasting access to safe drinking water to half a billion people worldwide—fully half of those who lack it.” Aaron Glanz, “Coke Faces New Charges in India, Including ‘Greenwashing,’” OneWorld.net (Jun. 6, 2007), online at http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/150028/1.

102. Ibid. “From the 1970s to 2000 . . . the annual volume of bottled water purchased and sold in the United States has increased by over 7,000 percent. Yet the bottled water industry operates with little or no regulation.”

103. “The so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a stewy body of plastic and marine debris that floats an estimated 1,000 miles west of San Francisco, is a shape-shifting mass far too large, delicate and remote to ever be cleaned up, according to a researcher who recently returned from the area.” Justin Berton, “Feds Want to Survey, Possibly Clean Up Vast Garbage Pit in Pacific,” San Francisco Chronicle (Oct. 21, 2007), A-1, online at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/10/30/MNT5T1NER.DTL.

104. Charles Moor, “Trashed: Across the Pacific Oceans, Plastics, Plastics Everywhere,” Water Pollution, 151.

105. It takes 1.5 million barrels of oil per year to create enough PET plastic to make the bottles.  “The Real Cost of Bottled Water,” WWF News (May 3, 2001), online at http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_do/freshwater/news/index.cfm?uNewsID=2250. “In 2006, more than 900,000 tons of plastic was used to package 8 billion gallons of bottled water. Production of this plastic leads to the release of a variety of chemicals. Most smaller bottles are made from polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which generates more than 100 times more toxic emissions than an equivalent amount of glass (Berkeley Ecology Center).” “Bottled Water,” The Sierra Club, online as a pdf file at http://www.sierraclub.org/committees/cac/water/bottled_water/bottled_water.pdf.