Another day, and another announcement of a water bottling firm wanting to suck us dry:
Millions of litres of crystal clear spring water could be bottled and shipped overseas in a proposal backed by the local council.
NZ Pure Blue Springs Limited wants to take from Putaruru's Blue Spring in the Waihou River more than the amount of water currently being pulled from the Waikato for bottling.
In its resource consent application to Waikato Regional Council, it has asked to extract 6.9 million litres a day.
[...]
A council spokesperson confirmed it would be getting some form of payment from the company for its support, saying it had indicated it would provide an amount of funding in trust to benefit the Putaruru community.
How much? Because 6.9 million litres a day is worth at least $2.5 billion a year retail. Obviously, there are extraction and operating costs associated with getting that money, but still. Its a huge amount of money, and the public deserves its share of the revenue derived from the extraction of a public resource. Otherwise, we're just being taken for suckers.
