oh don’t get me wrong, people are fucked over all the fucking time. there’s secondary filtration but that isn’t always enough
reverse osmosis might help in your situation — but somewhere like Flint would still be fucked due to the extremely high concentration of lead
my point is that those companies that bottle the water to sell it to you at markup also buy up the springs that could have provided more and better water to all in the first place. it’s a long game and it’s fucked. I lived in the crux of a Nestle legal battle, I know how dark that shit gets.
I won’t deny that it’s a resource in times of crisis, and that’s important to have — but like, the consolidation and “ownership” of water is a growing issue on a collision course with climate crisis and there are already examples of people getting fucked over. I dread what’s coming.
and frankly — genuinely bad municipal water systems, at least in these parts, are really indicative of a collective underfunding and denial of infrastructure projects. a generation or four took them for granted and lost the core notion — that these are ongoing and had to be maintained — and now we have highway overpasses collapsing onto themselves and poison pipes and trains full of chemicals never meant to mix derailing
I uh can keep going but the vibe here today seems to be “shut the fuck up” so