evidently they sell water to bottling companies from some north texas lakes, as I was reading a bottle this morning that said the water came from public water source, Lake lewisville Texas. Ive read other bottles as well, that said the water is sourced from north texas lakes. Its interesting that with the lakes being low they are selling water to private companies for profit. So I wonder, how is it they do this, and does the municipality get money from these sales of water? Do the people who live in the municipalities reap any benefit from these sales of water. (other than boat repair shops because lower units get knocked off). just curious.

Good question indeed! I live further south, but it affects us as well. My home lake (Richland Chambers) gets sucked down to fill many of those same lakes further north. I'd be a bit POed if I was in an area that had water restrictions while my source lake was being used to provide bottled water to a private company. Hope someone has some input on this. Could set up for quite an interesting thread!

It usually comes from a municipal water supply, and the bottlers pay a water bill just like everyone else.

Yeah they take water right out of the tap and run it thru a RO unit into a plastic
bottle. They pay a water bill just like anyone else. I doubt the water dept. even
knows they are bottling water.

Johnny

yep and its mostly run thru a reverse osmosis system and comes right out of the tap
and to make matters worse the majority of bottled water gets bottled in California where they are in even more severe drought conditions than us
the only water that is actually not RO water best of my knowledge is typically spring water
those bottles usually say bottled at the source

the water department probably has an idea of what they are doing given the large quantities of water they discharge in the RO process .....

I guess I can bottle my own water and I do. If no one buys it they will stop producing it.

Ok but what abt when there are water restrictions and you cant water your lawn or wash your car, or whatever, do they also ration the for profit water sales? Im sure were talking hundreds of thousands of gallons being sold. How much water do you think one wallmart alone sells in a week?

If you think about it, a big percentage of bottled water ends up getting "flushed" back into the lakes eventually anyway.

I fished RC last weekend and boy was it low.
I went over there expecting to have to anchor over one of my favorite BP's and the dang thing was sticking out of the water.
We still caught a nice mess of fish, and surprised at the size ..... we only culled 3 or 4 and most were 12" to 13"

Not the same issue but Toledo Bend is used to generate electricity and got low every year, but several years ago we (the people that live here) got together at meetings with them and eventually we got them to agree to stop generating every year when the level hits 178 elevation and so far it has helped a ton. Of course when we had the drought that was not good at all as it hit an all time low that last year of the drought.

Not sure what you guys can or can not do if you join forces, but would think it worth a shot?

I wonder why they dont pull more water out of the Edwards Aquafer. instead of the lakes.

this

Everywhere is different, but I seem to remember that the users of large quantities of water pay a premium to use the water.

I checked on the San Antonio Water System's site (since that's where my water bill money goes) and found the following:

• Businesses get charged more to have the capability of using more water (the meter size scale - basically how big the pipe is)
• Based on the average consumption rate for meter size (I think "Annual Average Consumption" is based on meter size; I don't know what else it could be), they may be hit with a higher rate if they use more than was expected.

http://www.saws.org/service/rates/general.cfm

Your municipal water system should have this type if info published somewhere if you're interested in the local rules.

to the forum.

It would do more good to do away with home owner association restrictions against desert landscaping than to shut down businesses and destroy jobs.

Water sprinkler systems are the biggest drain on area lakes. It is only going to get worse, not better, as more and more new homes are built in this area.

This is one of the prices we pay for growth in the region.