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Comment by xattt | Hacker News Reader

Bottling water removes it from the local water cycle. If you are watering and showering, that water stays relatively local and ends up coming back into the local water system maintaining the local water table.

If you are bottling water, you are effectively removing it from the local “water system” with no chance of it ever replenishing the source.

Irrigation wells are not ideal either, and may be comparable in terms of ground water impact as bottling plants.

These draw tremendous amounts of water. The water table drops quickly in this scenario with a slow rate of replenishment. There’s also the possibility of contaminants leaching into the aquifer when there is no hydraulic pressure to push back.

My province is an island in the middle of an ocean, so infiltration of personal wells (ie for houses) with salt water is an issue when the water table is low. There is no quick fix for this either. Personal use should trump industrial use.

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> If you are bottling water, you are effectively removing it from the local “water system” with no chance of it ever replenishing the source.

Sounds like the perfect solution to sea level rise caused by melting glaciers. Just bottle it all up.

I can see it now "Every bottle of water sold fights you dealing with climate change!"

I mean isn't it?

For all the ice on land that melts into the ocean raising the sea level, take an appropriate amount of seawater and freeze it back onto land.

That might be too difficult though; maybe instead we can replace all of the oil underground with water. It's all underneath us anyways so just leave the hole open and water will naturally pool down there.

Most old oil fields already do this, it is called "enhanced recovery". You have injection wells where you pump down water and production wells where a water/oil mix comes up. The water you use is mostly contaminated stuff you want to get rid of any ways.

You do have pump the water in under pressure though, just letting it pour down the hole will not work since rock is more dense the water. Imagine you were standing on a sponge in the shower, the sponge will not absorb much water since you are squishing all the pore spaces closed.

Sure but you could make the same argument about exporting food. Apples are 80-90% water

I’ve heard similar arguments made pretty regularly for almonds and especially alfalfa [0] grown in California or Arizona, and exported to Saudi Arabia. It seems legit to me.

[0] https://azpbs.org/horizon/2022/06/saudi-water-deal-threateni...

When animal feed is imported, the poop ends up in the importing country and the quantities aren't insignificant.

what is "local water"? The whole thing about water is that it flows. There isn't a magic property that bound water to a geographic localtion. Like when it rains, is it "local" cloud?

Most Rivers flow through geographic locales, and generally their path is static

There's not a whole lot of risk that the Seine will start flowing through the US

The "local" clouds also usually follow a pattern, this is why my local mountains get snow replacing every year, which is the source of my local rivers

However a bottling company could easily ship bottled water to a location that is likely never going to return to the local water table. Ever heard of Fiji brand water?

Where does that local water come from? Rain.

Where did the rain cloud get the water? It evaporated, likely from the ocean.

How did the water get into the ocean? It flowed down from lakes into rivers etc.

The local water table might fall, but the water itself is hardly local unless you're drilling for it.

> Where does that local water come from? Rain

There’s an equilibrium that’s achieved in a given watershed with local weather patterns. There might be ebbs or flows over the course of a year, but it’s reliable and predictable, and can be used sustainably.

If local weather patterns change and there’s a significant strain on a watershed, the water table will drain to a level that’s not recoverable within a human lifespan.

Helpful terms:

Water table https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_table

Watershed https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watershed_management

Significant fraction of water spent to water plants evaporates and then falls as rain, usually far away, so it doesn’t stay in a local water system either.

Do you realize your water comes from the ocean through rain. It replenishes itself everytime it rains. You are on an island in the ocean? In your case companies are using the allure of locale to sell more bottles by claiming the water is purer in your area because of the lack of industry.

Do you realise this is much much more complex than that. Otherwise we'd literally never have any kind of water shortage, which we do have all the time

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