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“That’s easily solved——just drink water.”

Oh, that is a brilliant retort, isn’t it, just like Marie Antoinette saying let the peasants eat cake if they don’t like what they are getting now.

The restaurants in one place connect their soda fountain water spigot to the municipal water supply as is normal. What is not normal is the municipal water supply. A half century ago the community got its water from a municipal water reservoir that at that time was already more than a half century old. Being a mature and well kept reservoir and water treatment plant, the water was almost like the best quality mountain spring water. Unfortunately, that simply was not good enough for the Democrats running things in that state and region. They needed another large government project to make jobs and improve the infrastructure for the region. A huge new reservoir was just what they said they needed. Unfortunately, there were some few problems standing in the way. First, this plains area did not have much topographic relief in which to construct a regional sized water reservoir. The rivers were simply too muddy and laid in very shallow low areas. This did not stop the Democrats and their budgeting, so the Army Corps of Engineers set to work to construct a too shallow water reservoir.

A family friend was one of the major contractors helping to construct the reservoir dam, pump houses, water conduits, city water supply, and more. Fifty years ago they warned the reservoir would never produce a good water supply. The reservoir was the low drainage area for a vast amount of farmland with the associated pesticides, herbicides, anti-biotics, and lots and lots of muddy stale water. because the water was too shallow, the bottom water tends to overturn with the top waters through the seasons, stirring up all of the foul matter through the water column. Despite the assurances of the politicians and officials who said the reservoir would improve this problem with water quality as the reservoir ages, the water never did get rid of the foul odor and foul taste even after a half century of settling.

Adding insul to injury, the Democrats made a law requiring all of the regional communities to sign up to replace their community reservoirs with the new regional reservoir. So, all of the really good quality reservoir water was shutoff and replaced by the foul new water coming from the new regional reservoir.

The problem with the regional reservoir water was not just foul odor and the foul taste. One of the locals had a contract with the county to maintain the county roads. One year he was busy with the road maintenance just like earlier years, when the EPA swooped down on him and threatened to arrest him on CRIMINAL charges! What did this man do that was so wrong, the EPA threatened to arrest him? Answer, he was spraying the county roads with POLLUTED water. Yep, he was using POLLUTED water in flagrant violation of the law, they said.

You see, each year they would go out to the blacktop county roads, spread a layer of sawdust, wet the sawdust, and spray asphalt to blacktop the roadway again for another year. To spray the roadway and layer of sawdust, this contractor filled a water tank on a truck bed and went down the road spraying the water. The EPA moved in on him one day as he was dong the spraying. They accused him of violating the environmental laws, took samples of the water from his tank, and performed a test on some of the samples and sent the rest of the samples off to their lab as evidence of the crime. The tests, the EPA said, indicated the water was too badly polluted to spray on the county roads and would make him liable for criminal prosecution if he did not immediately stop what he was doing. So, off he went to find out just what was so worng with his water.

The contractor returned to the source of his water. This source was a water main at the water treatment plant for the regional reservoir. Yes, it was the same treated municipal water the same as went to every household and every restaurant in the region. Thinking the problem may have occurred because of a dirtied fire hydrant, he went back to the water treatment plant and hooked up his tank to a water main known to be the same tested source as the ordinary drinking water for the communities. Confident everything was now taken care of, the contractor went back to work, only to be accosted yet again by the EPA agents. Again, they tested and rejected the water as being too polluted. With the help of the local mayor, he then tried refilling his tank from a city water main in ordinary use. Again the EPA tested and said the water was badly polluted. Finally, in frustration, the contractor drove his water truck out to his farm, pulled the truck around to the back field where he had a cattle pond. It was the kind of cattle pond that was muddy from the cattle wading in and leaving cow pies in the water. He pumped this dark brown water into the water tank on his truck and set off to find the EPA people. Again the EPA tested the water, but this time they said he finally got it right. The water was now safe to spray on the county roads!

To this day the Walmart in this community does a huge business selling bottled water to be used for drinking and cooking, just like our contractor friend said fifty years earlier we would be doing because the water would not be fit to drink. Yet, the McDonalds and other restaurants use the water for drinking and cooking even though the water was too polluted to spray on the county roads.

Sadder still is the fact that most of the bottled water sold at the Walmart and other stores in the region come from bottlers whose water supply is still this same regional reservoir. Only one of the brands was affordable and came from mountain springs.

It used to be that soda soft drinks were an exceptional treat and not an everyday beverage. So, having many brands and flavors to choose from was just as enjoyable for many people as it is for some coffee drinkers to be able to choose from numerous coffee blends and coffee beans. Furthermore, people with special medical needs weren’t being forced into choosing between drinking potentially bad quality water or a very limited number of beverages made from bad quality water in the local area. Choice is liberating, and our choices were taken away by two large companies setting up a cartel and shoving it down the throats of the restaurants and their customers.