On Thursday, one of NYC's free daily papers (AM New York? Metro? one of them) was wrapped with a huge shiny ad for Poland Spring, the Official Bottled Water of the New York City Marathon. The ad announced that Poland Spring water is "Born Better". From the ad, and also on the very fancy website:
Keeping the land around our springs clean and sustainable is also important. It's good for the environment and also contributees to the high quality of Poland Spring water. Which is why we work so hard to carefully select our sources and monitor our watersheds. So far we've preserved over 14,000 acres around our springs in the U.S.
While I am happy that Poland Spring is preserving acreage and protecting "their" watersheds from pollution, this text galls me. Just this week, Chesapeake Energy decided not to drill in New York's watershed, because the ruckus being raised by environmentalists and NYC politicians was more trouble than it was worth. Whew. But this isn't over yet- unless the state moves to protect it, some other company could come along and try to drill in the future. Read more details here, at the NY Times.
So reading that bit from Poland Spring about 'we carefully monitor and protect our watersheds' seems a bit like a taunt. As in 'if you lot don't get your act together and protect your water source, you can always buy safe clean water from us...at well over 100 times the price'.
Wouldn't it be nice if New York City, in an act of civic pride, insisted on serving up crisp delicious New York water at the marathon?
1 comment:
Some friends of mine (who ran the marathon last year) were manning a water station this year and were also bemoaning the fact that they were handing out Poland Spring instead of NYC tap.
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