Local branches of the Vancouver Island Water Watch Coalition and the Council of Canadians are calling on Comox Valley municipalities and the regional district to protect and conserve water by becoming blue communities.
Among other things, the Blue Communities Presentation calls for a ban on the sale of bottled water at events and in public facilities, including concessions and vending machines.
Linda Safford, a member of both organizations, feels water should be a shared public resource.
"Taking on social environmental issues is not a small thing," she said in an interview. "It has global consequences. It's the damage that the globalists are doing to our very earth, and I just can't stand by and watch it happen."
The groups maintain that bottled water represents a private takeover where corporations bottle and sell water at exorbitant rates.
"Often, bottled water is overpriced tap water," Safford told Cumberland council.
Statistics indicate three to five litres of natural water are needed to produce one litre of bottled water.
"Whole watersheds are now under threat from these practices," the presentation states.
Along with a bottle water ban, the groups have asked councils and the CVRD to recognize water as a human right, and to promote publicly owned and operated water and wastewater infrastructure. The groups asked the regional district to forward the latter to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.
The presentation garnered little to no feedback from councils and the CVRD committee of the whole, which at this stage have received the information.
reporter@comoxvalleyrecord.com