But while Garriga and other Catalans have been suffering water shortages in recent years, there’s one group of people that appears to be immune, and even profits from them: the multinational companies extracting millions of litres of water from the very same land. This isn’t just a Spanish issue – across the world, from Uruguay to Mexico, Canada to the UK, many have begun to question whether private corporations should be allowed to siphon off a vital public resource, then sell it back to citizens as bottled water.
The tragedy in Spain makes the country one of the canaries in the coalmine when it comes to understanding the global threat to water security. Can the growing number of angry citizens surrounded by private water plants but left without safe water in their homes force a rethink of how this resource is managed? And as weather patterns change, should private companies continue to have easy access to vital reserves of underground water?
If I was not clear enough, I was mentioning how it tasted to me; I was not claiming it actually had oil or grease in it, which are contaminants and should never be present in water, even less if bottled, which was the case.
by coincidence, I actually have some knowledge on the matter because I work in water distribution, and the only off taste water should carry is from excess chlorination for desinfecting repaired ruptured lines. Apart from that, all the processes used to treat water for consumption remove off tastes.
I just visited this week a water treatment plant this week, that captures water from an artificial lake - water in the open air, where fish and birds live, animals go to drink and human recreation occurs, etc - that after undergoing several stages and processes of treatment carries no unpleasant aftertaste.
And I lived for decades near the coastline and never having saltwater contamination in the distribution lines was a concern. And the gross majority of said water was and still is captured directly from Tejo and is often filthy coming into the treatment plant.
By contrast, I can easily find a bottled water with off taste - for my own personal liking - because said waters don’t undergo any treatment. As you said: bottled water is usually spring water, captured from underground reservoirs. But every water has an organoleptic profile from the place it is stored in nature.