Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

Wal-Mart is facing questions tonight after CBS13 learns the company draws its bottled water from a Sacramento water district during California’s drought. According to its own labeling, the water in the gallon jugs appears to come from Sacramento’s water supply. Sacramento sells water to a bottler, DS Services of America, at 99 cents for every 748 gallons—the same rate as other commercial and residential customers. That water is then bottled and sold at Walmart for 88 cents per gallon, meaning that $1 of water from Sacramento turns into $658.24 for Walmart and DS Services. – From the CBS News in Sacramento article: Wal-Mart Bottled Water Comes From Sacramento Municipal Supply

We all know there’s a severe drought plaguing much of California. I haven’t focused on this topic much, but I did publish a very powerful post on it last fall titled: Video of the Day – Stunning Scenes from California’s Central Valley Drought. I suggest checking it out if you missed it the first time.

Now we learn of some pretty troubling news that Wal-Mart is sourcing some of its bottled water from the Sacramento water supply, despite the fact that: “Sacramento-area water districts are preparing to enforce residential water-use cuts as high as 36 percent.”

As we all know, you should never let a historic drought get in the way of corporate profit margins; and these appear to be some really nice margins. We learn from CBS News in Sacramento that:

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — Wal-Mart is facing questions tonight after CBS13 learns the company draws its bottled water from a Sacramento water district during California’s drought. According to the label, the water comes from the Sacramento Municipal Water Supply. This comes on the heels of Starbucks opting to move sourcing and production of its Ethos bottled water from California to Pennsylvania. While the label reads Great Value, the fine print reveals the bottled water is anything but a deal, especially for Sacramento residents. Sacramento sells water to a bottler, DS Services of America, at 99 cents for every 748 gallons—the same rate as other commercial and residential customers. That water is then bottled and sold at Walmart for 88 cents per gallon, meaning that $1 of water from Sacramento turns into $658.24 for Walmart and DS Services.

Shouldn’t the residents of Sacramento at least share in some of the profits earned if the municipality is going to sell its precious local resources to a mega corporation?

Elmets wonders if this perfectly legal business operation will get a big thumbs-down from California consumers. This comes as Sacramento-area water districts are preparing to enforce residential water-use cuts as high as 36 percent. “It’s certainly leaving a bad taste in everyone’s mouth when you can’t fill up a swimming pool, if you’re building a new home in West Sacramento; you can’t water your lawn if you’re living in this region. And to find out they’re making a huge profit off of this, it’s just not right,” Elmets said.

Meanwhile, let’s not forget…

Walmart Admits in its Annual Report that its Profits Depend Heavily on Corporate Welfare

Let’s see if the people of Sacramento have the will or ability to do anything about this.