BRADENTON – Bottled Water has ballooned into a hundred-billion dollar industry with consumers regularly paying hundreds of times the price for a drink in a plastic bottle than they do at their kitchen sink. But while removing water from local aquifers comes at a heavy environmental cost, these companies are often allowed to do so without paying that community for the product. One Florida legislator would like to see that change.

State Rep. Franklin Sands (D-Weston) has filed new legislation aimed at collecting a modest fee from bottled water companies that often reap huge profits after pumping millions of gallons of water daily from Florida’s springs and other water bodies.

Rep. Sands says that House Bill 781 is a response to widespread to public over water bottling giants’ current ability to extract water for commercial purposes – without charge. Revenues derived from HB 781 would go to pay for alternative water supply projects, according to Sands.

”Water is one of Florida’s most precious natural resources, and if corporations are going to withdraw it for a profit, then it’s only fair that they be charged for that use,“ said the veteran Representative, who is also the Democratic Ranking Member on the House Select Committee on Water Policy.

Florida's spring-water bottlers currently hold permits to use more than 10 million gallons every day in their operations. Typically, the water is piped from Florida springs and other water bodies to massive bottling plants and distribution centers, where the water fills plastic containers that are boxed and transported throughout the world, in an otherwise unheard of tranfer of public resources for private profit.

The bill proposes charging a fee of 5 cents per gallon on water extracted. A fiscal analysis has not yet been conducted by the Florida Legislature to provide an accurate estimate of how money much HB 781 would raise, but with the state facing a projected $2 billion shortfall in 2012, funding for alternative water supply projects will surely be hard to come by. The funds reaped from the fee would be placed in a state trust fund to finance such projects for future generations and would be at least $100 million annually based on permitting numbers.

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Are You Smarter Than a First Grader? Not if You're Buying Bottled Water