Coca Cola has voluntarily agreed to temporarily stop taking water for free from a bore in the Perth hills to re-sell as bottled spring water. After a public outcry, the state government has also introduced measures to monitor how much water Coke and other companies are extracting from under-stress groundwater sources.
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00:00 Cathy Chemeleski's orchard is down the road from Coca-Cola's bore in the Perth Hills.
00:06 She was delighted to hear that.
00:08 For the time being, Coca-Cola has agreed to suspend its taking of water from Corrigullan
00:15 on the basis that we are coming off a particularly dry season.
00:19 Even though it's a temporary measure and it's voluntary, it's a great first step.
00:22 The impact on the groundwater could no longer be ignored.
00:26 And they acknowledge that it is starting to have an impact on their monitoring of their
00:31 particular extraction area.
00:32 Coke maintains its operations aren't impacting neighbouring properties.
00:36 But it says given rainfall and water levels, it will voluntarily stop extraction at Corrigullan
00:42 until the groundwater starts replenishing at appropriate levels.
00:46 There will now also be water meters at all bores used by Coke and other companies to
00:51 measure how much they're taking to resell as bottled spring water.
00:55 The Department of Water will review the information and the impact on the environment.
01:00 So we won't be taking it at the company's word.
01:02 It will be verified before it goes up.
01:04 There will also be a publicly available map showing how much water the companies are taking
01:09 in each local government area.
01:10 But it won't show what proportion of total groundwater that is and how much each individual
01:16 company is taking.
01:18 Cathy Chemeleski also wants the government to be able to force companies to stop taking
01:22 water if the groundwater drops too far.
01:25 There should be legislation that basically they can be shut down or a temporary stop
01:33 on their extraction of the water.
01:35 The government says analysis of the water data will determine if any further measures
01:39 are needed.
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