Congress should stay out of park bottle bans

It’s amazing how little the U.S. Congress gets done, while at the same time, how deep into the weeds of governing representatives try to dip. Take the local-option ban on selling bottled water at the country’s national parks. The idea — a smart one — was to try and stem the tide of plastic waste.

Toward that goal, the National Park Service decided to allow the system’s 400-plus parks, national monuments and historical sites to stop selling the disposable bottles. Visitors could bring their own water bottles and simply refill them. Water, after all, is readily available.

The decision, made by Park Service Director Jon Jarvis in 2011, made sense. In fact, it didn’t go far enough. Parks that decided to dump water bottles couldn’t just stop the sales. Employees had to study the potential savings in recycling costs and weigh those against the price of buying and installing water stations. More than 20 national park units have taken the plunge to halt water sales, including Grand Canyon, Arches, Zion and Bryce Canyon national parks.

To officials at Zion National Park, the water-filling stations are a “sustainability success story.” The park website boasts that the decision has eliminated the annual sale of 60,000 bottles of water, “the equivalent of 5,000 pounds of plastic not entering the waste stream.”

To Big Water, though, not selling water is bad for business. Enter a strategy to persuade Congress to reverse the decision, with some $510,000 spent lobbying Congress since 2011, according to The Washington Post. The House, on July 7, added an amendment to the Interior-Environment spending bill that basically killed the bottle ban policy; the bill was later pulled in a flap over the Confederate battle flag. The issue isn’t going away, however.

The International Bottled Water Association is arguing in its fight against bans that people are turning to sugary drinks because bottled water is not easily available. As part of a $13.1 billion public relations campaign, the International Bottled Water Association maintains that by banning bottled water, the parks are encouraging people to be less healthy.

There’s an easy solution — keep the water stations and stop selling sugary drinks, too. That’s what Grand Canyon officials wanted to do, a move that was reversed because it would offend Coca-Cola. Saguaro National Park has eliminated both, a move that really reduces waste.

The parks are part of our national heritage. Surely, Americans who want to enjoy the great outdoors or learn history at a famous monument are smart enough bring their own drinks. The wise visitors will fill their own water bottles, saving money and their health.

Individual parks — especially remote ones where dealing with trash is more costly — should have the authority to decide what to allow. Not Congress, back in D.C., doing the bidding of the water industry instead of thinking about what’s best for both the parks and the people who visit them.

— Santa Fe New Mexican