I think a lot more about water nowadays – I had my first bout with a kidney stone last year and while I rather enjoyed certain pharmacological aspects to my adventure, the subsequent laser surgery and other downsides have put me in the, “what can I do to avoid this in the future?” camp. In a nutshell, this involves drinking a lot more water than I used to.

So I watch this thinking this might be an interesting documentary on bottled water (which I only drink once in a while). Was I wrong. Watch this and complaining about “having” to drink water will seem like you’re the same level as a whiny Bravo housewife who complains about having to get Botox.

Some of the information is a bit off when it comes to private ownership rights, but mostly when it comes to which cities in the US have given over their watershed rights from municipality ownership to private companies. It does highlight the exportation of water all over the world which becomes confusing as you start to think through depleting an aquifer here only to fill up bladder containers to ship our water overseas is a viable export. And we’ve never been short sighted enough to export for short-term gain assuming that things will somehow take care of themselves in the future, right?

The politics of water become even darker. In countries where water has become a hot commodity for corrupt governments, things are terrible. Stories of neighbors who can’t afford to pour water on a burning neighbors home or stories of a teenager getting shot in Bolivia for gathering rainwater (before you think that could only be illegal in Boliva, several states in the US now require you to have permits to gather rainwater in your own rain barrels!).

There are some bright spots to the documentary – particularly under the “what you can do” section, but it almost seems insurmountable. I do want to keep avoiding future kidney stones, but it almost seems like a luxury!