(Yellowstone National Park/Jacob W. Frank)
For years, national parks across the country have phased out the sale of bottled water and installed hydration stations -- an alternative that reduces plastic waste in some of our most cherished outdoor spaces and encourages the use of public tap water. Last week, the Department of the Interior rescinded the National Park Service policy outlining how national parks can go bottled water free.
This happened just weeks after the Trump administration appointed a deputy secretary of the Interior with deep ties to Nestlé, a water-bottling giant that has pushed to stop parks from going bottled water free for years. This is just one more extreme example of corporations wielding their power to protect profits at the expense of people and the planet.
But this does not mean we have reached the end of the line for parks eliminating bottled water and increasing access to the tap. Send this message to our national park superintendents across the country asking them to resist the bottled water industry's profit-driven agenda and continue to make national parks bottled-water-free.
These are our parks. We must make it clear that water, like our national parks, is a public good, not a commodity.