Starbucks will stop bottling its Ethos Water in California

After California residents expressed concern over the bottling of water in their drought-ravaged state, Starbucks announced it will no longer source its Ethos Water from the Golden State.

Starbucks' senior vice president of Global Responsibility and Public Policy said the company wants to "support the people of the state of California as they face this unprecedented drought," and over the next six months, will move operations to Pennsylvania. The Ethos water comes from private springs in the Sierra Nevada foothills, and it's bottled in Merced at a bottling plant operated by Safeway. For every bottle purchased, Starbucks gives 5 cents to a fund that supports water and sanitation programs in developing countries.

The state's Department of Public Health says there are 108 licensed bottled water plants in California. While the department regulates those plants and collects information on water quality and the sources tapped, there isn't a state agency that tracks how much water is used by the bottling plants. Adam Scow of the advocacy group Food & Water Watch finds that worrisome. "The water board really needs to get on top of managing aquifers in the state as a public resource," he told The Desert Sun. "There should be a moratorium on bottling for private profit in the midst of this drought."

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