{"id":606117,"date":"2026-04-25T19:05:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T19:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/606117\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T19:05:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T19:05:07","slug":"were-in-a-drought-and-a-company-is-bottling-and-selling-off-our-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/606117\/","title":{"rendered":"We\u2019re in a drought and a company is bottling and selling off our water"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p3\">To the Editor:<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">In 2017, the Southwest Florida Water Management District approved an Ocala water bottling company to withdraw 500,000 gallons of water a day.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">Now, the same Southwest Florida Water Management District has declared for Sumter and surrounding counties that there is a Phase III \u201cExtreme Water Shortage\u201d restricting water usage throughout the county.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">It\u2019s OK for a water bottling company to sell our water, but we can\u2019t use it to water our grass. Water has always been a precious resource, and it should be used for the residents and not for commercial purposes. Is this an indication of a lack of foresight or leadership?<\/p>\n<p class=\"p6\">Larry McLaughlin<br \/>Village of Tamarind Grove<\/p>\n<p>\n\tRelated\n<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To the Editor: In 2017, the Southwest Florida Water Management District approved an Ocala water bottling company to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":606118,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-606117","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}