I can’t hardly believe what I am about to write here.  I work for an energy giant….  The office I work at is located in the now worlds-famous Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  We are just getting started her with the clean up that follows the worst flooding here in recorded history.  Here, along with so many other cities, counties, states we have a serious need for drinking water.  Speaking specifically of Cedar Rapids, Iowa and its surrounding areas, we have no water/sewage treatment facilities.  That has also been flooded and right no we are dumping as much as 25 million gallons of raw sewage per day into our Cedar River.  The Cedar joins the Mississippi and so.. well, you can do the math.

So, with such a serious need for clean water, it has been refreshing that so many large business in Cedar Rapids have gone so far as to receive (purchase) large quantities of bottled water to distribute to those in need… for free.  With all the water needs just in this town, I cant imagine a business trying to actually make money on any possible perceived “excess” of bottled water.  And that is exactly what is going on at my particular place of employment.

The bottles are 16.9oz and are packed in 24 packs.  THe “case” runs about $5.00 in most stores.  I would guess that there are approximate 300 cases, so that’s about 7200 individual bottles.  The company is no longer giving away any of the remainder. Instead they are selling the bottles at a rate of $0.75/bottle.  That’s $18.00/case.  At $5.00/case in the stores, that’s a $13.00 profit on every case.  At approximately 300 cases that amounts to about $3900.00 profit.  Going into the pockets of a select few to be sure.  There are water fountains all over this building, and faucets.  There is NO NEED to hoard all of those bottles and then try to make money off of them.  Instead, why not take all that water out to one of the MANY relief distribution center located all over this city and ofer to help other s in need.   This coming from the same place that thinks it ok AND legal to treat its contracted employees (temps) like absolute dog shit, simply for being a “temp”.

You GO, American big business!!!…………………………….