First Lady Michelle Obama has been advocating for people to drink more water in an effort to improve health.

If you’re a fan of WETLAB on Facebook, you’ll know that’s something we whole-heartedly agree with.

According to an Associated Press report, Obama launched the campaign earlier this month in Watertown, Wisc., saying drinking more water is the “single best thing Americans could do to improve their health.”

“Water is so basic, and because it is so plentiful, sometimes we just forget about it amid all the ads we watch on television and all the messages we receive every day about what to eat and drink,” she said in the article.

Mrs. Obama spoke about seeing improvements in her two daughters’ health after deciding to drink more water, but was careful not to attack the soft drink industry, according to the article, because she said healthy changes won’t happen without buy-in from the food industry.

In fact, this campaign is backed by the American Beverage Association, which represents makers of soda, sports drinks and energy drinks, according to the article, but many of those companies also make bottled water.

This is where some environmental groups take issue.

“We applaud the first lady’s initiative to encourage people to choose water over sugary beverages, but we do have concerns that this partnership is working in conjunction with the bottled water industry and with that instead she were encouraging people to choose the much more affordable, more regulated option of tap water,” said Emily Wurth, water program director for Food and Water Watch in the article.

The issues are two-fold: the waste created by disposable water bottles (about ¼ of plastic water bottles are recycled according to Wurth) and tap water is held to higher quality standards than bottled water, which often comes from municipal water systems anyway, making the premium price questionable, according to the article.

Local Water News

In northern Nevada Water news, winter forecasts are starting to turn up, offering interesting predictions into Sierra snow pack and our subsequent water supply. The Farmers’ Almanac is calling for a cool winter with near-normal precipitation, which would be an improvement over the last two years. But the National Climate Prediction Center is having a tough-time nailing down a prediction, reporting “equal chance of being below normal or above normal for snowfall for the western states.” Only time will tell, but we’re keeping our fingers crossed.