It's a real H-2-oh-no-they-didn't: California is fining one of the companies that supplies Starbucks' bottled water for making the state's drought worse. According to Mother Jones, Sugar Pine Spring Water has received a complaint and a cease-and-desist order from the California State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB). The SWRCB alleges that the company illegally tapped "critically dry springs." It is the first bottled-water supplier to face enforcement action since the state declared a drought-related emergency in January 2014.
Starbucks' line of morally superior Ethos Water uses water supplied by Sugar Pine Spring Water. It was revealed earlier this year that the coffee chain bottles water in one of the worst drought regions in California. Starbucks announced shortly after that it would be "phasing out its use of California water over the next six months." A Starbucks spokesperson tells Eater that the company is "not sourcing any water from Sugar Pine," and that it is committed to moving "all Ethos production out of California and are actively securing a new out of state source at this time."
The cease-and-desist order says that between July 12 and August 5 of this year, just under 100 Sugar Pine Spring Water tanker trucks accessed 653,400 gallons of water from the dry springs in question. The trucks were caught on surveillance cameras placed on "public roads around the locked site" by the authorities. The company is facing fines of nearly $225,000.