U.S. Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta marked Labor Day by thanking workers who are bottling safe drinking water for victims affected by Hurricane Harvey.
Acosta visited Anheuser-Busch’s Cartersville, Ga., brewery as it pauses beer production to produce emergency drinking water to ship to the Gulf Coast.
"So today alone, Anheuser-Busch is canning 1 million cans of water for the people of Texas. This is quite literally, life-saving," said Acosta. "What I saw in Texas, were Texans helping Texans. People stepping up and volunteering. And this is great, because the people of Cartersville are literally standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the people of Texas. They are saving lives in Texas. So, this isn't a Labor Day picnic, but it's a celebration. It's a celebration of the workers of America helping their fellow workers. The people here in Georgia, helping the people of Texas."
Anheuser-Busch’ has sent 11 truckloads of water -- about 500,000 cans -- to aid victims of Harvey.
"There is a preparation process that we go through to make sure we have the materials available," said Senior Brewmaster Sarah Schillling. "We do take brewing quality water and we go through some additional filtration and purification processes to ensure that we have shelf-life stable water. The packaging line itself has to be cleaned and prepared and converted specific packaging configuration we put the water in".
Last year, Anheuser-Busch shipped cans of water to those affected by Hurricane Matthew, floods in Louisiana and wildfires in California.
