Despite Nestle’s claim of being a good steward of water resources and oh! so careful of sustainable sources, it appears the company has not followed the rules in California and has been greedy by taking much more than its allotted share of water.
This exposes the lies and its bragging about sustainability and the deliberately false intimation of plastic recycling that does not approach reality, all part of company’s normal protocol of hoodwinking the public.
Nestle’s lies about sustainability are coming up short while confronting the severe drought in California, heading into a second year of severe threats of wildfires. The water they take is needed locally for the good of the people of California, but is trucked out never to return to the area, only to make Nestle richer.
Also it appears that the water agencies in California may listen to the people and may actually care about protecting their water, contrary to what we have seen in Florida, where Nestle (or Blue Triton Brands or whatever you may want to call it) is pampered and given close to free reign.
Read the complete article here in the Guardian.
Comments by OSFR historian Jim Tatum.
jim.tatum@oursantaferiver.org
– A river is like a life: once taken,
it cannot be brought back © Jim Tatum
Drought-hit California orders Nestlé to stop pumping millions of gallons of water
Nestlé, accused of taking millions more gallons than it is entitled to, receives draft cease-and-desist order from state officials
California water officials have moved to stop Nestlé from siphoning millions of gallons of water out of California’s San Bernardino forest, which it bottles and sells as Arrowhead brand water, as drought conditions worsen across the state.
Nestlé has maintained that its rights to California spring water dates back to 1865. But a 2017 investigation found that Nestlé was taking far more than its share. Last year the company drew out about 58m gallons, far surpassing the 2.3m gallons per year it could validly claim.
State officials sent the company a letter notifying it of the order on Friday.
“We have a limited amount of water, said Julé Rizzardo, the assistant deputy director of the Division of Water Rights. “And as we face our second dry year in a row, it’s important that we use our authority to protect the municipal water supply and the environment.”
Strawberry Creek, which Nestlé has been pumping from, is a tributary of the Santa Ana river, which provides drinking water for about about 750,000 residents. The region’s watersheds also provide a habitat for deer, fox and mountain lions, and threatened Alameda whipsnakes.
The draft order comes two months after Nestlé, which is based in Switzerland, sold its US- and Canada-based water brands to equity firms One Rock Capital Partners and Metropoulos for $4.3bn.
Nestlé Waters North America, which has been rebranded as BlueTriton Brands, has 20 days to appeal the draft order and ask for a hearing. A spokesperson said the assessment that it only had the right to draw 7.26 acre-feet of water per year was erroneous.
The company’s fight water in California mirrors similar fights in Oregon, Pennsylvania, Maine and Michigan. Across the US, conservationists have accused Nestlé of leveraging vast lobbying funds to bend local and federal officials to its will.
“The forests that Nestlé is draining – they’re our forests, supported by every US taxpayer,” said Amanda Frye, an activist who provided state officials with documents and research going back at least a century to show Nestlé did not have the right to the water it was pumping.
Frye, who has been protesting Nestlé’s pumping from Strawberry Creek for years, said the draft order is significant.
“But we still have a long way to go in protecting the forest from over-pumping,” she said.
The pumping has desiccated Strawberry Creek, damaging a local ecosystem. “It’s such a lovely ecosystem, and it’s doubly under threat due to climate change,” Frye said. “I hope that if Nestlé stops pumping, the environment will be able to heal.”
Officials said the state’s water board cannot easily challenge Nestlé’s rights to creek water established before 1914.
If the state water board approves the cease-and-desist order against BlueTriton, the company could face fines of up to $1,000 a day, or up to $10,000 a day if a drought is declared in the area.
Meanwhile, as much of the western US faces extreme drought conditions, long-standing fights in California between farmers, cities and environmental groups over the state’s scarce water supplies have heated up. Governor Gavin Newsom has already declared a regional drought emergency in two counties, after a dry winter left the state’s major reservoirs at half capacity or lower….
