He needs to drink fracked water..... Besides: I PAY FOR MY WATER...... Ask DWP!
Nestle’s Water-Bottling
Activities Amid California
Drought Underscore
A Lack Of Policy Options
Due to crippling drought in California, there’s been a
crackdown on watering lawns and washing cars.
Yet Nestle has continued its bottling operations,
adding to the national debate over corporate
right and common good.
In this Feb. 4, 2014 file photo, a warning buoy sits on the dry,
cracked bed of Lake Mendocino near Ukiah, Calif.
WASHINGTON — As large swathes of the western
United States continue to wither under the effects
of record-breaking drought, longstanding local
concerns over water use are becoming increasingly
contentious, adding to the national debate over
corporate right and common good.
In recent weeks, a desert area of Southern California
has seen focus suddenly turn toward a water-bottling
plant owned by Nestle Waters North America, which
has continued its operations despite the worsening
water crisis. In an outraged action request in
mid-August, the League of Conservation Voters,
a prominent national lobby group, urged 50,000
of its members and consumers to petition the company
on the issue.
“Nestle … is bottling California’s water, selling it, and
profiting while the state suffers from a scorching,
record-breaking drought,” the groups warned in a
series of emails. “Friend, we are fuming. To date,
Nestle has refused to acknowledge concerns about
the water they are taking.”
California has been hit particularly hard this year —
the third consecutive year of drought — and as of early
August, state water supplies were at less than two-thirds
capacity. Most of the state is currently experiencing
“exceptional drought,” the most severe rating according
to a federal scale. Several other states, from Oregon to
Texas, are also experiencing moderate to exceptional
drought conditions.
In response, California authorities have put in place
a variety of policy and public relations measures,
aiming to safeguard dwindling resources. As far
back as January, Gov. Jerry Brown requested that
the state’s residents voluntarily cut down their water
use by a fifth, though this seemed to have only a
middling effect.
Since then, authorities have placed hard caps on the
amount of water users can go through each day, and
there has been a crackdown on outdoor activities such
as watering lawns, washing cars or cleaning sidewalks.
Even the state’s lucrative and powerful agricultural sector
has been forced to scale back its water use, in some places
significantly, reportedly already leading to $1 billion in losses.
Nestle’s bottling operation, however, is located on Native
American land, operating under a 25-year lease from the
Morongo Band of Mission Indians near Cabazon, in the
state’s arid south. Water from the area is bottled and
sold under the brands Arrowhead and Pure Life, according
to the local media investigation that broke the story in July.
The article’s author, Ian James, pointed to federal data
suggesting that water levels in the area have been going
down by up to 4 feet a year over the past decade.
Private property or public trust?
In part because the Morongo are a sovereign nation,
Nestle is not required to tell California authorities how
much water its Cabazon bottling plant is extracting, nor
does it need to confirm whether it is abiding by the state’s
broader rationing strategy.
Still, the company says it is taking important conservation
steps, telling MintPress that it is “committed to managing
water supplies for long-term sustainability” and clarifying
that some 80 percent of the water it bottles in California is
sold in the state.
“Recognizing that no company, person or entity is immune
from the effects of the drought, we have planned for and
adapted our operations in light of the current situation,”
Nestle Waters North America, which is based in Connecticut,
said in response to a query to the Morongo Band.
“Our water use management program includes curtailing
withdrawals depending on conditions at a spring site.
Our monitoring shows that … there is no significant
adverse impact on the any springs or surrounding
groundwater levels related to the water we withdraw.”
In Southern California specifically, the company says,
it can withdraw water from five springs, and its managers
alternate which sources are used based on local conditions.
Nestle also noted that the amount of water it withdraws in
California makes up just 0.004 percent of the total water
use throughout the state.
Outside experts, too, have cast doubt on the impact that Nestle’s
bottling operations are having — or even could have — on
California’s overall groundwater reserves. Nonetheless,
in conditions of extreme and prolonged drought, the debate
around the issue highlights the notable lack of policy options
that government authorities, at any level, have to intervene.
“We’re in a very bad drought right now and it’s time to really
manage our public water resources wisely — and Nestle’s
operations are really antithetical to good public water
management,” Adam Scow, California director for
Food & Water Watch, a watchdog group, told MintPress.
“Yet, the state has no specific policy on water bottling.
Here we are in the middle of this drought and no one
even knows how much water the company’s taking at
that plant or other plants,” he continued.
Two years ago, state legislators did pass legislation that
would have required water companies to report how much
water they were bottling, but that bill was vetoed by
then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Likewise, attempts
to have the state’s water authority oversee a comprehensive
mapping and analysis of the state’s water resources —
to many, a seemingly straightforward step — are again
being held up.
Scow said the broader problem underpinning this lack
of legislative progress is the fact that California doesn’t
formally view water as a resource in the public trust.
As a result, it’s one of the very few states lacking comprehensive
groundwater regulations.
“Water is pretty much treated as private property, which is
crazy and grossly irresponsible,” he said.
“This is due to industry opposition, largely from corporate
agriculture, which is the big groundwater sucker in California.
Most likely, the fear is that if the public knew how much
groundwater there is, there would be some limitations
on how much water they could take.”
Lack of policy levers:
Meanwhile, the current drought affecting much of the
American West could continue for years, or worsen in
the future due to a changing climate. Last week,
researchers at Cornell University warned that the
chances of a decade-long drought in the Southwest
are as high as 50 percent, and that the chances of a
30-year “megadrought” are likewise anywhere from
20 to 50 percent.
“This will be worse than anything seen during the last
2,000 years and would pose unprecedented challenges
to water resources in the region,” Toby Ault, a
Cornell assistant professor and lead author of a
new paper on the issue, said in a statement.
“With ongoing climate change, this is a glimpse of things
to come,” he added. “It’s a preview of our future.”
Of course, the prospect of climate change-related drought
only increases the likelihood that, in the future, water
will likely need to be brought from places of relative
abundance and moved to places of relative need. Such
a dynamic highlights the likely strengthened role of
private companies such as Nestle, but also underscores
the need for stringent and forward-looking safeguards.
So far, however, there have been relatively few local,
state or national policies to deal explicitly with such concerns.
“Unfortunately, bottled water corporations continuing
to bottle at high levels even in times of drought is not
unprecedented,” Erin Diaz, a campaign director with
Corporate Accountability International, a watchdog group,
told MintPress. “In fact, there is a clear track record of
these companies continuing to extract water at times of drought.”
Two prominent cases took place during a region-wide drought
a half-decade ago. In 2007 in Atlanta, for instance, even as
city officials were rationing water and cancelling festivals,
Diaz said Coca-Cola continued to bottle in the area at its
normal rate. During the same time and even through the
following year, PepsiCo likewise continued its bottling
operations in North Carolina.
Diaz said there are few options for authorities in such cases.
“I’m not aware of any policy levers,” she said. “Even
from our side, in the past we've mainly called directly
on the corporations to cease their bottling or to meet
the same restrictions as are being asked of the public.”
Still, Diaz said that throughout much of the country the
idea of maintaining water infrastructure and ensuring
access as a public trust remains strong. Nonetheless,
she expressed concern that, in the U.S. and internationally,
water companies are actively working against this idea.
“Since their inception, bottled water corporations have
used marketing to try to change the way that we think
about water — not as a human right but rather as a commodity
that can be bought and sold,” she said.
Yet, communities that have been negatively impacted by
this dynamic have repeatedly found ways to safeguard
their local resources. For instance, the small town of
Wacissa, Florida, was able to reject a plan by Nestle to
use water from a local river by passing an ordinance
requiring the backing of a majority of its city council
before any future water-bottling plan can be approved.
Another community, in Michigan, was able to use a legal
injunction to limit the amount of water a company was able
to bottle from the area.
“The strength of public water systems is their very clear
mandate to provide water as a public trust and ensure equal
access in a democratically accountable fashion,” Diaz said.
“That’s what’s fundamentally different from a bottling
corporation coming in and using that resource for profit.”
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