When we first posted the trailer to the movie “Tapped” we got a lot of traffic (and why not – it’s a kickass trailer).

That’s why we’re happy to post it again – and to announce the World Premiere, which takes place (appropriately) in Waterville, Maine – and features some of the folks fighting Nestle Waters of North America’s predations in Maine:

World Premiere of the documentary Tapped from Atlas Films
(by the director of “Who Killed the Electric Car”)

featuring Maine Water Justice Activists in the struggle

Sunday, July 12th at 3:30pm
Waterville Opera House
Waterville, Maine

(Movie site: http://www.tappedthemovie.com/)

This well-written piece (by Leslie Samuelrich of Corporate Accountability International) pretty succinctly sums up what’s happening in Mecosta County, where Nestle Waters of North America intends to win – not by being right, but by sheer legal might:

Time is ticking. It’s been nine years now since Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation first went to court to stop Nestlé from pumping millions of gallons from a rural Michigan wildlife preserve. And the outcome of a court hearing on July 6 will determine whether our judicial system can work to protect community water rights.

There are two things at stake:

The first is the outcome of the case, which will determine whether or not Nestlé can continue to drain large quantities of water from rural Michigan, narrowing streams, exposing mud flats, and reducing flow levels. A Nestlé victory guarantees the world’s largest bottler access to water at the expense of local ecosystems and businesses, such as tourism, that depend on the watershed’s long-term viability.

The second is whether Nestlé will win merely on the basis of financial might rather than on the basis of what’s right. Going to court is expensive, especially against Nestlé, a massive global corporation that can easily pour millions into defending its profits. The Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation have dug deep, running bake sales and raffles to garner the resources needed to stand up to Nestlé in court through several rounds of Nestlé appeals. Now, as the community is heading into the most crucial round of the Nestlé battle, they are in urgent need of additional funds to keep them in the courtroom through the close of the summer hearing — the legal fees are no joke, amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The case could have been over in 2003, when a judge determined that Nestlé’s withdrawal of 400 gallons of water a minute was having a negative impact on several local streams and ponds, and called a halt to the pumping. But the pumping never stopped. Nestlé appealed and hired its own scientists to produce studies that validated its operations. To counter Nestlé’s efforts, the community has had to continue to hire lawyers and experts and the fees are piling up. Nestlé has run the community dry in more ways than one.

This case underscores the importance of water resources remaining in public control and decisions about water being made locally and democratically…water is too precious to hand over to Goliath.

For more information or to help the Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation get into the courtroom, click here.

via David v. Goliath: Help Michigan Citizens Protect Their Water from Nestle’s Bottling Operations | Water | AlterNet.

The Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation (MCWC) have fought Nestle Waters of North America for nearly nine years, and now they’re suffering the inevitable at the hands of the Swiss multinational’s seemingly endless legal resources – they need outside help (see the end of the post to find out how).

(BTW – small, rural towns thinking of working with Nestle probably should copy and save Ms. Swier’s letter below – if the food & beverage giant doesn’t get its way, you’ll be looking at sending one of these out on your own behalf.)

For those unfamiliar with Nestle’s water bottling presence in Mecosta County, MI, I’ll post a nutshell version of the whole sordid tale below Terry Swier’s letter, but for those with a sense of justice and a couple dollars in their pocket, here’s Ms. Swier’s letter, which details the organization’s current legal challenges against Nestle:

MCWC’s funding has dropped way down this past year and I know other organizations are facing the same difficulties. We need an emergency action alert for funding this hearing. MCWC is finding itself falling farther behind in being able to pay legal fees and expert costs.

To help defray costs, MCWC’s lawyers and experts will be staying at Gary’s and my house for the hearing and will be arriving on the 5th. Roseanne Sapp has offered to bring a meal one night and that is much appreciated. I would like to ask if others would like to do the same, either breakfast foods, evening snacks, or help with a dinner. Please email me tswier@centurytel.net if you can help.

As you know, MCWC is in the longest running bottled water battle with Nestle anywhere, having started in December 2000 and gone through trial, appeals, and remand injunction proceedings for almost 9 years now.  MCWC and its 2000 members funded this by bake sales, raffles, garage sales, and an occasional grant. We have raised over $1 million for expert witness fees, attorney fees, and costs over the first 8 years. This has been an extraordinary effort.  The firm of Olson, Bzdok and Howard has charged fees that are 3/4 of normal and contributed or waived an additional $100,000 in fees over these years.

MCWC is now faced with another lengthy hearing on issues it has won.  MCWC’s experts are prepared to show the Court that new facts since the injunction was entered into in January 2006, facts that will demonstrate why the injunction should be modified to better protect the stream from early May to October in the drier years  MCWC’s experts are also prepared to rebut Nestle’s claims that it should be able to pump 50 gpm or 30% more when in fact it should pump less.  The injunction limits have generally protected the stream, except in the drier years such as 2007.

However, we are facing not only an astounding loss and debt from all of this, but another $60,000 in expenses to contest Nestle from now through the end of the hearing this Summer.   MCWC needs help, and fast, to keep going. Please send your donations to MCWC – P.O. Box 1 – Mecosta, MI 49332.

I have 414 emails of MCWC members that I am sending this plea to. Please help me get the word out and send it on to your family, friends, and anyone you know who might be able to help MCWC.

Thank you.

Terry Swier
Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation
President

I hope some of StopNestleWater.org’s readers will help out.

The Condensed Version of the Nestle’s Mecosta County Story

Here are the bare facts: Nestle Waters of North America received a permit to pump water and build a bottling plant from a friendly state resource manager (who now speaks on their behalf).

A citizen’s group – concerned about apparent damage to the watershed (a lake, stream and two wetlands) – eventually challenged Nestle’s pumping regime in court. Nestle still refused to reduce their water intake (one lakeside landowner says the company offered to extend his dock, which no longer reached the water), and the judge actually visited the areas in question before deciding in favor of the MCWC.

It’s instructive to note that Nestle only negotiated a lower pumping rate after the judge lost his patience and threatened an injunction which would have halted all pumping. Nestle’s pumping rate is about half the originally permitted rate, and the company has since found two more sources (controversial), and the factory seems to be running at full tilt.

Still, after losing their day in court, Nestle turned around and filed a lawsuit which challenged the right of citizens to bring environmental lawsuits in Michigan, and won that suit (in front of a very conservative Michigan Supreme Court, the makeup of which has changed slightly).

It’s as good an example of any of Nestle’s approach, which involves throwing multiple legal resources at issues until they find a legal loophole the can drive one of their tanker trucks through (ala Fryeburg).

Today, the MCWC wants further protections for the watershed in dry years while Nestle Waters of North America wants the right to actually increase pumping levels.

Help out if you can:

MCWC
P.O. Box 1
Mecosta, MI 49332

Want to donate online? The MCWC site allows you to contribute via PayPal.

The Colorado Springs Gazette notes that 80% of bottled water’s plastic bottles don’t make it to the recycling bin, highlighting that fact as one of the reasons why Chaffee County residents are opposed to Nestle’s jproposed bottled water extraction project (click here to see all our stories on the Chaffee County).

Frankly, we disagree. It’s terrible that a huge majority of Nestle’s plastic bottles end up on our lands and waterways, but the Chaffee County project was more than a referendum on bottled water. From the Gazette: Local debate spotlights fact: 80% of water’s packaging isn’t recycled:

A water fight is on in Chaffee County, one that shows how far the esteem of bottled water has fallen.

Nestle Waters North America wants to withdraw 65 million gallons of spring water a year for its Arrowhead brand of bottled water from springs near the Arkansas River, a few miles south of Buena Vista. Some in Chaffee County see it as a water grab with no benefit to the community, and hundreds packed several long and contentious public hearings held by the county this spring on Nestle’s 1041 land-use permit request. Foes worry the plan could deplete water supplies and increase truck traffic.

County commissioners will discuss, and possibly vote on, the permit today.

StopNestleWaters participated in the Chaffee County debate, and I’d suggest it was about far more than water supplies and truck traffic.

The county would enjoy almost no real economic benefit from the project (a fact that Nestle initially tried to hide using grossly inflated economic forecasts), and Nestle’s own reputation as something of a predator in small towns clearly came into play.

Nestle, of course, ignores that which it doesn’t want to hear:

A Nestle official says foes’ complaints are with bottled water as a whole.

“Most of it has nothing to do with the 1041 or the science. It’s their opinions about the end use of the water,” said Bruce Lauerman, Nestle’s natural-resources manager…

Wrong.

It’s also about Nestle – a multinational that small communities are increasingly realizing they can’t trust.

It’s a common tactic for Nestle to paint their foes as hysterical, emotional types who are being misled by the big, bad anti-water conspiracy, but the citizens in Chaffee County were treated to an eyeful of reasons why the Nestle project wasn’t a good fit:

• The lack of economic benefit to Chaffee County, which Nestle’s desperate “promise” of a community endowment did little to assuage
• Nestle’s distressing actions elsewhere, where it’s placed its own bottom line far above the needs of the community or watershed
• Nestle’s willingness to wholly ignore impacts like climate change on the watershed
• Nestle’s willingness to resort to legal means to bludgeon opponents – essentially bankrupting its opponents

And for a long list of reasons why the Nestle project should be denied by the commissioners (almost all of which are well within the scope of the 1041 process), read this thoughtful piece by the Salida Citizen’s Lee Hart.

In other words, given the lack of economic benefits to the area and a Pikes Peak-sized list of reasons Nestle’s extraction project could hurt the area, why exactly would anyone say yes?

chaffee county, salida citizen, lee hart, nestle, nestle waters of north america, bottled water

• Suing Coca-Cola for contaminating groundwater after spraying wastewater to dispose of it: http://tinyurl.com/lu2yow #

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While California remains in the grip of a three year drought – and the worst water crisis in decades – one company wants to build a water bottling plant in Orland. The catch?

They don’t seem to want anyone to know about it.

From the Chico Enterprise Record:Bottled water company proposes to build plant in Orland

ORLAND — A bottled water company is looking to build a bottled water facility in Orland and pump groundwater, and is working its way through the permit process.

A hydrologist working as a consultant for the company gave a presentation to the Glenn County Water Advisory Committee earlier this month and submitted an application to the city of Orland June 17, said Nancy Sailsbery, director of community services for the city.

She said the item will come up at the Glenn County Water Technical Advisory Committee meeting July 15.

While a consultant has met publicly with local leaders, the actual name of the company seeking to build the bottled water company has not been disclosed.

The application is under the name PLP Limited Liability Company (LLC), out of Mammoth Lakes, in care of Triad/Holmes Associates. Triad/Holmes is a civil engineering and land survey firm in Mammoth Lakes.

The environmental consulting firm working on the project is Malcom Prinie Inc. of Emeryville.

Sailsbery said the total water proposed to be bottled would be 160 acre-feet a year, which is about the equivalent of the water needs of 50-60 acres of orchard crops.

We don’t know what company is behind this, but they’ve certainly learned their lesson from Nestle Waters of North America (for the record, I doubt this is Nestle).

Their project people have been working local government for some time before the project becomes too public (bottling plants are suddenly encountering opposition everywhere – even formerly “safe” regions), though the veil of secrecy surrounding this project is beyond the pale.

Exactly how does this kind of secrecy server the public process?

orland, water bottling plant, bottled water, orland ca, glenn county water bottling plant

I normally avoid Nestle’s contaminated food scandals – except when they highlight the corporation’s utter lack of concern for anything but profits.

In this case, Nestle shipped raw cookie dough that was contaminated with E. coli (ABC News called the announcement the “smoking gun), yet the bit I found most interesting was Nestle’s refusal to volunteer information asked for by the FDA (via the Associated Press):

NEW YORK (AP) — Inspection reports from a Nestle USA cookie dough
factory released Friday show the company  refused several times to
provide Food and Drug Administration inspectors with complaint logs,
pest-control records and other information.

The records, which
date back to 2004, were made public after Nestle’s Toll House
refrigerated, prepackaged cookie dough was discovered to be the likely
culprit in an E. coli outbreak that has sickened 69 people in 29
states, according to the latest estimates from the federal Centers for
Disease Control. The CDC is investigating the outbreak along with the
FDA.

Nestle voluntarily recalled all Toll House refrigerated
cookie dough products made at the Danville, Va., factory late last week
after the FDA informed the company it suspected consumers may have been
exposed to E. coli bacteria after eating the dough raw.

According
to the reports released by the FDA, the company refused to allow FDA
investigators access to certain documents in at least 2004, 2005, 2006
and 2007.

FDA spokeswoman Stephanie Kwisnek said the Glendale, Calif.-based unit of Switzerland-based Nestle SA had the right to do so.

“Companies
have the right to make conditions on what they will or will not permit
during an inspection,” she said. “Some companies have a policy that
they outline for the investigator at the beginning of an inspection.”

We’re shocked to hear that Nestle – the multinational who (if you believe them) rescues small animals from trees and walks the elderly across the street – was happier playing CYA instead of helping investigators find the cause of something that was making people very sick.

The next time Nestle suggests it’s a “good corporate neighbor,” consider hiding the family silver. Suing Fryeburg into oblivion, pumping Michigan dry until ordered to stop by a judge, and providing wildly exaggerated economic “benefit” analysis to Chaffee County are only a few examples of its citizenship.

This seems to be another.

nestle, nestle waters of north america, cookie dough, e. coli, contaminated cookie dough, corporate citizenship

While Nestle and the IBWA (bottled water association, dominated largely by Nestle) are in the midst of a major charm offensive (well, semi-charming if you’re not on their Christmas Card list), small rural towns are starting to recognize the hazards of getting involved with the Swiss multinational:

Small Towns vs. Nestlé — In These Times

When Nestlé Waters North America, the world’s largest bottler of water, comes a-courting, promising jobs and increased tax revenues in exchange for local water rights, many small, rural towns get nervous.

Deborah Lapidus, an organizer with the Think Outside the Bottle campaign, says this skepticism stems from Henderson, Texas, which in the ’90s saw Nestlé suck one of its wells dry.

“The company prioritizes its own use over the environment and other uses,” says Lapidus.

As well as draining water, Nestlé also attempts to deplete these communities’ finances, Lapidus says. Towns trying to defend their reservoirs have found themselves in costly legal battles. Fryeburg, Maine, for example, has been sued five times by Nestlé for “interfering with the right to grow their market share.”

I can assure you that Nestle – who has finally been forced to defend its actions in other small towns (instead of simply ignoring their transgressions) – does not like to be held accountable at this level.

Whether a determined bunch of citizen activists can finally force a bad corporation to mend its ways is questionable (how long has that infant formula boycott been in place), but perhaps Nestle can be forced to answer a few questions along the way.

nestle, nestle waters of north america, bottled water, think outside the bottle

Bottlemania, the book about bottled water that so frightened Nestle, they tried to produce a page-by-page critique, will be available in paperback form July 7.

The book was chosen as one of the Top 10 Green Books of the year, and while it invests a great deal of time on Nestle Waters of North America’s less-than-cordial activities in Fryeburg, Maine, Royte also looks at the larger issue of our water supplies.

Now available in paperback (click image to buy it)

It’s an engrossing, well-researched read, but the readers of this blog will be most interested in the portion chronicling Nestle’s interactions in Fryeburg. It’s a painful look – one that Nestle has tried to cast as an “atypical” situation, though those fighting the Swiss multinational in other parts of the country might not agree with that assessment.

That’s also why the UK Bottled water industry held up a copy of Bottlemania at its annual meeting and described it as something to be feared:

Elizabeth Royte’s book, Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It, is causing waves.The book, which describes bottled water as “the biggest scam in marketing history”, was held up as serious cause for concern at the annual conference of the British bottled water industry this month.

Industry executives fear the work, which was published in May, could be as influential on public sentiment as Eric Schlosser’s early 1990s investigation into the American fast food industry, Fast Food Nation: What the All-American Meal is Doing to the World .

More information about Bottlemania is available here (also ordering information).

• Nestle refuses to volunteer information to FDA relating to cookie dough recall: http://tinyurl.com/ncjdlu #

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• Despite all the Central Valley's water issues, bottler wants to build plant in Orland, CA: http://www.chicoer.com/news/ci_12694949 #

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• Pennsylvania township fighting bottling extraction on one of America's "Most Endangered" Rivers: http://tinyurl.com/ncz2wf #
• Excellent letters to editor about Nestle/Poland Spring operations in Wells (including ugly shout-down of speakers) http://tinyurl.com/mb6b9b #
• Wells residents concerned water extraction ordinance may not protect them enough from bottlers (Poland Spring) http://tinyurl.com/nfqdbe #

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