Comments on: The Top Six Reasons Why Small Communities Can’t Trust Nestle Waters, Part II

By: TC

TC — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 17:59:39 +0000

Thanks! If there’s an opposition group forming, I’d love to hear about it and do an interview.

By: Jane Smith

Jane Smith — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 21:25:46 +0000

Nestle is currently contracting with a local rancher in a rural county in Colorado for the rights to bottle the water from a high yielding spring. This greatly affects the recharge into the Arkansas river as well as the underlying aquifer which is already being innundated with wells. The folks at Nestle are at least being candid about job creation in the County (none) and because they are simply taking the water out they are avioding county taxes while their trucks would tear up county roads and create a dust problem where local livestock is raised. Water is like gold in Colorado because there is a very finite supply and I could see this causing issues for many years to come.

By: TC

TC — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 17:17:57 +0000

Given the potential profits of a water bottling plant, gifts like you mentioned – and others I’ve seen connected to the town of McCloud – are peanuts to Nestle.

And it’s not limited to gifts; questions abound about who is on the Nestle payroll in some capacity (“consultant”?), and even if they’re not, it’s a strong indicator of the divide that forms in most communities after Nestle arrives and starts recruiting selected locals to the cause (paid or not).

Honestly, my “Top Six” list could have easily become a “Top Dozen” list, but time pressures force some economy here.

Thanks for commenting – and keep us updated as to what’s happening.

By: George

George — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 13:25:39 +0000

Another tactic that Nestle uses in small towns is to offer up large donations. In Western Maine, Nestle’s Poland Spring offered up a portable classroom to the school district as a way to relieve overcrowding that Mark Dubois “saw when he was touring the elementary school”. The discussions with the district were not publicized and I don’t know if they were held in secret. But, all of a sudden, it came time to have a very immediate school board meeting to make the final vote on the offer, or they would loose the window for ordering the classroom. Several school board members were obviously missing. Of those attending, many were visibly silent on the matter.

The discussion (and I may be paraphrasing) that did ensue was basically that this was “for the children”; or, “why shouldn’t we accept this gift as long is it does not cost the taxpayers any money? It’s money that the taxpayer will not have to pick up, and solves a need.” One lone school board member did speak up about the ethics of this gift asking how the school board can accept the classroom when Nestle is continually suing the largest town in the district.

In the end, you can imagine what happened. It was too bad that ethics and ethical behavior cannot enter into a discussion and alter the outcome.