Nestle Abandons Plans for Tug Hill Plateau (NY) Bottling Plant
Nestle Waters of North America has abandoned plans to develop a Tug Hills Plateau water bottling plant, cagily suggesting the water supply wasn’t regular enough while also alluding the downturn in the bottled water industry (Nestle story found below section about governor’s photo story):
A giant Swiss multinational has turned its attention from the Tug Hill Plateau as a source for bottled water — at least for now.
Nestle Waters North American has dropped plan to a buy a 450-acre farm in Orwell, Oswego County, for a 1.5-million-gallon-a-day, $100 million bottling plant. The property is several miles north of the Salmon River, one of the state’s premier fisheries, and in the heart of the state’s lake-effect snow belt.
Brennan said the global economic downturn has put Nestle’s expansion plans there and elsewhere on hold. It was in 2007 that the company began scouting for springs in the Tug Hill, as well as near the Catskills and in Central New York.
Again, Brennan’s statements force us to ask the obvious question; are all those jobs dangled by Nestle in front of rural communities safe?
Certainly, they weren’t for 80% of the employees of Nestle’s Calistoga bottling plant, who were laid off during the holidays.
And as communities are recently becoming aware, Nestle won’t guarantee pay scales or even local sourcing of its jobs, leading us to ask: how much economic benefit do rural communities really enjoy from an industry that’s on the decline?
