Thursday, October 15, 2015

Current Event 10/15- Nestle Water

In the midst of a historic and record-setting drought in the state of California, Nestle, a water bottle production company, has been allowed to remove as much water from the San Bernardino National Forest as they damn please. This isn't even a recent development. Nestle has been piping out upwards of 28 million gallons of fresh water a year. All of this precious commodity is going to be bottled as Nestle's Arrowhead brand and sold to the very same consumers who are being asked to reduce their water consumption at a residential level. This isn't just public shaming of a poorly conducted company. The Forest Service released this press brief within the last 48 hours: 

"The story of Stuff Project, the California-based Courage Capaign Institute, and the Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit this week against the U.S. Forest Service for allowing Nestle to continue to bottle millions of gallons of water from the San Bernardino National Forest with a permit that expired 27 years ago."

That's right. Nestle has been allowed to pipe all this water with an expired permit. Luckily, some interest groups are stepping in and getting the courts involved. The permit expired in 1988 but the piping infrastructure Nestle uses to acquire the freshwater has been active ever since, pumping about 70,000 gallons of freshwater a day. This has all been so morally accomplished (sarcasm) by Nestle utilizing a unique arrangement with the Forest Service. Nestle has to pay an annual fee of $524. I can't imagine how Nestle's accounting and financial teams were able to come up with enough room to shell out $524 for millions of gallons of water. The lawsuit notes, this annual fee is less than the average Californians water bill.




It will be interesting to watch how this lawsuit unfolds. It seems like a very easy decision for the courts especially in the midst of such expansive droughts. Hopefully, Nestle will have to shut down their piping operation or at least pay an extreme amount to renew their permit.

http://theantimedia.org/forest-service-sued-to-stop-nestle-from-drawing-water-in-national-forest/

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