Nestle’s Water-Bottling Activities Amid California Drought Underscore A Lack Of Policy Options
http://www.mintpressnews.com/nestles-water-bottling-activities-amid-california-drought-underscore-lack-policy-options/196101/
Nestle’s Water-Bottling Activities Amid California Drought Underscore A Lack Of Policy Options
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.
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“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.
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