Defending Water for Life

By Kathleen Haley, Sacramento Press, October 27, 2009

Nestlé has a green light in Sacramento, according to the city attorney’s office.

The Nestlé company’s work to set up a water bottling plant in Sacramento is allowed under the city’s existing laws, City Attorney Eileen Teichert’s office said Tuesday.

It was clear at Tuesday’s City Council meeting that the City Council and city staff are on-board with the Nestlé company’s plans to bottle and sell tens of millions of gallons of Sacramento’s water.

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By Suzanne Hurt, Sacramento Press, October 26, 2009

A $14 million retrofit of a proposed Nestlé water-bottling plant has ground to a halt after the city of Sacramento issued a stop-work order while investigating whether the work began before the company had legal authorization from the city.

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By Suzanne Hurt, The Sacramento Press, October 25, 2009

Discussion over a Nestlé water-bottling plant appears to be growing in Sacramento, as the Swiss multinational prepares a facility for operation and new hires begin work.

The Sacramento City Council, which was not involved in the decision to approve the plant, will discuss the issue publicly for the first time after a request two weeks ago by council members Kevin McCarty and Lauren Hammond. They asked the council to consider an emergency ordinance requiring a special permit before Nestlé Waters North America begins bottling city tap water and spring water at a plant in South Sacramento.

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by Chris Hedges, TruthDig.org

In the musical “Urinetown,” a severe drought leaves the dwindling supplies of clean water in the hands of a corporation called Urine Good Company. Urine Good Company makes a fortune selling the precious commodity and running public toilets. It pays off politicians to ward off regulation and inspection. It uses the mechanisms of state control to repress an increasingly desperate and impoverished population.

The musical satire may turn out to be a prescient vision of the future. Corporations in Colorado, Texas, Louisiana, Pennsylvania and upstate New York have launched a massive program to extract natural gas through a process that could, if it goes wrong, degrade the Delaware River watershed and the fresh water supplies that feed upstate communities, the metropolitan cities of New York, Philadelphia, Camden and Trenton, and many others on its way to the Chesapeake Bay.

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By Shadi Rahimi, Indian Country Today, May 8, 2009

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – It began with a War Dance ceremony first launched against the federal government five years ago for its proposal to raise the Shasta Dam.

The Winnemem Wintu Tribe declared that raising the dam would flood their remaining sacred sites, including Puberty Rock where coming-of-age ceremonies are performed. They opened their ceremony to reporters and drew international attention.

This time, on the banks of the American River April 19, the Winnemem Wintu Tribe danced in the start of what may be a long legal battle with the federal government to formally address centuries of injustice to their people and homeland in Shasta County.

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by TC, StopNestleWaters

Nestle Waters of North America has long been in the practice of imposing their water extraction business template on small rural communities, typically without much protest. And in truth, water and resource laws rarely offered residents the ability to say “no” to corporations like Nestle.

That reality is changing fast, and in fact, Nestle’s projects across
the United States are coming under fire from residents are agitating
for more local control (and local benefits) from the extraction of
their resources.

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