When Push Comes to Shove: Nestle’s Advance on Public Water

by Stephyn Quirke / Earth First! Newswire

(An earlier version of this article was published in the Southeast Examiner.)

William Shatner just announced a $30 billion fundraiser to build a south-flowing water pipe from Washington to California. Sadly, Shatner is not the only one who believes in exporting water from drought-stricken lands, though he may be the only one from the future.

The Nestle corporation is the single largest marketer of bottled water in the world, and has often stood accused of over-pumping water, disrupting local water cycles, and depriving locals of adequate access to water during times of drought.

In the past four years over 100,000 Oregonians have sent letters and emails to their representatives telling them to protect publicly owned water from the Nestle corporation. But Nestle scored a victory against opponents this month when its hopeful business partner, the city of Cascade Locks, convinced the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to ask state administrators to transfer water rights between wells in Cascade Locks and the pristine waters of Oxbow Springs, whose rights are held by ODFW. ODFW uses this water in a hatchery that raises endangered Idaho sockeye, but that water is highly coveted by the corporate giant, which wants to see it bottled as Arrowhead spring-water.

Environmentalists say the proposal opens the door for the privatization of Oregon’s water, and that such privatization is a violation of the public trust that governs shared resources. The water transfer could also harm threatened salmon that rely on Oxbow Springs’ naturally cold water, as the water naturally flows to Herman Creek and provides a cold water refuge where overheating salmon can stop and cool off. Such refugia can be critical in summer months when the Columbia River heats up – a trend that could get worse as climate change advances and smaller snowpack in the Cascades dumps less cold water into the river. Opposition groups like Bark – a watchdog group for the Mt. Hood National Forest – say these risks are too big, and that for-profit corporations should not be managing our water. “The fact is that this water is incredibly valuable to Oregonians, fish, and wildlife,” said Courtney Rae, a community organizer at Bark. “Our work to protect Mt. Hood National Forest watersheds will help ensure this resource is sustained, but only public outcry will protect it from privatization.”

For many city officials in Cascade Locks, Nestle represents a few dozen jobs, tax revenue, and investment — $50 million of it. With this in the foreground, endangered salmon and water scarcity become distant, and somewhat hazy.

This perspective is re-enforced by Nestle’s local representative, Dave Palais. At an ODFW hearing two summers ago, commissioners asked Palais how the company would react if there was not enough water to go around, and their hatchery required more Oxbow Springs water to meet its species recovery goals. Palais replied that he would prioritize “the sustainability of our employees” first, because “employment is the real endangered species in Cascade Locks.”

In California, Nestle has been in a public relations tailspin for several weeks. An investigative report from The Desert Sun last month revealed that Nestle is operating under a water extraction permit that expired in 1988, which means it has pumped water illegally for the past 27 years in Southern California’s San Bernardino National Forest. Since that news broke the Forest Service has said they will analyze the extraction and its effect on the watershed. But in Sacramento, fed up residents have decided to take matters into their own hands. On March 20th, a group calling itself the Crunch Nestle Alliance shut down a Nestle bottling plant for the entire day by using their bodies to block the entrances. The group said they were protesting “excessive corporate welfare”, and cautioned that the company is draining up to 80 million gallons of water a year from local aquifers despite the state’s record drought, and warnings from NASA that the state could be out of water in a year if it doesn’t take serious action.

In Oregon, however, some people see the company in a more favorable light, and have asked local media to make space for their side of the story. One of Nestle’s biggest proponents in Oregon is the city administrator of Cascade Locks, Gordon Zimmerman. Zimmerman was recently quoted in the Portland Mercury, asking:

“Are they evil? Well, maybe in the ’50s when they killed those babies, but as far as I can tell, and from what they told me, they’re looking for ways to make 100 percent biodegradable bottles.” Zimmerman went on to ask, “Why stifle the economic prosperity of this community when the amount of plastic from this plant would be such a small portion of all the plastics that end up on the beach?”

In Cascade Locks, Nestle is seeking up to 323,000 gallons per day from Oxbow Springs, plus 432,000 gallons per day from the city’s municipal water, mostly as replacement water for the hatchery, with about a fourth of it going for additional bottled water. Although one third of all bottled water in the US is filtered tap water, the company says it will walk away from Cascade Locks unless they are given access to Oxbow Springs.

The new legal process opened up this month is intended to create the same functional result as the last Nestle application, but is also designed to remove legal obstacles and beat back legal challenges. Under the new permit application, the state would not be required to determine that the transfer – and the bottling plant – is in the public’s interest. This is the loophole that angers protesters, who feel they are being silenced for protecting water from corporate takeover. Kathy Tittle of Cascade Locks captured that sentiment at a recent protest in Portland when she told the Oregonian “I’m screaming from the rooftops that I don’t want that here.” With the new application now in progress, the Oregon Water Resources Department has opened a 30-day public comment period, which opposition groups are quickly flooding with negative comments.

Tittle is not the only one in Cascade Locks who is unhappy with the proposal. City Commissioner Deanna Busdieker recently sent a letter to Governor Kate Brown opposing the new application, saying “The Nestle fast-track seems designed to secure water in other places as quickly as possible since it is likely public outcry will turn off the taps in California… We all see the drought maps of California, but they rarely also show Oregon, who is in nearly as bad shape. With Mt. Hood snow pack at less than 50% of normal and scant weeks left in the season, what would a few more winters like this do to the water tables?”

With resistance in Oregon on the rise, and opposition in California reaching a fever pitch, Nestle’s fortune in the region certainly appears to be turning for the worse. Opposition groups mobilized over a hundred people on the Burnside bridge earlier this month, and are asking Portlanders to step up their opposition. Bark’s Courtney Rae is urging residents to organize in their churches, and in their own neighborhoods: “There are thousands of people who care about this issue,” she said, “and it is up to each of us to mobilize our community.”

Nestle has become the global face of water privatization in recent years, and has been one of its most outspoken supporters. Citizens of Bolivia overturned privatization in 2000 after a company took over and raised prices, successfully taking to the streets in what was later described as the Cochabamba Water War. Peter Brabeck, former CEO of Nestle, was skewered on The Colbert Report two years ago after telling a film crew that privatizing the “normal water supply for the population” was a good proposal to consider, and that he didn’t appreciate the “extreme solution” of NGOs (like Bark) who declare water is a public and human right.