Nestle eyes Cascade Locks, Oxbow Springs for bottling plant

Nestle wants to tap Oxbow Springs to bottle about 100 million gallons of water a year.

(The Oregonian)

Backers of a Hood River County ballot measure to block a proposed water bottling plant in Cascade Locks are accusing Nestle of illegally hiding its contributions to a political action committee opposing the measure.

They say they will be filing a complaint next week with the Secretary of State's elections division.

Nestle Waters North America has directed $105,000 to the group, called the Coalition for a Strong Gorge Economy. That's 90 percent of its reported funding so far.

Opponents of the bottling plant contend that Nestle has been secretly bankrolling the campaign for months while failing to report its cash or in-kind contributions of staff time in a timely fashion.

The political action group didn't register with the secretary of state's office until early March, and didn't report any contributions from Nestle until May.

The ballot measure would ban any water bottling operation that produces more than 1,000 gallons a day from any county water source. Nestle Waters North America is proposing to tap Oxbow Springs in Cascade Lock for about 11 times that volume in an average hour, or about 100 million gallons a year. The plant would create about 50 jobs in a town where unemployment was estimated at 18.8 percent as recently as February.

Nestle markets bottled water under various brand names in the United States. It runs 29 bottling plants across the country and had revenue of $4.1 billion in 2014.

The ballot measure's backers say the committee started spending money to poll Hood River County residents back in February and subsequently sent out glossy campaign mailers and ran radio and newspaper ads criticizing the ballot measure. They say the PAC also has failed to report expenses for its campaign director or for campaign videos that Nestle has publicly admitted producing.

"They've been running the most expensive campaign in the history of our county while not reporting a dime of expenditures until days before the election," said Aurora del Val, campaign director for the Local Water Alliance, the citizens group backing Measure 14-55. "We think it's a blatant attempt to defraud local voters."

Nestle declined to answer specific questions Saturday, but sent out a statement: "We respect and comply with regulations and reporting for all our project locations, including our financial support to oppose to Measure 14-55."

Oregon law has several reporting deadlines for campaign transactions for the May 17 election. Transactions before March 5 were required to be reported to the state within 30 days. Those between March 6 and April 5 needed to be filed by April 12. And transactions between April 6 and Election Day need to be filed within seven days.

The Secretary of State's campaign finance database shows three $35,000 contributions from Nestle. The first, with a transaction date of April 25, was originally reported as a contribution by the International Bottled Water Association, of which Nestle is a member. But that reporting was amended on May 12 to name Nestle as the actual contributor. Two other $35,000 contributions from Nestle on May 6 were reported May 12.

The campaign has received about $12,000 in additional contributions, $10,000 of which came from two contributors: the Northwest Bottled Water Association and Niagara Bottling LLC, a California water company.

Backers of the ballot measure say the amendment to the April contribution suggests Nestle was attempting to hide the original campaign contribution as a pass-through to the trade association, and create the illusion that local citizen's were in control of the campaign.

Nestle's statement said the company had provided funding to the International Bottled Water Association to oppose the measure, and that the IBWA has reported all the sources of funds which they have dispersed.

"As this is a measure to ban our proposed business in Hood River County, we should naturally be engaged in the debate," the statement said. "We are very pleased that IBWA is leading this effort for us, and that a number of local individuals and organizations have also supported the opposition of this measure."

- Ted Sickinger

503-221-8505; @tedsickinger