tagged w/ Nestle
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Attorney General Jerry Brown on Tuesday said he will sue to block a proposed water-bottling operation in Northern California unless its effects on global warming are evaluated.
Nestle Waters North America wants to pump about 200 million gallons of water a year from three natural springs that supply McCloud, about 280 miles north of San Francisco. Brown's office said that's enough to fill 3.1 billion 8-ounce plastic water bottles.
The water would be bottled at a 350,000-square-foot facility on the outskirts of the former lumber town.
The Swiss-based company scaled back its plans in May after years of opposition from environmentalists and a group of McCloud residents. It originally sought to pump more than double the amount of water.
David Palais, Nestle's Northern California natural resource manager, said the company already was planning studies on air and water quality, hazardous materials, traffic conditions and climate change for a new environmental review of the bottling plant.
"We appreciate the attorney general's letter and share his commitment to ensuring that new projects in California do not negatively impact the environment," Palais said in a statement.
He said the company will conduct environmental studies over the next two or three years. Afterward, Siskiyou County will prepare a new environmental impact report for the project.
Brown said the company must put its revisions into a new contract with the town of McCloud. He wants proper study of the environmental consequences of the bottling operation, saying the previous draft review had "serious deficiencies."
He said it failed to include an examination of whether the operation will contribute to global warming through the production of plastic bottles, the operation's electrical demands and the diesel soot and greenhouse gas emissions produced by trucks traveling to and from the plant.
"It takes massive quantities of oil to produce plastic water bottles and to ship them in diesel trucks across the United States," Brown said in a statement. "Nestle will face swift legal challenge if it does not fully evaluate the environmental impact of diverting millions of gallons of spring water from the McCloud River into billions of plastic water bottles."
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This boggles my mind. California is in a drought in most of the state with more wildfires reported this year, and all Nestle can think of is pumping millions of gallons of water from a spring to put it in plastic bottles to make a profit from it? Another company without a moral center! Attorney General Jerry Brown on Tuesday said he will sue to block a proposed... more
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Imagine, that we are beyond the energy crisis-in that we are used to paying double or triple prices for what in the previous century was a small part of the family budget. But now we are faced with a new shortage that taps another precious resource. Water only comes through the tap fours hours a day and we are forced to pay ten to hundred times what we paid in the 90s. Welcome to the world of privatized water, where fresh water is treated like a commodity, traded and sold in the international market to the highest bidder.
No longer can you assume a God-given right to drink from a mountain spring, but instead you will have to pay a toll to drink from Enron Springs, Monsanto Wells or receive tap water from Bechtel Water Works. Global consumption of water is doubling every 20 years, more than twice the rate of human population growth. According to the United Nations, more than one billion people already lack access to fresh drinking water. If current trends persist, by 2025 the demand for fresh water is expected to rise by 56 percent more than the amount of water that is currently available.
Multinational corporations recognize these trends and are trying to monopolize water supplies around the world. Monsanto, Bechtel, Enron and other global multinationals are seeking control of world water systems and supplies. The World Bank recently adopted a policy of water privatization and full-cost water pricing. This policy is causing great distress in many Third World countries, which fear that their citizens will not be able to afford for-profit water.
Last year in a little known case of high scale international water marketing, a supertanker was reported to have filled up with water from Lake Erie and after paying the Canadian Government they shipped the water to Southeast Asia. Maude Barlow, chair of the Council of Canadians, Canada's largest public advocacy group, states, "Governments around the world must act now to declare water a fundamental human right and prevent efforts to privatize, export, and sell for profit a substance essential to all life. Research has shown that selling water on the open market only delivers it to wealthy cities and individuals. The finite sources of freshwater (less than one half of one per cent of the world's total water stock) are being diverted, depleted, and polluted so fast that, by the year 2025, two-thirds of the world's population will be living in a state of serious water deprivation."
Governments are signing away their control over domestic water supplies by participating in trade treaties such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and in institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO). These agreements give transnational corporations the unprecedented right to the water of signatory countries.
Monsanto plans to earn revenues of $420 million and a net income of $63 million by 2008 from its water business in India and Mexico. Monsanto estimates that water will become a multibillion-dollar market in the coming decades.
This international water crisis news story was selected by over 150 faculty and student researchers at Sonoma State University's Project Censored in California as the number one most censored news story for 2000.
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And this is still being censored by the MSM. Just as multinationals move to control our food, they are doing the same to "own" water which is a human right and the MSM is an accomplice to it by not educating the public to what is going down. The MSM is however more than happy to advertise "clean coal" and nuclear, and propaganda by oil companies making us believe they care about this planet as they ravage it. So, for me Current is the only place where this news can be seen to hopefully bring awareness about what is going down... we are being bought and sold and the very substance of our survival along with it. So the question is: what are we going to do about it?
Imagine, that we are beyond the energy crisis-in that we are used to paying double or... more
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Despite having some of the best municipal tap waters in the world, Americans consume more bottled water than anywhere else in the world. The oil required to create the plastic and to get the water to the grocery store is an unnecessary use of resources and is aiding in the global warming problem. As we turn to bottled water as our source, we run the risk of giving corporations control of what should be publically controlled water. Nestle is currently trying to get the rights to the water shed in Mt. Shasta, CA. As we gear up for election season, global warming is a big issue. It is time for politicians to think of practical ways to cut down our consumption and to protect our natural resources, and boycotting bottled water, as the city of San Francisco has done, is one step in the right direction.Despite having some of the best municipal tap waters in the world, Americans consume... more
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