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Mesogen
04-10-2008, 04:31 AM
Nestle is quite notorius, and here is the latest outrage.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/water/article418793.ece

Florida sells unlimited water-pumping rights in drought-stricken State Park to Nestle for $230

That's not a misprint.


Nestle came into Florida and managed to pull off quite the coup.

The company got a permit to take water belonging to Floridians — hundreds of millions of gallons a year from a spring in a state park — at no cost to Nestle.

No taxes. No fees. Just a $230 permit to pump water until 2018.

Nestle bottles that water, ships it throughout the Southeast — much of it to Georgia and the Carolinas — and makes millions upon millions of dollars in profits on it.

The state granted Nestle permission to draw so much water against the strong recommendation of the local water management district staff. Because drought conditions were stressing the Madison Blue Spring, the staff said the amount of water drawn on the permit should be cut by more than two-thirds.

So while Florida is in a bitter dispute with its state neighbors over water use, it's giving its water away to a private company that bottles and ships it to those very same states.

If Nestle owns the land, then maybe. But it doesn't.


The state did much more than fight to get Nestle the right to pump as much water as possible from the spring.

As an added incentive for Nestle, the state approved a tax refund of up to $1.68-million for the Madison bottling operation. To date, Nestle has received two refunds totaling $196,000 and requested a third tax refund.

Nestle had promised to create 300 jobs over five years. The most people it has ever employed was about 250. The number dropped to 205 late last year, 46 of them from Georgia, which Nestle defends as common for a work force along a state line.

This is what Nestle calls Creating Shared Value:

http://www.nestle.com/SharedValueCSR/Overview.htm


Razia Berveen is a female livestock worker in Farooqa, Pakistan. She is one of the Nestlé trainers passing on knowledge and skills to 4,000 women who will go on to become agricultural extension workers under a Nestlé-United Nations Development Program (UNDP) partnership scheme in Pakistan.

For a business to be successful in the long term it has to create value, not only for its shareholders but also for society. We call this Creating Shared Value. It is not philanthropy or an add-on, but a fundamental part of our business strategy.

They make it sound so philanthropic.

mtmedlin
04-10-2008, 05:48 AM
So i cant water my brown grass, but they can pump unlimited water, I so love this state.

martinez
08-16-2012, 11:36 AM
Nestle is quite notorius, and here is the latest outrage.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/water/article418793.ece

Florida sells unlimited water-pumping rights in drought-stricken State Park to Nestle for $230

That's not a misprint.



If Nestle owns the land, then maybe. But it doesn't.



This is what Nestle calls Creating Water Delivery Los Angeles (http://waterable.com/california/los%20angeles-ca) Shared Value:

http://www.nestle.com/SharedValueCSR/Overview.htm



They make it sound so philanthropic.


unlimited water pumping rights!? wow.

Romulus
08-16-2012, 11:58 AM
Yeah. all wrapped up in a nice plastic bottle probably laced with BPA. Stop buying it.

donnay
08-16-2012, 12:06 PM
Yeah. all wrapped up in a nice plastic bottle probably laced with BPA. Stop buying it.

I absolutely agree. +rep

donnay
08-16-2012, 12:07 PM
Welcome to StopNestleWaters.org.
http://stopnestlewaters.org/about

Right now, it’s a site. But it’s destined to become a community.

It’s a gathering point for rural citizens fighting to preserve control of their water supplies and local economies from Nestle – the world’s largest food and beverage company.

It’s information. It’s conversation. And yes, it’s definitely grassroots.

Why are we targeting Nestle Waters?

Because Nestle’s predatory tactics in rural communities divide small towns and pit residents against each other.
Because Nestle reaps huge profits from the water they extract from rural communities – which are left to deal with the damage to watersheds, increases in pollution and the loss of their quiet rural lifestyle
Because Nestle has a pattern of bludgeoning small communities and opponents with lawsuits and interfering in local elections to gain control of local water supplies.
Because the environmental consequences of bottled water on our atmosphere, watersheds and landfills are simply too big to ignore.
Because no international corporation should have the right to pilfer the public’s water for profit.

McCloud, CA: Home of the World’s Biggest Bottling Plant??

Since 2003, citizens of the tiny town of McCloud have been bravely fighting Nestle’s plans for a one-million sq. ft. bottling plant – the largest water bottling plant in the United States.

The contract was negotiated in secret and signed by the McCloud Services District without public input.

Not surprisingly, the resulting deal was so lopsided, it looked as if Nestle’s lawyers negotiated both sides.

It would have granted Nestle defacto control of McCloud’s water for 100 years, yet Nestle would have paid almost nothing for the water they turned around and sold at above-gasoline prices.

Nestle also interfered in the local election (they funded the campaigns of pro-Nestle candidates), and in a clear attempt to intimidate opponents, had their legal hit squad subpoena the private financial records of Nestle opponents.

Is Nestle a good corporate citizen in McCloud? Apparently not if you oppose them.

Suing Fryeburg, ME

In Maine, Nestle has repeatedly sued (5 times and counting) the tiny rural town of Fryeburg – a clear attempt to litigate the tiny town into insolvency, winning the right to tap the local aquifer by default.

Why?

Because the town’s planning commission – and a majority of its citizens – said “no” to Nestle’s proposed 24/7 water pumping station (which returned little economic value to the town) and its accompanying traffic, noise, and pollution.

Those silly residents.

That’s how Nestle’s lawyers found themselves arguing before the Maine State Supreme Court – where they said a Maine town’s refusal to throw open its water supply interfered with Nestle’s “right” to grow their market share (You can see the Nestle lawyers arguing the case in this YouTube video).

Good neighbor?

No. It doesn’t look like it from here either.

Damaging Watersheds in Mecosta County, MI

In Michigan, Nestle – despite repeatedly proclaiming themselves “good corporate neighbors” who would never damage a watershed – were ordered to reduce pumping after courts repeatedly found Nestle was damaging a local watershed.

Sadly, these are simply highlights; the list of Nestle’s transgressions against rural communities and watersheds includes communities from the Northwest, Michigan, Maine, Florida and Canada.

It’s not all roses for Nestle

While Nestle’s water mining operations remain hugely profitable, the backlash against bottled water’s harmful environmental effects and Nestle’s abuses of rural water supplies is hitting them right in the corporate pocketbook.

After years of rapid growth – Nestle Water’s revenues are on the decline
Nestle’s suffered legal setbacks, denting their carefully-cultivated corporate image as an environmentally sensitive company
Nestle’s been summarily kicked out of several rural communities, including Enumclaw, WA and Kennebunk, Maine
Nestle was forced to scale back plans for their plant in McCloud, and then – in the full glare of the media spotlight – canceled the contract entirely (they’ll be making another offer to the town)
Nestle was also forced to admit their chants of “no environmental damage” were largely crap in the case of McCloud – they had done zero environmental monitoring of the watershed they wanted to tap

Still, Nestle’s not going quietly. Mining water for almost nothing and re-selling at a price higher than gasoline is simply too profitable to let go.

Rather than reform their business model – which involves pitting residents of rural communities against each other – their solution is to simply hire more PR professionals.

Apparently, increasing the public relations budget is far easier than doing the right thing.

That’s what StopNestleWaters.org is all about.

We’re using the community-building powers of the Internet to counter Nestle’s big-dollar PR/legal/marketing legions.

The goal? Return control of local water supplies to local communities.

We invite you to join us – right here, right now – as we fight to Stop Nestle Waters.

KingRobbStark
08-16-2012, 12:11 PM
Thats corporatism at its best.

And I bet it cost Nestle more than 300$. Just think of all the people it had to bribe.