Bizarre, Environment, Politics, Society

Nestlé Under Fire For Drawing Tens of Millions of Gallons Of Water For Sale While Paying Only $524 Under An Expired Permit

250px-Nestlé.svg220px-Drinking_waterThere is an interesting controversy brewing over the continued removal of water by Nestle from California’s water supply during the record drought in that state. Nestle continued to remove millions of gallons of water from the San Bernardino National Forest to sell as part of its Arrowhead bottled water brand. While the rest of the state is facing stringent water reductions, Nestles has been criticized for removing 27 million gallons of water from 12 springs in Strawberry Canyon under a permit that expired in 1988. The expired permit’s fee for the water, according to critics? $524.


The expired permit only adds to the controversy over not just the removal of water by the waste associated with bottled water. The company head Tim Brown however said that this is like complaining about the weather: “If I stop bottling water tomorrow, people would buy another brand of bottled water. It’s driven by consumer demand, it’s driven by an on-the-go society that needs to hydrate.”

Starbucks recently stopped bottling water in the state. However, there are a 110 bottlers in the state. Critics charge that it amounts to theft will companies point out that it remains a small percentage of water use in the state.

Nestle has launched a counteroffensive to answer questions and critics. The company says that it has tried to renew its permit with the federal government and has been told it can continue to draw water. It notes that its product is still a lot better than those “sugary drinks.” It adds:

How much water do you withdraw in California?
Less than 0.008% of the total. Nearly 50 billion cubic metres (13 trillion gallons) of water is used in California each year. Nestlé uses less than 4 million cubic metres (1 billion gallons) in all its operations. We operate five bottled water plants (out of 108 in the state) and four food plants. Our bottled water plants use around 2.66 million cubic metres (705 million gallons) of water a year.

Two questions remain (1) why a company should make billions on public water without greater revenue sharing for the public and (2) whether such draws should continue during drought periods. It is also clear that the permitting system run by the US Forest Service (USFS) is in shambles. Either the USFS should cut off these draws or permit them under a workable and mutually beneficial system. It is bizarre to leave companies for decades operating off of expired permits.

What do you think?

116 thoughts on “Nestlé Under Fire For Drawing Tens of Millions of Gallons Of Water For Sale While Paying Only $524 Under An Expired Permit”

  2. Max – believe me, I’m aware of the dire situation with our reservoirs. We’re years into our drought, so the water level of all aboveground (and below ground) water resources has dropped dramatically.

    And yet our population keeps growing . . .

    It’s a problem, to be sure, and we lack good leadership.

  3. Max:

    I can’t watch the video unless I go to the library. Please sum up.

    I recall watching a documentary on how fermentation saved Europe. At the time, poor hygiene and latrines contaminated wells and rivers, poisoning drinking water and causing plagues. However, fermentation essentially sterilized the water. They did an experiment in which they took duck pond water and used it to make quite tasty, and safe, beer.

    I have a low gross out threshold, however. And the scope of catastrophe if something goes wrong at a black water potable treatment plant is chilling.

  4. Karen S.
    California dams… before drought and now.
    Bidwell Marina at Lake Oroville on on July 20, 2011 and then again in August 19, 2014.
    Two angles…
    http://rack.1.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDE0LzA4LzI3L2NjL0NhbGlmb3JuaWFTLjQ0ZTlhLmpwZwpwCXRodW1iCTEyMDB4OTYwMD4/ea245716/8d0/California-Severe-Drought-Bidwell-Marina1.jpg
    http://rack.2.mshcdn.com/media/ZgkyMDE0LzA4LzI3L2NjL0NhbGlmb3JuaWFTLjNjYTMyLmpwZwpwCXRodW1iCTEyMDB4OTYwMD4/779277c9/4e0/California-Severe-Drought-Folsom-Dam1.jpg

  5. Max:

    “The best way ‘we’ can cope with drought is to stop contributing to the destabilization of the overall climate that drives severe weather conditions.”

    California’s native ecology, before European civilization, was to have droughts in excess of a hundred years. Droughts lasting several hundred years were common. That was obviously not caused by human activity. And so it is erroneous to assume that we can prevent drought by managing carbon. We must be prepared to deal with CA drought regardless.

    And, yes, I agree with you that human activity can worsen drought. There was the hardscape and runoff issues I mentioned earlier, as well as the removal of the native chaparral that banked or water resources.

    As for green renewables, I am quite eager for the day that cheap, green, clean, renewable energy is available to all. We’ve already made vast improvements. But the infrastructure and economy is not there yet. So far, unsubsidized renewables are more expensive than conventional, which I hope will change soon. In addition, we do not produce enough. CA routinely has Flex Alerts, where it cautions its customers to cut electricity use during days that it has trouble meeting demand. And yet, there is this push for more electric cars. I cannot understand how the system will absorb them if it cannot keep up with demand as it is. There will have to be more infrastructure.

    As it stands, if fossil fuels were banned today, people would not have enough energy to heat their homes and keep the lights on, and they would not be able to afford their bills. The unintended consequences would be that people would cut down trees to heat their homes, a net loss to the environment.

    We obviously need to replace fossil fuels. They’re dirty and finite. We must be cautious about cutting all ties prematurely, however, or we will have a net negative impact. We must do so efficiently and not in the beta test stage.

    Exciting times, however. I wonder what our energy profile will be in 20 years.

  7. CA is exploring the “toilet to tap” option of filtering sewage water. A bad idea, in my opinion, because of the possibility of introducing viruses and (more) prescription drug contamination into our water supply:

    http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-toilet-to-tap-20150525-story.html

    Now this will raise the yuck factor:

    “Potable reuse advocates insist the public’s distaste for the concept is based on ignorance. They note that more than 200 wastewater treatment plants already discharge effluent into the Colorado River, which is a primary source of drinking water for Southern California.

    “That’s what I call de facto potable reuse,” said George Tchobanoglous, a water treatment expert and professor emeritus at UC Davis.”

    A majority of Bay Area residents say that they would be willing to drink toilet-to-tap water to combat the drought:

    http://www.mercurynews.com/drought/ci_28372207/california-drought-support-grows-bay-area-toilet-tap

  8. Karen S.
    The best way ‘we’ can cope with drought is to stop contributing to the destabilization of the overall climate that drives severe weather conditions. However, that is a long term solution waiting to be agreed upon sitting in the wing of the stage. The current spotlight is on the conditions to which we exist in now… water, er, the lack of. I’ll say this here, it’s too late to stop this spiral… the 70’s was the time to act. But instead, like tobacco CEO’s, the fossil fuel industry has paid operatives acting as legislators in our Government. Secret agents, I call them. Paid hit men… we’re their target.

  10. Karen,
    That pretty colored map shows the vast areas in California where the land has sunk. Nearly the entire San Joaquin Valley has seen land depressions of several inches to a few feet… and counting.

  11. Max:

    I agree that farmers need to be partners in water conservation. The question I always ask is . . . how?

    On the one hand, we encourage locally grown. That limits the fossil fuels/pollution caused in shipping produce, and it provides fresher food. On the other, farmers wells are getting capped. On one hand, the US has far more strict pesticide restrictions. A lot of our imported produce is contaminated with some really nasty pesticides. On the other hand, farms are in pitched Water Wars for the resources to grow our food.

    Personally, I would like to see farmers capitalize on water saving measures, such as irrigation innovations. A lot of farmers have, but I still see a lot of those rolling water irrigation systems that just spray water everywhere. I would also like to see farmers prioritized over aesthetic uses of water, such as fountains.

    Crops before swimming pools and fountains, but those crops better be produced utilizing every water conserving method possible.

  13. Max – and here’s another thorny issue – population growth. What are we to do to keep providing limited water resources to our growing population? At some point, we cannot sustain the population.

    I remember my ecology professors passionately discussing the consequences of unsustainable growth.

    The natural state of CA is drought. In fact, thousands of years ago, droughts routinely lasted at least a hundred years. What in the world would we do if CA ever returns to that ecology?

  17. Karen S.
    It appears that cities in many parts of California are facing a reality…
    … Either run out of water now, or later.

  18. Max:

    You should check out Brad Lancaster’s Rainwater Harvesting book on how individual homeowners and local governments can recharge underground water resources, to prevent the cave ins of aqueducts.

    Really good read.

  19. Food industry needs to step up on responsible groundwater use
    http://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/Food-industry-needs-to-step-up-on-responsible-6462990.php

    The water stored beneath the land in soils and porous rock aquifers provides roughly half of the water used for irrigated agriculture. UC Irvine research shows that more than half of the world’s major aquifers are past sustainability tipping points. In more than one-third of the world’s 37 largest aquifers, among them the Central Valley, water withdrawals are outpacing replenishment.

    Left unaddressed, our current water crisis will make feeding the world’s growing population increasingly challenging. Tackling this challenge will require a profound shift in how we think about the relationship between food and water.

    There are solutions. The food industry must assume a larger role in water sustainability. Consumers and legislators must support an expanded role in water stewardship by the food industry. An increasingly connected public is already holding companies more accountable for their water practices. Recent examples include a half-million people signing a petition protesting Nestle’s water bottling operations in California, and Starbucks winning public support by shifting its Ethos water bottling from California to Pennsylvania.

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