Nestles Response

A 20-month investigation was conducted by the state of California and it was concluded that Nestle

did not have the right to take the amount of water that they were from the forest in California.

Nestle pulls dozens of millions of gallons of water from the west branch of strawberry creek

in California. I’ve attached a link below to a video that explains the effect of the water being taken. 

Water Pipeline System

Nestle directly disputed this claim in a 160-page written response to the state and mentioned that

they have the “rights to take at least 88 million gallons each year…”. This dispute was based on a

contract made in 1909. What shocked me about this dispute is that the court decided that Nestle

can continue taking water from the forest because of a license renewal request Nestle made in 1987.

I think that Nestle has handled this issue very poorly, and has taken a very corporate money-influenced

approach to handle this situation. Basing their choices off of contracts made almost a century ago

doesn't make any sense as the world, economy, land geographics, and law all would have changed

within that time frame. It’s expected that a company should bear responsibility for the land that they are

using and make sure the environment isn't severely damaged by their actions. Especially considering

California has been going through major forest fires which may be partly due to the lack of water flow

in the forest.

Sources:

https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/environment/2018/02/09/bottled-water-maker-nestle-tells-

california-regulators-its-entitled-keep-bottling-water/324976002/

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/29/us/nestle-water-california.html

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/29/the-fight-over-water-how-nestle-dries-up-us

-creeks-to-sell-water-in-plastic-bottles

Comments

  1. amour narcisse thompsonApril 6, 2023 at 11:58 AM

    It is very surprising to me how the government is siding with the company in the taking of California's water. This makes them seem almost as a tyrant based business strictly using the utilitarian framework.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Stephanie HeiermannApril 7, 2023 at 8:07 AM

    Over time, the ecology of an area changes. California and parts of the southwest are dealing with severe water shortages. It seems like the government should be revisiting this contract every few years, and deciding if the water should be going to the parts of California that need it and not to a major Corportation. I wonder how much money California makes in this deal.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Graham CullenApril 7, 2023 at 1:13 PM

    I defiantly agree with you on that fact that Nestle really handled this whole situation poorly and took a very "money grab" corporate approach. I don't think I really agree that hey can just say how much water they are allowed to take from the creek. For one, like Stephanie mentioned, California has had many issues with droughts over the years and this probably didn't help with that. On top of this, you know that they are bottling that water and turning around to sell it to the same people in that area from which they took the water from. Seems wrong too me.

    ReplyDelete

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