Woe to the innocent who mentions the name of Nestle Corporation in my presence – who isn’t prepared for a lecture about big corporations preying on small, naive towns.

Nestle – as you may know – conducted a secret negotiation with the services district of the tiny town of McCloud to pump water from the town water supply, and was even so kind as to provide a lawyer to negotiate for the town. (Huh??)

The deal was predictably rapacious; Nestle would get water rights for 100 years and the fees paid to the town wouldn’t increase a dime over that time.

Oy. Such a deal.

Here. Drink This.

In a drought, Nestle could pump the full amount of the town’s water (the town would get whatever was left), and a couple hundred big tanker trucks would roll through town per day, with Nestle not responsible for any infrastructure costs.

Frankly, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Naturally, impacts to the environment weren’t considered – the basis by which the California Supreme Court finally threw out the contract.

MidCurrent (a daily must-read) notes that Nestle wants more water in Stanwood, Michigan, where they already pump 270 million gallons of water annually. Not content with that, they want to remove another 70 million gallons from the headwaters of two small spring creeks.

From the South Bend Tribune comes this quote:

“It’s not an issue about the amount of water they want to pump — it’s a question of saying yes or no,” said Dick Schwikert, a member of the Pere Marquette Watershed Council board of directors. “We don’t want any water taken from the watershed.”

Even more telling is the final sentence in the story:

Nestle officials said they are careful to ensure their water pumping doesn’t adversely affect the environment and that the company needs new drilling sites so existing wells don’t dry up.

Have Nestle officials been taking classes in irony? The existing wells will dry up if they keep pumping at current rates, they want more, but… they care about the environment?

Duck and Cover.

I wish Michigan good luck dealing with Nestle. If it’s one thing I’ve learned watching their litany of underhanded tactics play out in McCloud, it’s that you’re dealing with an elemental force of nature that lacks a conscience or sense of fair play.

Thirty years from now water will have become one of the hottest commodities on the planet, and the small towns and counties preyed on by Nestle will wonder not just why they sold their soul, but why they did it so cheaply.

[tags]water, mccloud, nestle, michigan, muskegon, pere marquette[/tags]

Posted in Environment, Opinion.