It's been a good week in the battle against unholy evil the Siskiyou County Natural Resource Policy and our dear, dear friends at Nestle.

First, the county's resource policy was surprisingly turned into raw materials for paper airplanes, and now Nestle has been forced to make several key project concessions before re-releasing the McCloud project Environmental Impact Report for more public comment:

Nestle Waters of North America announced in a press release Monday that community feedback led to its decision to make changes to the proposed water bottling plant project in McCloud.

• Elimination from the project description of the potential use of groundwater wells at the bottling facility;


• Imposing a firm 1,600 acre-foot per year cap on the overall water use at the proposed facility, including amounts used for bottling and all other purposes


• Conducting additional stream flow and habitat monitoring studies.

The Underground's political pundit-level analysis (translation: I have no idea, but I speak with absolute confidence) suggests Nestle was taking too many hits on these points, which amounted to loopholes in the contract you could drive a couple hundred Nestle tanker trucks through.

This "death by a thousand paper cuts" strategy -- effectively implemented by the Protect Our Waters Coalition (CalTrout, TU, McCloud Watershed Council) -- has made it politically impossible for the county to say "yes" to Nestle's "biggest building in Northern California" project, despite the fact they badly want to.

It's an excellent example of a grassroots organization chipping away at the facade of a larger entity, who is trying like hell to pretend they don't have bigger plans for our water than they're letting on.

What Does This Mean To You?
In addition to insuring a stream of raw materials for snarky, Nestle-flavored posts, it means:

• We get a second shot at making public comments on the project EIR
  


• When Nestle repeatedly said the EIR and contract prevented them from taking more than 1,600 acre feet of water from the project, they were lying
  (Curtis Knight of CalTrout has repeatedly slapped them on this issue)


• Nestle will now actually measure in-stream flows (Squaw Creek) downstream of their project, and be forced to deal with those impacts (amazingly, the prior environmental impact report didn't cover this)

There's more to this, but sadly, the Underground has come down with the same flu afflicting the L&T this whole week.

It's been a winter for disease -- my immune system apparently sputtering and backfiring like a Ford Pinto that needs a tuneup -- and I'm just going to curl up in the corner and feel every individual air molecule bounce off my skin.

See you in sickbay, Tom Chandler.

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