After what seems like years of settling the Underground’s crosshairs on Nestle’s hairy corporate butt McCloud water bottling plant proposal, it seems as if the opponents of Nestle’s million-square-foot plant and sweetheart pricing deal ($150/day for water) have what they want.
Nestle announced they were going to reduce the size of their plant (it’s still too damned big, but…), take less water than originally proposed, and renegotiate that ludicrous contract with the McCloud Services District:
After years of battling the proposed Nestle water bottling plant in McCloud, CA, the Protect Our Waters Coalition (POW) announced today that it is optimistic about Nestle Waters North America’s (Nestle’s Waters) recent announcement that the company intends to begin negotiations this year with the McCloud Community Services District (MCSD) on a new contract to replace its 2003 contract with the MCSD, and will undertake additional scientific research on their proposed scaled-back water-bottling project in McCloud, California.
At this point, McCloud’s fate is in its own hands, and one hopes the McCloud Services District learned enough from its last disastrous encounter with Nestle’s legal department to get it right this time.
That includes hiring a real negotiator and a real attorney to construct the contract (the last was so lopsided it should have been written sideways, and Nestle paid for McCloud’s attorney review).
And this time, public comment and input must be part of the process (it wasn’t last time).
Larger questions remain, and they’re worth raising here.
This isn’t over — and I’ll keep the Undergrounders up to speed on the potential water/noise/traffic impacts on one of NorCal’s favorite fly fishing destinations — but the bigger picture still needs painting.
For starters, it’s clear counties and states need to implement groundwater regulation.
The current laws were put into place when hand pumps were the norm, and groundwater seemed endless.
It’s not, and we’re seeing a lot of damaging "groundwater strip mining" operations popping up around Siskiyou County — and the rest of the country.
Tapping one spring isn’t a disaster, but tapping a couple dozen could become disastrous when it comes to our coldwater fisheries.
And mark my words — this is exactly what Nestle has in mind (they’re already doing it in Maine).
As water becomes the next oil, and California’s Water Wars heat up, this will become a real problem instead of an abstract concept, and quickly too.
See you painting the bigger picture, Tom Chandler.
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Actually, The McCloud Community Services District, (MCSD) is the only entity who can renegotiate the contract. The MCSD board is the water board who signed the contract in the first place, behind closed doors.
Interesting….the MCSD dismissed their long, standing attorney and hired a new one just 3 months before the final contract was signed. This was at the suggestion of the man in “control”, the former general manager, Pete Kampa. The board did whatever he requested.
The contract was written for and by Nestle with no discretion for the town of McCloud. So far, the contract has not been negotiated. One of the possibilities that the district has when and if they do renegotiate is to say “no contract”. They need to kick Nestle out of town!
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FINALLY! Those interested in
cracking the whip on Nestlekeeping track of Nestle for real should visit my just-launched StopNestleWaters.org Web site.It’s focused entirely on Nestle-related issues, and because it’s not a fly fishing blog (like the Trout Underground), there’s lots, lots more to talk about.
The Trout Underground will continue taking note of Nestle’s activities, but most of the action will be taking place on StopNestleWaters.org.
See you there!
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