{"id":99065,"date":"2017-09-25T12:00:28","date_gmt":"2017-09-25T11:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=99065"},"modified":"2017-10-02T11:46:46","modified_gmt":"2017-10-02T10:46:46","slug":"nestle-makes-billions-bottling-water-it-pays-nearly-nothing-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2017\/09\/nestle-makes-billions-bottling-water-it-pays-nearly-nothing-for\/","title":{"rendered":"Nestl\u00e9 Makes Billions Bottling Water It Pays Nearly Nothing For"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><em>The company\u2019s operation in Michigan reveals how it\u2019s dominated the industry by going into economically depressed areas with lax water laws.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<div id=\"attachment_99066\" style=\"width: 710px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/nestle-water.jpg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-99066\" class=\"wp-image-99066\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/nestle-water-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"700\" height=\"466\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/nestle-water-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/nestle-water-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/nestle-water-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/nestle-water.jpg 1400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-99066\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Illustration: Silja G\u00f6tz for Bloomberg Businessweek<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em>21 Sep 2017 &#8211; <\/em>In rural Mecosta County, Mich., sits a near-windowless facility with a footprint about the size of Buckingham Palace. It\u2019s just one of\u00a0Nestl\u00e9\u2019s roughly 100 bottled water factories in 34 countries around the world.<\/p>\n<p>Inside, workers wear hairnets, hard hats, goggles, gloves, and earplugs. Ten production lines snake through the space, funneling local spring water into 8-ounce to 2.5-gallon containers; most of the lines run 24\/7, each pumping out 500 to 1,200 bottles per minute. About 60 percent of the supply comes from Mecosta\u2019s springs and arrives at the factory via a 12-mile pipeline. The rest is trucked in from neighboring Osceola County, about 40 miles north. \u201cDaily, we\u2019re looking at 3.5 million bottles potentially,\u201d says Dave Sommer, the plant\u2019s 41-year-old manager, shouting above the din.<\/p>\n<p>Silos holding 125 tons of plastic resin pellets provide the raw material for the bottles. They\u2019re molded into shape at temperatures reaching 400F before being filled, capped, inspected, labeled, and laser-printed with the location, day, and minute they were produced\u2014a process that takes less than 25 seconds. Next, the bottles are bundled, shrink-wrapped onto pallets, and picked up by a fleet of 25 forklifts that ferry them to the plant\u2019s warehouse or loading docks. As many as 175 trucks arrive every day to transport the water to retail locations in the Midwest. \u201cWe want more people to drink water, keep hydrated,\u201d Sommer says. \u201cIt would be nice if it were my water, but we just want them to drink water.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_99067\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/nestle-water2.jpg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-99067\" class=\"wp-image-99067\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/nestle-water2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"467\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/nestle-water2.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/nestle-water2-300x233.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/nestle-water2-768x597.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-99067\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Water bottles in motion at the Nestl\u00e9 Ice Mountain facility in Stanwood, Mich.<br \/> Photographer: Brendan George Ko for Bloomberg Businessweek<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/quote\/NESN:VX\" >Nestl\u00e9 SA<\/a> started bottling in 1843 when company founder Henri Nestl\u00e9 purchased a business on Switzerland\u2019s Monneresse Canal. \u201cEver the curious scientist, [he] analyzed and experimented with the enrichment of water with a variety of minerals, always with a singular goal: to provide healthy, accessible, and delicious refreshment,\u201d reads Nestl\u00e9\u2019s website. Today there are thousands of bottled water companies worldwide\u2014there\u2019s even <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.trump.com\/merchandise\/trump-natural-spring-water\/\" >Trump Ice<\/a>\u2014but Nestl\u00e9 is the biggest globally in terms of sales, followed by <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/quote\/KO:US\" >Coca-Cola<\/a>, <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/quote\/BN:FP\" >Danone<\/a>, and <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/quote\/PEP:US\" >PepsiCo<\/a>, according to Euromonitor International. <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/quote\/NESS:FP\" >Nestl\u00e9 Waters<\/a>, the Paris-based subsidiary, owns almost 50 brands, including <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2017-06-26\/perrier-boosts-nestle-s-bubble-as-activist-loeb-busts-in\" >Perrier<\/a>, S.Pellegrino, and <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2017-08-19\/nestle-s-poland-spring-is-common-groundwater-new-suit-alleges\" >Poland Spring<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, U.S. bottled water sales reached $16 billion, up nearly 10 percent from 2015, according to <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/quote\/1267138D:US\" >Beverage Marketing Corp.<\/a> They <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2016-08-02\/bottled-water-to-outsell-soda-for-first-time-with-nod-to-flint\" >outpaced<\/a> soda sales for the first time as drinkers continue to seek convenience and healthier options and worry about the safety of tap water after the high-profile <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2016-09-27\/quicktake-q-a-flint-s-water-crisis-and-its-many-different-costs\" >contamination in Flint, Mich.<\/a>, about a two-hour drive from Mecosta. Nestl\u00e9 alone sold $7.7 billion worth worldwide, with more than $343 million of it coming from Michigan, where the company bottles Ice Mountain Natural Spring Water and Pure Life, its purified water line.<\/p>\n<p>The Michigan operation is only <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2016-06-29\/nestl-discovers-water-in-the-arizona-desert-and-bottles-it\" >one small part<\/a> of Nestl\u00e9, the world\u2019s largest food and beverage company. But it illuminates how Nestl\u00e9 has come to dominate a controversial industry, spring by spring, often going into economically depressed municipalities with the promise of jobs and new infrastructure in exchange for tax breaks and access to a resource that\u2019s scarce for millions. Where Nestl\u00e9 encounters grass-roots resistance against its industrial-strength guzzling, it deploys lawyers; where it\u2019s welcome, it can push the limits of that hospitality, sometimes with the acquiescence of state and local governments that are too cash-strapped or inept to say no. There are the usual costs of doing business, including transportation, infrastructure, and salaries. But Nestl\u00e9 pays little for the product it bottles\u2014sometimes a municipal rate and other times just a nominal extraction fee. In Michigan, it\u2019s $200.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_99068\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/nestle-water3.jpg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-99068\" class=\"wp-image-99068\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/nestle-water3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"408\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/nestle-water3.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/nestle-water3-300x245.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/nestle-water3-768x626.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-99068\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A bridge at sunset in Evart, Mich.<br \/> Photographer: Brendan George Ko for Bloomberg Businessweek<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The Romans were among the first to see water as more than a basic need. They ranked theirs by taste; Aqua Marcia, from a spring about 60 miles outside of Rome, was among the best. In the 19th century, some of the first mass-market brands were S.Pellegrino and Vittel, now owned by Nestl\u00e9, and Evian, a Danone label. Sales were driven by taste, as well as the age-old notion that the mineral contents are therapeutic, curing ailments from hangovers to kidney stones. But mineral water consumption in America cratered in the early 20th century in part because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration made it harder to tout medicinal benefits without expensive testing.<\/p>\n<p>Today, Americans often drink bottled water for what they hope is not in it. Fears about what comes out of the tap aren\u2019t completely unfounded; 77 million Americans are served by water systems that violate testing requirements or rules about contamination in drinking water, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. In agriculture-heavy regions, pesticides, fertilizers, and nitrates from animal waste leach into the ground. Despite the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974, compliance with harmful chemical restrictions isn\u2019t monitored carefully, and most wastewater-treatment systems aren\u2019t designed to remove hormones, antidepressants, and other drugs. The Trump administration\u2019s Environmental Protection Agency is also attempting to roll back <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2017-02-28\/trump-said-to-put-obama-water-pollution-rule-on-chopping-block\" >existing regulations<\/a>. That said, bottled water isn\u2019t necessarily more pure than tap. In the U.S., municipalities with 2.5 million or more people are required to test their supply dozens of times each day, whereas those with fewer than 50,000 customers must test for certain contaminants 60 times per month. Bottled water companies aren\u2019t required to monitor their reserve or report contamination, although Nestl\u00e9 says it tests its water hourly.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s also the issue of scarcity. The United Nations\u00a0expects that 1.8 billion people will live in places with <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.un.org\/waterforlifedecade\/scarcity.shtml\" >dire water shortages by 2025<\/a>, and two-thirds of the world\u2019s population could be living under stressed water conditions. Supply may be compromised in the U.S., too. A recent Michigan State University <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/journals.plos.org\/plosone\/article?id=10.1371\/journal.pone.0169488\" >study predicts<\/a> that more than a third of Americans might not be able to afford their water bills in five years, with costs expected to triple as World War II-era construction breaks down.<\/p>\n<p>Failing infrastructure has already led to a near-total reliance on <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2017-06-01\/oil-mixes-with-water-as-china-plastic-bottle-thirst-grows-chart\" >bottled water<\/a> in parts of the world. Nestl\u00e9 started selling Pure Life in Lahore, Pakistan, in 1998 to \u201cprovide a safe, quality water solution,\u201d the company says. But locals wonder if the Swiss multinational is exacerbating the problem. \u201cTwenty years ago, you could go anywhere in Lahore and get a glass of clean tap water for free,\u201d says Ahmad Rafay Alam, an environmental lawyer in the country. \u201cNow, everyone drinks bottled water.\u201d He adds that this change has taken the pressure off the government to fix its utilities, degrading the quality of Lahore\u2019s supply: \u201cWhat Nestl\u00e9 did is use a good marketing scheme to make tap water uncool and dangerous. It\u2019s ubiquitous, like Kleenex. People will say, \u2018Give me a bottle of Nestl\u00e9.\u2019\u2009\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nestl\u00e9 has been preparing for shortages for decades. The company\u2019s former chief executive officer, Helmut Maucher, said in a 1994 interview with the <em>New York Times<\/em>: \u201cSprings are like petroleum. You can always build a chocolate factory. But springs you have or you don\u2019t have.\u201d His successor, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, who retired recently after 21 years in charge, drew criticism for encouraging the commodification of water in a 2005 documentary, saying: \u201cOne perspective held by various NGOs\u2014which I would call extreme\u2014is that water should be declared a human right.\u2009\u2026\u2009The other view is that water is a grocery product. And just as every other product, it should have a market value.\u201d Public outrage ensued. Brabeck-Letmathe says his comments were taken out of context and that water is a human right. He later proposed that people should have free access to 30 liters per day, paying only for additional use.<\/p>\n<p>Compared with the water needs of agriculture and energy production, the bottled water business is barely responsible for a trickle; in Michigan, it accounts for less than 1 percent of total water usage, according to Michigan\u2019s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). But it rankles many because the natural resource gets hauled out of local watersheds for private profit, not used in the service of feeding people or keeping their lights on. There\u2019s also, of course, the issue of plastic pollution.<\/p>\n<p>In the U.S., Nestl\u00e9 tends to set up shop in areas with weak water regulations or lobbies to enfeeble laws. States such as Maine and Texas operate under a remarkably lax rule from the 1800s called \u201cabsolute capture,\u201d which lets landowners take all the groundwater they want. Michigan, New York, and other states have stricter laws, allowing \u201creasonable use,\u201d which means property owners can extract water as long as it doesn\u2019t unreasonably affect other wells or the aquifer system. Laws vary even within states. New Hampshire is a reasonable-use state, but in 2006, the municipality of Barnstead became the first nationwide to ban the pumping of its water for sale elsewhere.<\/p>\n<p>Towns in Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin have turned away Nestl\u00e9. In Washington, the mayor of Waitsburg, Walt Gobel, <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtontimes.com\/news\/2016\/aug\/3\/washington-mayor-resigns-amid-bottled-water-disput\/\" >resigned<\/a> last year after it was revealed that he\u2019d conducted secret talks with the company about building a $50 million plant. \u201cThe representatives asked for confidentiality of this proposal until they could determine the feasibility,\u201d Gobel wrote in his resignation letter. Town leaders later voted to reject Nestl\u00e9\u2019s advances.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_99069\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/nestle-water4.jpg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-99069\" class=\"wp-image-99069\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/nestle-water4.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"388\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/nestle-water4.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/nestle-water4-232x300.jpg 232w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-99069\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Water tower in Evart.<br \/> Photographer: Brendan George Ko for Bloomberg Businessweek<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Elsewhere, Nestl\u00e9 has largely prevailed against opposition. In Fryeburg, Maine, it took the company four years to successfully appeal a zoning board resolution to build a facility it said it needed for its Poland Spring line. Last year it gained rights to extract water for the next 20 years\u2014and perhaps 25 more after that. In San Bernardino, Calif., Nestl\u00e9 has long paid the U.S. Forest Service an annual rate of $524 to extract about 30 million gallons, even during droughts. \u201cOur public agencies have dropped the ball,\u201d says Peter Gleick, co-founder of the Pacific Institute, which focuses on water issues. \u201cEvery gallon of water that is taken out of a natural system for bottled water is a gallon of water that doesn\u2019t flow down a stream, that doesn\u2019t support a natural ecosystem,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>Nestl\u00e9 isn\u2019t the only bottled water company operating in Michigan, but it\u2019s the most controversial. Pepsi and Coca-Cola bottle municipal water from Detroit for their Aquafina and Dasani brands, respectively; they pay city rates, then sell the product back for profit. In Mecosta County, Nestl\u00e9 sucks up spring water directly from the source, which water conservationists say does more damage to the flow of streams, rivers, and wetland ecology. Municipal supplies come from larger bodies of water, so massive depletions, they argue, have less of an impact. Nestl\u00e9\u2019s chief of sustainability, Nelson Switzer, responds: \u201cWater is a renewable resource. As long as you manage the area, water will flow in perpetuity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nestl\u00e9 purchased Ice Mountain from Pepsi in 2000 and moved the production facilities from the East Coast to mountain-less Mecosta. State and local officials appreciated the business and offered a $13 million, one-time tax break. When people found out that Nestl\u00e9 was pumping water in their backyards, however, they formed an opposition group, Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation. Spearheaded by retired librarians and teachers, the group added more than 2,000 members statewide, enlisted the land-and-water-rights lawyer Jim Olson, and filed a lawsuit to stop Nestl\u00e9.<\/p>\n<p>The case dragged on for eight years and cost the group more than $1 million. To raise money, it charged membership fees and threw fundraisers. \u201cGarage sales twice a year, Texas Hold \u2019em, raffles, a few grants from nonprofits,\u201d says President Peggy Case, a retired schoolteacher who rigged her own water towers to irrigate the gardens on her 35-acre property.<\/p>\n<p>In 2003 a judge ruled against Nestl\u00e9, saying that data documenting three years of extraction by the company showed a significant depletion of the area\u2019s streams and wetlands. Nestl\u00e9 appealed, and the case lasted six more years before the two parties settled in 2009. Nestl\u00e9 would reduce pumping from 400 gallons per minute to 218, with further restrictions in spring and summer, which residents hoped would limit the environmental impact.<\/p>\n<p>Even before the settlement, Nestl\u00e9 had expanded its operation beyond Mecosta County to neighboring Osceola County. For access to municipal wells in the city of Evart and one nonmunicipal well nearby, the company promised to fund 14 acres of new softball fields, plus a bullpen and lockers, for the high school team. The school superintendent, Howard Hyde, told the <em>Grand Rapids Press<\/em> in March 2005: \u201cI\u2019m tickled. It\u2019s like Christmas. Our current fields are pretty nice, but these are going to be better.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>More than 44 percent of Evart\u2019s 1,500 residents live below the poverty line, according to Data USA. Officials were disappointed that Nestl\u00e9 built its Ice Mountain plant in Mecosta, which cost the city 280 jobs, but they were grateful for the roughly $250,000 Nestl\u00e9 pays Evart annually for its water. \u201c[If they left], our services would decline,\u201d says Zackary Szakacs, the city manager.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to the softball fields, Nestl\u00e9 has helped Evart finance other upgrades, including new well houses for its municipal water, parks, and a fairground that hosts a dulcimer festival in July. For decades the fairground was also home to Evart\u2019s Fourth of July fireworks celebration, attended by as many as 10,000 locals. In 2015, Nestl\u00e9 discovered contamination in the watershed from perchlorate in those fireworks. The likely carcinogen is banned at certain levels only in Massachusetts and California, which is why Evart hadn\u2019t been testing for it. But because Nestl\u00e9 sells in all 50 states, says Szakacs, none of its water can test positive for the chemical. The company has since stopped pumping from affected wells and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to clean them up.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_99070\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/nestle-water5.jpg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-99070\" class=\"wp-image-99070\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/nestle-water5.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"379\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/nestle-water5.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/nestle-water5-238x300.jpg 238w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-99070\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Szakacs, Evart\u2019s city manager.<br \/> Photographer: Brendan George Ko for Bloomberg Businessweek<\/p><\/div>\n<p>At 58, Szakacs has snow-white hair, a goatee, a gruff voice, and a love of fishing and Coors Light. A former policeman, he\u2019d moved to Evart in 2006 to be chief. His office at Evart City Hall is within walking distance of the pumping station where a steady stream of 12,500-gallon trucks arrive each day to pick up water for the Ice Mountain factory. Szakacs isn\u2019t worried about Evart\u2019s springs. \u201cLook, we\u2019ve got plenty of water, more water than you can imagine,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019ve got rivers, and streams, and fish\u2014bass, trout.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Last Halloween, however, Garret Ellison, an environmental reporter for <em>MLive<\/em> and the <em>Grand Rapids Press<\/em>, <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.mlive.com\/news\/index.ssf\/2016\/10\/nestle_groundwater_pumping_exp.html\" >discovered<\/a> that Nestl\u00e9 had applied for a permit to more than double its pumping rate at the well near Evart, to 400 gallons per minute\u2014the same rate that was ruled harmful in Mecosta. Anticipating approval, Nestl\u00e9 had invested $36 million to build an 80,000-square-foot addition to its Ice Mountain plant and applied for another permit for a booster station to help pump the additional flow. Michigan\u2019s DEQ had all but approved the application for the increased pumping rate without allowing for a period of public comment.<\/p>\n<p>After Ellison\u2019s story went live, the department received more than 1,100 emails in three days (the number is now 81,000). \u201cIt sent a shock wave through most communities in Michigan,\u201d says Olson, the lawyer, who filed an injunction with the nonprofit rights group For Love of Water demanding that the department extend its comment period and release relevant documents for review. Nestl\u00e9 now awaits a decision on whether it will be allowed to increase pumping at the well near Evart. In late July the DEQ asked the company to produce data showing that higher pumping rates wouldn\u2019t damage the environment, numbers that Nestl\u00e9 plans to submit on Sept. 29.<\/p>\n<p>Arlene Anderson-Vincent, a natural resource manager for Nestl\u00e9, says the uptick won\u2019t damage the ecosystem. \u201cThe water here is constantly being replenished, much more quickly than we can pump,\u201d says Anderson-Vincent, who was born and raised in Michigan and got a bachelor\u2019s degree in geology from Michigan State University while working at General Motors as a welder. Nestl\u00e9 has collected 17 years\u2019 worth of data evaluating groundwater levels and stream flow\u2014and although, she concedes, the wetlands in Mecosta might not have withstood 400 gallons per minute, Evart\u2019s can. \u201cEvery well is different,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p>Nestl\u00e9\u2019s data doesn\u2019t make \u201creliable assumptions about real world conditions,\u201d says Olson. \u201cWe know our glacial soils in Michigan, and we know our vegetation. You can pretty much take the old case [in Mecosta] as a predictor\u201d of environmental impact.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_99071\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/nestle-water6.jpg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-99071\" class=\"wp-image-99071\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/nestle-water6.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"403\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/nestle-water6.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/nestle-water6-300x242.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/nestle-water6-768x619.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-99071\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A trailer park in Evart.<br \/> Photographer: Brendan George Ko for Bloomberg Businessweek<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Six months after Ellison\u2019s reporting, on a chilly evening in April, more than 500 people filed into a large auditorium at Ferris State University near the Ice Mountain plant. They\u2019d come from all across Michigan to take part in the DEQ\u2019s public hearing on Nestl\u00e9, but they had more on their mind than Evart. \u201cWe took a bus here from Flint because we\u2019re tired of bottled water, tired of Nestl\u00e9, tired of them making a profit off of our disaster,\u201d said Bernadel Jefferson, a pastor and activist who arrived with a dozen other protesters.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s impossible to talk about water in Michigan without raising the crisis in Flint. Beginning in 2014 thousands of families were exposed to dangerous levels of lead and bacteria in tap water. Michigan Governor Rick Snyder cut costs by switching the city\u2019s water source, after which the state failed to properly treat the water with anticorrosives. An outbreak of Legionnaires\u2019 disease killed at least 12 people and led to manslaughter charges against five state and city officials. Snyder also tried, unsuccessfully, to block a federal court order forcing the state to deliver bottled water to residents. He argued that, at an estimated $10.5 million a month, it would be too costly, put more trucks on the road, and overwhelm Flint\u2019s recycling system.<\/p>\n<p>Nestl\u00e9 is quick to point out that it has nothing to do with the water problems in Flint or elsewhere. \u201cWhat happened in Flint, and what\u2019s happening in other communities in the United States, is absolutely outrageous,\u201d says Switzer, the sustainability chief. Nestl\u00e9 even teamed up with <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/quote\/WMT:US\" >Wal-Mart<\/a>, Coca-Cola, and Pepsi to donate 35,000 bottles per month to Flint residents\u2014\u201cfor schoolchildren,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_99072\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/nestle-water7.jpg\" ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-99072\" class=\"wp-image-99072\" src=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/nestle-water7.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"381\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/nestle-water7.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/nestle-water7-237x300.jpg 237w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-99072\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Case, president of Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation.<br \/> Photographer: Brendan George Ko for Bloomberg Businessweek<\/p><\/div>\n<p>But since the crisis, Flint residents have paid thousands of dollars to purchase bottled water for drinking, cooking, washing, and bathing. \u201cBetween 2005 and 2016, Nestl\u00e9 has taken over 4 billion gallons of our water for pennies and sold it back to us for huge profits,\u201d said Case, the opposition group president, the first of about 50 people to speak at the hearing. \u201cMeanwhile, the people of Flint have been forced to use this bottled water for several years and are required to pay some of the highest water bills in the country for undrinkable water. The people of Detroit have experienced massive shutoffs since 2014, with up to 90,000 people shut off at times. If Detroiters could pay Nestl\u00e9 rates, few would owe more than a dollar, and the majority would owe less than a dime.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Case\u2019s three-minute speech got a standing ovation. Onstage, two DEQ employees listened in silence. \u201cF&#8212; the DEQ,\u201d a man from Flint yelled into the microphone, holding up his middle fingers. Three hours later, past 10 p.m., the hearing ended. The DEQ employees shuffled offstage, refusing to comment.<\/p>\n<p>Nestl\u00e9 maintains that its subsidiary is a good steward of the land. An emailed statement from corporate headquarters says: \u201cWith a third of its factories already operating in water-stressed areas, water availability is and will increasingly be a major risk to Nestl\u00e9 Waters. This is why water stewardship at both factory and watershed level remains an integral approach to our business strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Environmental activists counter that multinationals shouldn\u2019t be in charge of protecting water. But these companies seem more poised to do so than some state and local officials. There\u2019s even a Davos-style event called the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.worldwaterforum8.org\/\" >World Water Forum<\/a>, whose stated mission is to \u201cput water firmly on the international agenda.\u201d In March, 40,000 people are expected to convene in Brasilia, Brazil. The occasion isn\u2019t without its critics. In an April blog post, water-rights activist Maude Barlow <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.blueplanetproject.net\/index.php\/tag\/world-water-forum\/\" >wrote<\/a>, \u201cIt is a corporate trade show organized by the World Water Council\u2014a multi-stakeholder consortium promoting solutions to the water crisis that serve the interests of multinational corporations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A tool for conservationists might be the public trust doctrine, which says natural resources belong to the public. The principle dates back at least 1,500 years; in 1215, it was invoked to prohibit the British Crown from transferring valuable fisheries to private lords because seabeds belonged to the people. David Zetland, author of <em>Living With Water Scarcity<\/em>, says governments must decide how much water they want to protect under the public trust doctrine and the rest should be divvied up on the open market. \u201cPolitical allocation is usually corrupt,\u201d he says. Olson doesn\u2019t think a market is a good idea. \u201cThe poorest among us have the same rights and should enjoy the same basic access and enjoyment of water as the wealthiest,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>Down a dirt road in Traverse City, about an hour\u2019s drive from Evart, Case is standing in her garden, harvesting fat stalks of asparagus. A neighbor\u2019s dog, a black-and-white mutt left with one eye after a porcupine run-in, follows her through the yard to the home she moved to from Detroit after retiring. \u201cWe grow a good portion of our food here for the entire year,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<p>Case, echoing her comments at the Ferris State hearing, says she\u2019ll keep fighting. \u201cIt has to do with the privatization of water and taking the people\u2019s water and making a profit from it, an exorbitant profit, a ridiculous profit, when there are people with no water at all, or people with poisoned water,\u201d she says. \u201cWe don\u2019t believe water should be owned by anybody. It\u2019s a public right.\u201d Depending on how Michigan rules on Nestl\u00e9\u2019s bid to pump more water in Evart, Case\u2019s group may take legal action. How it will pay to challenge the Swiss conglomerate a second time, she doesn\u2019t know. \u201cWe might,\u201d she says, \u201cend up back in bake sales.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>(Clarifies information about contamination in Evart&#8217;s watershed in the 22nd paragraph.)<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>___________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u00a92017 Bloomberg L.P. All Rights Reserved<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/features\/2017-09-21\/nestl-makes-billions-bottling-water-it-pays-nearly-nothing-for\" >Go to Original \u2013 bloomberg.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>21 Sep 2017 &#8211; In rural Mecosta County, Mich., sits a near-windowless facility with a footprint about the size of Buckingham Palace. It\u2019s just one of Nestl\u00e9\u2019s roughly 100 bottled water factories in 34 countries around the world. The company\u2019s operation reveals how it\u2019s dominated the industry by going into economically depressed areas with lax water laws.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,52,146],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-capitalism","category-health","category-economics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99065\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}