Nestle’s $624 Permit To Pump Millions Of Gallons Of Water From National Forest Sparks Protest

a reply to: anotheramethyst

Isn't it contradictory to both "shame the left" and "help bridge the red-blue divide"? It's much more productive to simply offer each other a hand w/this fight.

I agree with boycotting them if someone feels that this is an important issue. But this particular issue just isn't a big deal to me. I already think the bottled water industry as a whole is a scam, except in disasters where fresh water supplies have been cut off. But Nestle's been doing this for a long time and I honestly don't see either party doing much about it.

In fact, the entire notion of relegating the ownership of federal lands back to the States will only increase crap like this because State regulators will then be able to make these deals at will. But once again, people continue to vote for politicians who openly say they'll give States control of federal lands. It's no different than the "Drill baby drill!" crap that would allow energy companies to extract natural resources from national parks.

I can see people voting for "Drill baby drill" politicians, then acting outraged when a Saudi firm extracts petroleum from national parks for pennies on the dollar. What did they think would happen? This is a largely capitalist country with an electorate that largely rejects socialism and communism. So of course the firms that extract natural resources here will try to do so at a massive profit. They have no obligation to share the wealth and apparently have no obligation to even pay their fair share in taxes. But the "Panama Papers" leaks and other reports about how little many multinationals pay in local taxes and fees should've already gotten the point across. In other words, I kind of see this as "business as usual".

a reply to: enlightenedservant

Very well said.

Scam is correct. They pay nothing for the raw materials, I really question how they cut such a deal?

Lobby, lobby, lobby.

originally posted by: RickyD
This is disgusting and I for one would hope all the bleeding heart ultra left wing folks who are up in arms and protesting all the dumbest and non issue things already will take their fight to nestle. I doubt they will but I sure do hope they do.

Liberals for the most part stopped protesting real things. Somehow they switched out free speech and protecting parks from corporate rapists to losing their # about weird fringe gender stuff. To put it nicely.

The change came amidst the occupy wall street movement. In the end some folks used that to subvert the entire democratic party.

After being tuned down by Oregon, Nestle apparently moved on to the recently drought stricken (and who knows could happen again in the future)California.

This Oregon County Said 'No' to Nestle and Won in a 'Landslide Victory'

Voters in one Oregon county on Tuesday approved a ban on commercial bottled water production, stopping a years-long effort by Swiss transnational Nestle to sell more than 100 million gallons of water a year from the Columbia River Gorge.

According to Julia DeGraw, an organizer for national watchdog organization Food & Water Watch, which helped lead the opposition, voters were very aware of the risks of putting corporate control over the precious resource, despite the purported 50 jobs the plant would provide the job-scarce town.

Source
California needs to step up to do the same. Kick out the ones that want to keep this going, in which corporate greed interest appears to be a big thing in California.

a reply to: Balans

Passing on anything Nestle is a good idea and I feel hitting these people in the pocketbook is the only thing that gets their attention. Problem with Nestle you would almost need to stop eating. Nestle owns most of the food you buy. Take time to read the back of the labels you will be shocked.

a reply to: drifter1109
I've found even non name brand products have even better ingredients than Nestle on top of being less costly. For example, Nestle has dairy based products, instead buy more local or local chain store brands. Kraft is another name brand to watch for if one wants to be conscious towards issues such as shared in the Op(one source).

a reply to: seasonal

It doesn't even have to be deals pushed by lobbyists. All it takes is for a mid-level or higher employee of a company to run for office or to be appointed to the appropriate administrative position. Then they can just make these kinds of deals legally & without much backlash. Once their term is up (or once the damage has been done), they leave the job position and go back to the former company. That's actually a business tactic.

a reply to: enlightenedservant

Sick vicious (profitable) circle.

a reply to: seasonal

But isn't that what people here really want? Deregulation includes getting rid of the laws & regulations that limit or eliminate practices like that. What I described is called the "revolving door" and it will require specific laws to prevent it. But in a free market, this and much worse are perfectly legal. Even bribes would be legal. I just don't see how we can have both ethical business practices and a lawless/unregulated business environment.

To be real with you, I've even thought of starting an organization specifically to buy exclusive access to large amounts of natural resources like the one in the OP. Then my organization could bypass the whole protesting and legislative process and just use the land for whatever "ethical" purposes I originally wanted. I originally thought it was a pipe dream because I figured I'd have to raise way too much money. But apparently the prices aren't as high as I thought?

a reply to: enlightenedservant

The price for you would be very high in both $$$ and "accidents".

a reply to: seasonal

Hey wait a second. According to most of ATS, all of us Muslims are supposedly a violent hive mind Borg with intents to take over the Western world. So according to those conspiracy theories, shouldn't there be billions in oil money available for my land grab company and a countless horde of militants willing to provide "accident insurance" for me? That's how we're perceived, isn't it?

a reply to: GeauxHomeYoureDrunk

i read somewhere they got their start here in the 70s they took a tanker into one of the great lakes and started pumping the lake water straight into there tanker they were stopped and ordered to dump it then they came ashore and bought a permit and started pumping the water straight out the aquifer. they are a nasty greedy corp that needs to be kicked out usa.

I just read in the paper today, that this corrupt company wants to increase pumping in Evart, MI from 150 gal. a minute, to 400.
I just wrote an email to the township supervisor.

SOMEONE Has to say no to them, sometime!!!!

a reply to: chiefsmom

So wow.
I got a response from the township supervisor, and he is actually in agreement and wants to stop Nestle . He actually gave me more information, about how they just bought 300 acres in this small town. Nice to read there are some officials that have a brain and listen to their people.