Water Cannot be Owned: Nestle Out of McCloud's Aquifer!

Nestle corporation is feeding the rural village of McCloud information about the percieved benefits of selling their town's natural aquifer spring water for privatization. The aquifer under McCloud contains caverns of cold, clear spring water that is filtered through the fractured rocks of Mt. Shasta..

The nearby town of Mt. Shasta has already sold their water to Coca-cola/Dannon. This water is removed from the aquifer at the expense of a net loss of water from the Sacramento Rio headwaters. Just across the street from the warehouse sized Coca-cola/Dannon waterpump facility is Mt. Shasta City Park, the source of the Rio Sacramento headwaters. Anybody can visit this public park and fill up their own personal containers with fresh springwater emerging from beneath snowcapped Mt. Shasta. After a long hot bicycle ride from Yreka, i was more than happy to sample the ice cold spring water of the Sacramento River headwaters. Ask me if i would have paid Coca-cola any money for their plasticsoaked bottled water after having tasted free spring water literally from across the street!!

According to the Mt. Shasta Bioregional Ecology Center, Dunsmuir spring water is also targeted by another corporation, Shrivastava.

"Inside the Bottle: An Expose of the Bottled Water Industry" by Tony Clarke
http://www.polarisinstitute.org/

Mt. Shasta Bioregional Center
http://www.mountshastaecology.org/

The McCloud Watershed Council won a small victory when a Siskyou county Judge Roger Kosel ruled in favor to set aside the contract between Nestle Waters North america and the McCloud Community Services District (MCSD). The reason the contract was considered invalid is that the MCSD signed the contract with Nestle before an environmental review was conducted, so both parties were not in compliance with California Environjmental Quality Act (CEQA). Nestle is appealing the ruling and pushing forward with their attempt to build the world's largest water bottling facility in the village of McCloud. They promise jobs to a struggling logging town, yet most of the people employed there will likely be out of town technicians, not local residents. It is interesting to note the haste in which Nestle is operating, perhaps trying to cement the deal before the grassroots organizing of community groups like McCloud Watershed Council sets the residents against their plans for profit..

McCloud Watershed Council

http://mccloudwatercommons.org/

Similar to Nestle, Coca-cola also intrudes on rural villages in Mexico, the rare aquifers in the Sierra Madre states of Oaxaca y Chaipas are also under attack..

CIEPAC Centro de Investigaciones Economicas y Politicas de Acion Comunitaria

http://www.ciepac.org/

CIEPAC Boicot Coca-cola y Pespi
http://www.ciepac.org/otras%20temas/campanas/boicot-coca/index.html