Nestle Water

Discussion grows over Nestle water bottling plant

2009-10-26T04:53:25Z

Discussion over a Nestlé water-bottling plant appears to be growing in Sacramento, as the Swiss multinational prepares a facility for operation and new hires begin work.

The Sacramento City Council, which was not involved in the decision to approve the plant, will discuss the issue publicly for the first time after a request two weeks ago by council members Kevin McCarty and Lauren Hammond. They asked the council to consider an emergency ordinance requiring a special permit before Nestlé Waters North America begins bottling city tap water and spring water at a plant in South Sacramento.

Such a permit could "trigger" an environmental analysis of this and future facilities, McCarty said Wednesday night at Crest Theatre, where he and 165 others watched "Tapped," a documentary on the bottled water industry.

Save Our Water Sacramento, a group formed last month to oppose the plant, also is seeking a temporary City Council moratorium on beverage bottling plants in Sacramento.

"Ultimately, Save Our Water wants to see the Nestlé plant stopped," said Midtown resident Jenny Esquivel, a leader of the organization.

That group and others have begun raising questions and concerns about the plant and the bottled water industry. Primary concerns include the lack of an environmental impact study and information about the operation, impacts of extracting and bottling a potentially unlimited amount of water, and the commercialization of a natural resource, representatives said.

"Nestlé just got kicked out of McCloud. The final nail in the coffin was when the attorney general sent them that letter demanding they do a proper, more rigorous environmental review," Esquivel said. "Rather than do that, what Nestlé did was pick up that project and move to Sacramento.

"It's not like those environmental issues disappear," she said.

Attorney General Jerry Brown threatened to sue the company in 2008 over an inadequate environmental review of its plan to bottle spring water in McCloud, near Mount Shasta. On Sept. 10, Nestlé Waters Chief Executive Officer Kim Jeffery sent a letter to the McCloud community announcing that the company was abandoning the project.

"Earlier this summer, we were able to secure a new facility in Sacramento to serve our customers in Northern California," he wrote. "As a result, and after conducting a thorough analysis of our business operations in the region, we have determined that the Sacramento plant production will replace the production we expected in McCloud and therefore we do not have a need to build a new facility in McCloud.”

Several companies bottle water in Sacramento, where water is "ridiculously cheaper" than other areas of the country because of the city's location at the confluence of two rivers, McCarty said.

Nestlé continues retrofit, hiring

Supporters point to the financial and economic benefits the plant could bring. Nestlé plans to spend $14 million to retrofit an industrial facility at 8670 Younger Creek Road and to create 40 new jobs, said Jim Rinehart, the city's economic development manager. That doesn't include equipment costs, he added.

In addition, Nestlé is using about 16 construction workers to modify the 214,000-square-foot building and install equipment for two production lines, plus contractors and skilled tradespeople to make the facility operational, according to Rinehart and a company Web site.

The warehouse was nothing more than four walls, a ceiling and a floor when Nestlé's lease began two months ago. Crews are halfway through building warehouse docks, reinforcing concrete flooring to support heavy equipment, and building a front office, lab, and areas for manufacturing, chemical storage and shipping, said Chris Kemp, a project manager who has overseen manufacturing and quality assurance at Nestlé facilities since 2002.

The amount of tap water bottled by Nestlé would not be limited by the city. Nestlé has reported different figures for the amount of water that would be bottled each year. The company has told the city's utilities department that it would "consume" 250 acre feet — nearly 82 million gallons — as well as 78 million to 117 million gallons a year, and bottle that under its Pure Life brand. Consumers would pay about $111 million to $166 million for that amount of Pure Life water.

Nestlé expects to bottle 30 million gallons of Sacramento tap water in 2010, Kemp said. Existing water pipes could bring 250 acre feet of water to the warehouse if operations were run 24 hours a day all year, he said, adding that's expected during peak months, but not the rest of the year.

Nestlé can't say how much Sacramento water it'd use annually after the first year, Kemp said, adding only sales will determine that.

In this state, water isn't just critical to all life. It's also big business.

"California runs on three things: energy, information and water," said Richard Howitt, a UC Davis water economist who said the amount of city water Nestlé wants isn't considered large. "A million gallons sounds like a lot, but in the grand scheme, it's really not."

Globally, the company used 10.82 billion gallons of water in 2006 and sold $10 billion of water under different brand names in 2007, according to a report from Food and Water Watch in Washington, D.C. Nestlé sold at least $997 million of water in this country in 2007, making it the top bottled water company here.

Groups Oppose Water's Commercialization

Food and Water Watch and other organizations are fighting the commercialization of drinking water, which occurs when water that is free or accessible at a very low cost through a government treatment system is instead bottled and sold at market price.

"It's not just happening in Sacramento and California. It's happening all over the country and all over the world: A corporation like Nestlé is beginning to get a stranglehold by setting the price for water," said Ruth Caplan, past chairwoman of the Sierra Club's water privatization task force. "So people who can afford the price will get the water. And people who can't afford the price will have to choose between water and food, and that's really about life and death.

"Many of us believe water is a fundamental right for people and nature," she said.

When asked for Nestlé's response to the concern that access to water is a human right, Kemp said the company doesn't have any water rights in Sacramento.

"The city plans for the growth of residents and businesses. We feel we're part of that growth in the city of Sacramento," he said.

Concerned residents such as the people who formed Save Our Water Sacramento have sought information about the plant since the city and the Sacramento Area Commerce & Trade Organization announced Nestlé's plans in July. Group members said they were given the runaround after asking for specifics about jobs and other logistics, so they began requesting public documents, Esquivel said.

The company has filled 11 of the 40 jobs expected to be created by the plant. Seven hires are local residents, including two plant managers and a lead mechanic, and the other four transferred here, Rinehart said.

The four who already worked for Nestlé include Kemp, who plans to move here permanently to manage the plant; a logistics manager; a controller; and a mechanic with ties to Northern California. Two others on the plant management team — a technical operations manager and a female quality assurance manager — come from cities 30 minutes north or 60 minutes south of Sacramento, Kemp said.

"We can't restrict our hiring search to candidates in a given Zip code or a given city," he said.

The 11 hires will have started working by Monday and will help set up the facility. Nestlé will hire an additional 29 people, whose permanent positions will begin Nov. 30 or Dec. 7.

The plant is targeted to begin operation by January and is expected to require 100 trucks per day in the peak season, generally May through Labor Day. Fifty trucks a day will suffice when there's less demand. Seven to 10 seasonal workers are expected to be hired during peak times, Kemp said.

Neither Nestlé nor the city's Economic Development Department would disclose the rate paid to lease the building from Buzz Oates Real Estate Co. Taxpayers will benefit from possessory interest taxes, a tenant's equivalent to property taxes, and sales tax on the water, because Sacramento is considered the point of sale, Rinehart said.

Groups concerned about the plant and the bottled water industry say the lack of information from Nestlé is one of the company's and industry's primary problems. City Department of Utilities staff did not respond to requests for information about the city's water sources.

But according to the department's Web site, 85 percent of the city's water supply comes from the American and Sacramento rivers. The other 15 percent comes from underground aquifers.

Food and Water Watch is sponsoring a California bottled water bill, AB 301, recently re-introduced by state Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes. The measure would require water-bottling businesses to report the amount of water bottled each year, the source of the water and the location of each extraction point, and for the information to be available to the public through the state Department of Public Health.

Bottling water raises concerns

Water is a natural resource that should be managed sustainably, said Mark Schlosberg, western regional director for Food and Water Watch. Water from aquifers, where rainwater is stored underground, can recharge some streams during dry spells. Aquifers also provide water for springs and wetlands. A limited amount of water can be pumped from aquifers before their levels drop, he said.

Pumping systems take water that falls to the ground in Northern California and distribute that to the Central Valley and Southern California, Schlosberg said.

"In California, water's very connected," he said. "If you have a lot of these little straws coming in and sucking up water, it can add up to a lot. Also, this is a time when we're asking everyone in California to conserve water."

People have a right to know how the extraction of that much water during a continued drought may impact the Sacramento River Valley, Sacramento residents and wildlife, as well as the water rate residents will pay, said Schlosberg and Caplan.

"There has to be CEQA review of these sites," Caplan said, referring to the California Environmental Quality Act.

Nestlé's plans were announced in July. Last week, Mayor Kevin Johnson said he'd prefer to have information on such facilities before they're approved by city staff.

"When Nestlé can take water -- our water -- and sell it at a price, that’s a little bit concerning to me, just in general. What are those parameters in what they can and cannot do?" he asked at a press conference. "And... do they have caps in terms of what their limitations may or may not be? Those are two concerns that the public is bringing forward, and I think they’re very valid."

Nestlé has followed all Sacramento regulations, gotten the required permits and provided the city with requested information, said Kemp, adding that a full environmental impact report was not required.

Mass production of the water bottles that would be required to hold even 50 million gallons of water, transportation of those bottles and the trash they'd create also troubles people alarmed by the growing industry.

Save Our Water Sacramento estimates that 800 million half-litre water bottles would need to be produced to hold 50 million gallons. Kemp and another Nestlé spokesperson disputed that number. After agreeing to provide the company's estimate, they later said that wasn't possible.

More than 400,000 barrels of oil would go into making that many bottles, according to Save Our Water Sacramento. Americans drinking bottled water in 2006 disposed of more than 30 billion bottles in 2006, 86 percent of which go to landfills rather than being recycled, according to Food and Water Watch. That group estimated that 7.86 billion bottles could have come from Nestlé.

The safety of drinking bottled water also is a growing concern, according to these groups.

Tap water is regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and state and local governments, and is rigorously tested in government-certified labs. There is little to no government testing of bottled water, which is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, according to Food and Water Watch.

Researchers are studying chemicals used to make water bottles and other products. Phthalate, often used in soft plastic bottles, has been shown to leach into bottle contents and to increase the risk of cancer and to cause liver and reproductive problems, according to these groups. Often used in hard plastics to make five-gallon water jugs for offices, Bisphenol-A, or BPA, is an estrogenlike chemical which studies are linking to a host of problems in children and adults, including decreased sperm counts, accelerated puberty, aggression, hyperactivity, and increased risk of heart disease and diabetes.

Bottled water consumption has increased in the last decade but there hasn't been the political pressure to ensure enough federal funding to maintain municipal water treatment systems, said Caplan and Schlosberg. Nestlé executives have said projected problems with the breakdown of the water infrastructure have led to a very positive climate for bottled water, Caplan said.

"They're banking on people not wanting to drink tap water. That's their whole business plan, as far as I can tell," Caplan said. "People have been brainwashed into thinking bottled water is safer."

Photo by Eric Whalen. Sacramento Press reporter Kathleen Haley contributed to this report. Suzanne Hurt is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Bottled water film screened Wednesday

2009-10-21T05:33:58Z

Groups fighting a Nestlé water-bottling plant in Sacramento are bringing a documentary about the bottled water industry to the Crest Theatre Wednesday night.

Save Our Water Sacramento and the Alliance for Democracy's Defending Water for Life campaign are hosting two screenings of "Tapped," a 76-minute film examining the industry and the question of whether access to water is a human right or a commodity that should be bought and sold.

"We felt that now is an important time to bring that kind of film to Sacramento so people can find out what kind of issues we're facing with this proposed Nestlé bottling plant," said Sacramento resident Evan Tucker, a leader of Save Our Water Sacramento. "It deals with Nestlé in particular, but also the effects of the industry in general — from the petroleum refineries used to make the plastic, to the trash that plastic creates and the effects on communities losing access to their water."

The movie was created by Santa Monica-based Atlas Films, led by director Stephanie Soechtig and executive producers Michelle and Michael Walrath.

The event is a fundraiser for Save Our Water Sacramento. After each showing, organizers will discuss how the film connects to Sacramento and answer questions about the Nestlé water-bottling plant, Tucker said.

"It's a very powerful film," he said. "We want people to understand that this is happening in Sacramento, and if they feel strongly about it, they can do something about it."

"Tapped" will be shown at 5:30 and 8 p.m. Wednesday. Tickets for students and seniors are $6 and $9.50 for the general public.

Group to file Nestlé appeal

2009-11-18T05:10:34Z

In a precursor to any potential legal action, a grassroots organization expects to take its next step in the fight against the Nestlé water-bottling plant by filing an administrative appeal with the city of Sacramento this week.

A Swiss public TV crew is coming to Sacramento Thursday to interview members of the group, Save Our Water Sacramento, which will re-screen the bottled-water documentary "Tapped" at 7 p.m. Thursday at Crest Theatre, 1013 K St.

Afterwards, group leaders will discuss plans to appeal the city's designation of the Swiss company's $14-million construction project as ministerial, rather than discretionary. A discretionary designation of a project that could possibly harm the environment triggers a requirement for an environmental assessment under the California Environmental Quality Act. A ministerial designation does not.

The California Environmental Quality Act also requires all administrative remedies be exhausted before a lawsuit can be filed, said Evan Tucker, a Sacramento resident who helps lead Save Our Water Sacramento.

"Those are supposed to exist as an alternative to litigation," he said. "We can make our case to the city as to why the decision is incorrect."

The group has been seeking an environmental analysis of the plant since at least September, Tucker said. City Councilmember Kevin McCarty asked the council last month to consider amending the city's zoning code to immediately require special permits for water-bottling plants, but the proposal was never discussed.

In a Sept. 14 memo, Marty Hanneman, director of the Department of Utilities, told Mayor Kevin Johnson and the City Council that CEQA did not apply to the Nestlé Waters North America plant because the requested building permit required ministerial rather than discretionary action.

Save Our Water Sacramento contends the plant is being built under a discretionary Facilities Permit Program and that the city has made discretionary decisions, such as allowing construction without a building permit and issuing a stop-work order to halt construction while the lack of a permit was investigated, Tucker said.

Sacramento attorney Tina Thomas and the law firm Remy, Thomas, Moose and Manley — which wrote the book on CEQA, "Guide to the Environmental Quality Act," in 1993 — has been representing Nestlé in its efforts to open a water-bottling plant in Sacramento.

Nestlé contends the company has followed the process established by the city, Thomas said.

"There is no legal merit to this," she said in an email. "We have followed the city procedures throughout this process and continue to follow city procedures. We believe we should be treated no differently than any other similarly situated light industrial company coming into town."

The group expects the city will respond formally and then set up a hearing for the appeal. The California Public Resources Code requires the city to have such a process. However, no administrative appeals process could be found in the city code, he added.

Save Our Water Sacramento is discussing representation with prominent CEQA attorneys.

Suzanne Hurt is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City halts Nestlé work

2009-10-27T02:48:16Z

A $14 million retrofit of a proposed Nestlé water-bottling plant has ground to a halt after the city of Sacramento issued a stop-work order while investigating whether the work began before the company had legal authorization from the city.

Late Friday afternoon, the city's Community Development Department issued a stop-work order for Phases II and III shortly before an interim or "urgency" ordinance request was added to the City Council's agenda for Tuesday night. The council is being asked to consider amending the city's zoning code to immediately require special permits for beverage bottling plants. The meeting starts at 6 p.m.

On Monday, City Councilman Kevin McCarty and officials from the city's Community Development Department were trying to determine when Nestlé Waters North America began interior renovation of an industrial warehouse being leased for a new water-bottling operation.

"We're still assessing all the facts," said David Kwong, acting director of the city's Community Development Department. "We're trying to make sure there's nothing being done out of the ordinary."

Legally, construction cannot begin before a start-work authorization or building permit is issued, he said.

A building permit for Phase I was issued Oct. 7, but no start-work authorization has been found, Kwong said, adding that a start-work authorization was issued for Phase II the same day.

"I don't know if there was an authorization to work for Phase I," he said.

Phase I included foundation work and moving walls, Kwong said. Phase II involves work on water and drainage lines and other operational needs. However, the company's description of the work to be done appears to overlap in the two documents.

Nestlé maintains the company has not done anything illegal.

"Nestlé Waters is in compliance with the city's building and permitting laws," Brendan O'Rourke, the company's supply chain director and national director of natural resources, said in a written statement. He arrived in Sacramento on Monday to help respond to the unfolding situation.

Phase I construction is complete, the company said. Nestlé began work two months ago and is halfway through renovation of the plant at 8670 Younger Creek Drive, Chris Kemp, Nestlé's Sacramento plant manager, said Wednesday.

"To date, the company has invested more than $3.7 million into this plant in form of permitting fees, construction costs, due diligence payments and costs associated with the movement of equipment from other Nestle Waters plants to Sacramento," read an e-mail from Nestlé on Monday.

The stop-work order may be temporary. A draft ordinance was still being finalized by the city attorney's office late Monday afternoon. The draft goes to council members before being made public, said Amy Williams, spokeswoman for the city manager's office.

The council ought to carefully consider commercial requests to bottle and sell city water, said City Councilman Kevin McCarty, who requested the item be placed on the agenda and later posted a story about his decision.

"Water is increasingly one of more most precious and valuable resources," McCarty said Monday. "My proposal would mandate a further dialogue on all future water-bottling facilities. I think it's an important discussion to have."

Changing the process now would be "troubling," O'Rourke said.

"We have followed the city and state laws throughout this process, invested more than $3.8 million into this facility and hired people to work, all based on the the current law and it would appear that this is an attempt to change those laws midstream," he said. "We find that prospect troubling not only for this plant, but for any business looking for certainty in the siting process."

Nestlé also questioned the legality of the stop-work order. The company said the stop-work order may not be legal because the city already had issued a start-work authorization for Phase II.

"The city has not provided any evidence to support this stop-work order despite the rules that require they do so within 24 hours," said O'Rourke.

The city gave Nestlé preliminary authority to start work on Phase II, but that doesn't give the company the right to continue the work. In addition, no building permit was issued for Phases II and III, said Sheryl Patterson, senior deputy city attorney.

"We do have the right to issue a stop-work order when no building permit has been issued," she said.

An interim ordinance, which would not require review under the California Environmental Quality Act, would give the city time to consider a formal amendment to the zoning code. An interim ordinance requires a super majority or two-thirds vote of the council, to pass, Patterson said.

Nestlé has paid the city $65,000 in permitting and application fees. The company also agreed to hire local contractors and has committed to paying them $600,000 for their work.

Nestlé applied for a building permit through the city's Facility Permit Program in order to make tenant improvements, including underslab plumbing, demolition of existing partition walls and construction of new ones.

Questions also are being raised over whether it was correct to use the Facility Permit Program in this instance. "The Facility Permit Program facilitates a rapid approval process for tenant alterations and improvements of commercial and industrial facilities: minor tenant improvements, including maintenance, repair and minor alterations; and major interior tenant improvements and remodels. This includes tenant improvements to new and existing structures," according to the city's Web site.

"I'm not sure if it all adds up," McCarty said.

Suzanne Hurt is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Bottled water foes may join forces; AG to consider review

2009-10-05T06:33:53Z

A group of residents trying to stop Nestlé from opening a water-bottling plant in Sacramento plans to join forces with other Northern Californians fighting the same battle elsewhere.

Meanwhile, California Attorney General Jerry Brown will consider whether to request a copy of the plan for a division of Nestlé, the world's largest food company, to bottle and sell spring water and an unlimited amount of city tap water taken from the American River every year.

NestléWaters North America plans to open a plant here after losing a six-year fight to bottle glacier-fed spring water near Mount Shasta. Brown threatened to sue the company over an inadequate environmental review for its plan to bottle spring water in McCloud, southeast of Shasta, in July 2008.

An area resident notified the attorney general's office about the Swiss company's plans for Sacramento Friday, Sept. 25. The deputy attorney general who worked on the McCloud case will soon meet with Brown in the matter.

"The attorney will discuss with the attorney general whether to request a proposal and take it under review," said Dana Simas, spokesperson for the attorney general.

Concerned over potential environmental impacts, a group called Save Our Water Sacramento has begun contacting residents battling commercial plans to take water in other areas to the north.

"I think that we do need to work together," said Davis resident Nancy Price, a member of Save Our Water Sacramento and West Coast coordinator of the Alliance for Democracy's Defending Water for Life campaign.

They've already reached out to residents of Shingletown, outside Lassen Volcanic National Park. There, a group called Local Water Stays Local is fighting an unidentified bottling company they suspect is Nestlé, said Dick Rullman, the group's president. That group has hired an attorney and will use all legal means "to prevent the depletion of the Shingletown, Inwood, Viola and Manton natural water supply for commercial use," according to their website.

"It's definitely a sore number up here," Rullman said.

Nestlé sells bottled water under many different brand names. Water bottled in Sacramento as Arrowhead Mountain Spring water will be trucked in from Lukens Spring in Placer County, Sopiago Spring in El Dorado County, Sugar Pine Spring in Tuolumne County and Arcadia Spring in Napa County, according to Chris Kemp, a long-time employee of Nestlé Waters North America who has been tapped to manage the Sacramento plant at 8670 Younger Creek Road. That plant, according to a local public relations consultant hired by the company, may already be undergoing interior renovation.

Nestlé may use water from other springs the company gets access to after opening the Sacramento plant, said Dave Palais, Nestlé Water's natural resource manager for Northern California and the Pacific Northwest, in a phone call.

"Yes, that's conceivable if the spring is licensed by the state department of health and passes their requirements," he said, adding that Nestlé is not pursuing spring water in Shingletown. Nestlé discussed buying water from a private property owner five or six years ago, but lost interest after hearing about future development the company believed might contaminate the water, he said.

Shingletown residents tell a different story. Nestlé tried to buy a big ranch with a large spring in the area, but the owner wouldn't sell to Nestlé, said Rullman, whose group believes a San Francisco Bay Area investor is trying to buy water from another property owner as a "front" for Nestlé.

Save Our Water Sacramento, made up of area residents interested in social and environmental justice, is now seeking a Sacramento City Council moratorium on beverage bottling plants in the city. Members of the group said they are worried partly because Nestlé's use of American River water would not be limited in any way, which has been confirmed by city employees.

In statements prepared for the public and the press, Nestlé says it will initially bottle about 30 million gallons of city water annually. However, in memos to the mayor, city councilmembers and a Nestlé consultant, city Department of Utilities Director Marty Hanneman indicates the company and its representatives have told the city Nestlé estimates it would use either 250 acre feet — or nearly 82 million gallons — a year, or 78 million to 117 million gallons a year.

Operating in Florin Fruitridge Industrial Park, Nestlé would initially pay less than $.71 per 100 cubic feet of water, or 748 gallons. City-treated tap water would be used for the company's Pure Life brand. Nestlé estimates it would extract 215,000 gallons of water on an average day, peaking at 320,000 gallons a day, according to one of the memos.

At .71 cents per 748 gallons, Nestlé would pay the city $204 for 215,000 gallons and nearly $304 for 320,000 gallons on peak days, which would come out to roughly $74,500 to $111,000 a year.

A local grocery store charges consumers $4.49 for a 24-pack of half-liter bottles of Nestlé Pure Life water. At .374 cents per litre, consumers would pay $304,754 for 215,000 gallons and $453,587 for 320,000 gallons of Pure Life water. Consumers would pay roughly $111 million to $166 million for a year's worth of Pure Life water at these rates of production. That, of course, doesn't factor in costs to run the plant, make plastic bottles and truck water to stores, or retail mark up.

Last year, Nestlé had $109 billion in sales, according to the company's 2008 financial statement.

The company has also said it would truck in 20 million gallons in spring water to be bottled in Sacramento each year.

The Sacramento plant would be one of the first — if not the very first — Nestlé water-bottling plants in the country where both spring and tap water would be bottled, said Price, who has helped community residents fight bottled-water battles in other states.

Around the world, corporate giants like Nestlé are going into communities to buy up and profit from their water, Price said. National groups like the Alliance for Democracy, which is working to end corporate domination in the United States, maintain that public access to clean water is a human right that must be protected for people and the environment.

The secrecy which has surrounded Nestlé's plan in Sacramento appears to be the way the company operates in all the communities where it seeks to buy up the water, said Sacramento resident Evan Tucker, a leader of Save Our Water Sacramento.

That group also believes the spring water Nestlé plans to bottle here may come from Shingletown, an area 20 miles long running along the Shingletown Ridge on State Route 44, between Redding and Mount Lassen. However, they don't know for sure, Tucker said.

The Shingletown group Local Water Stays Local is currently fighting a private property owner's attempt to sell nearly 300,000 gallons of water a day from Crook Springs, via a well on his property near Highway 44. In July 2008 — the same month the attorney general threatened to sue Nestlé — the developer, who lives in a different county, applied to the Shasta County Board of Supervisors to expand a use permit for that well from 26,000 to 288,000 gallons a day, according to Rullman and a permit amendment document.

"Big money has dollars signs in their eyes," said Rullman, a highway worker who's now retired.

In 1992, despite protests from local residents, the county board approved the original permit for use by a "mining operation" and classified water as a mineral, Rullman said. By law, only one person, an adjacent property owner, had been notified before the plan was approved. That person alerted other residents in 1992 and again in 2008 when notice of expansion plans went out.

Retirees such as Rullman and a long-time attorney and other folks living in the "nooks and crannies" along Highway 44 have been forced to spend money, time and energy fighting the expansion. More than 700 people lined up outside the Shingletown Store and backed up highway traffic to sign petitions against the expansion, he said.

"When it comes to somebody (coming) in and (talking) about taking all the water — we can't exist without water. So people get up in arms," Rullman added. "Nobody wants this up here."

The developer maintains that his well takes ground water from an aquifer. But the people behind Local Water Stays Local believe it's an underground stream that feeds Battle Creek, which is a tributary of the Sacramento River, as well as the Coleman National Fish Hatchery for Chinook salmon and steelhead, and that he has no water rights to it.

They're meeting with the head of the State Water Resources Control Board's water rights division Oct. 14 to determine if that agency has jurisdiction in the matter, Rullman said. His group has also contacted the deputy attorney general.

In rural communities where Nestlé or other companies bottle spring water, offers to create jobs often win people over. Nestlé said the Sacramento plant would create 40 jobs.

"They come into a town where the economy's shot, like McCloud, and they promise 'em jobs, and the peoples' eyes are as big as saucers," he said. "When water sources run out, the companies move to another location. They'll pull water out of here until the water runs dry and all the trees die, and no one will have anything to drink."

Suzanne Hurt is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Nestle wants Sac's water

2009-09-29T06:59:26Z

Sacramento residents are taking first steps into the water justice movement in an effort to stop Swiss company Nestle from bottling and selling city tap water.

About 60 people and one dog packed a tiny Quaker church in a Midtown office suite Monday night to discuss growing concerns over Nestle's plans to open a water-bottling plant in Sacramento and to bottle an estimated 82 million gallons of water from the American River every year.

One of the group's biggest worries is that Nestle's use of the water would not be regulated or limited in any way. While city employee and Nestle's public relations team estimates are tens of millions of gallons apart, the actual amount of water Nestle may bottle each year would be unchecked, according to city staff and activists.

"It's clearly ridiculous to give someone unlimited access to our water in the third year of a drought," said Sacramento resident Evan Tucker. "We could stop it."

The water would be taken directly from the municipal water system. The bottled water would then be trucked to stores and sold to consumers, including those in Sacramento and elsewhere in Northern California.

The group also expressed concerns with the lack of transparency they say has accompanied plans for Nestle's bottled water division, known as Nestle Water, to begin operations at a Florin Fruitridge Industrial Park site early next year. The city has not sought public input or performed an environmental analysis of the plan's expected impact.

"The city and Nestle have tried to keep this a secret," said Tucker, who led the meeting. "We're trying to do what we can to get the word out."

The group, which has organized under the name Save Our Water Sacramento, includes people who have worked for social justice, human and civil rights and the environment. Monday night, they discussed the initial steps they're taking to seek a Sacramento City Council moratorium on beverage bottling plants in Sacramento.

Save Our Water Sacramento and its allies are also working to bring the new movie, "Tapped," to the city, Mt. Shasta and Orland, where another water-bottling fight is raging, in the next few weeks, said Nancy Price of Davis, who has helped community residents fight bottled-water battles in other states as a social and environmental justice issue. Price works with Alliance for Democracy's Water for Life campaign.

Nestle is planning to open a plant in Sacramento after a failed, six-year battle to bottle spring water in McCloud near Mt. Shasta. Nestle had sought to open a plant a few miles from water-bottling plants operated by Coca-Cola and Crystal Geyser, owned by a Japanese pharmaceutical company. That effort failed after Attorney General Jerry Brown threatened to sue Nestle over an inadequate environmental review in the summer of 2008.

Nestle's attempts to build water-bottling plants have been fought from McCloud to Denver and Maine. Residents of Shingletown, a mountain community outside Lassen National Park, are currently fighting a water battle involving an unidentified bottling company they suspect is Nestle, said Dick Rullman, president of Local Water Stays Local.

They've hired San Francisco attorney Rachel Hooper of Shute, Mihaly and Weinberger — the same attorney who successfully fought Nestle in McCloud.

Nestle's stated plans for Sacramento include bottling 20 million gallons of spring water from an unidentified source, Tucker said.

As such an old city, Sacramento has "very, very senior water rights" in California, said Carmichael resident Betsy Weiland, who has worked on other water issues such as protecting the American River.

When asked whether city employees have given Nestle permission to bottle and sell the city's water, Tom Zeidner, a senior development project manager with the Economic Development Department, said, "Nestle's is setting up its plant in an existing building in an area that's zoned industrial or manufacturing. They have satisfied zoning standards. As such, they are going in there and establishing a plant under 'development by right.' "

The area is zoned for industrial use of water, he later added.

The permits they need to install equipment and do work on an existing building are "minor enough" that Nestle doesn't need to go through any other regulatory body, such as the planning commission, Zeidner said.

Nestle has told the city about 250 acre feet — or nearly 82 million gallons — of city-treated American River water would be bottled each year. That represents .02 percent of the city's current water demands, he said, adding the city does not regulate how much water an industrial water customer uses except to impose drought restrictions when needed.

There are no current drought restrictions on industrial users, although there are outdoor irrigation restrictions, he added.

Nestle would pay the industrial rate, said Zeidner, who didn't know what that rate is.

The city determined that the California Environmental Quality act doesn't apply to the project, he said, based on CEQA guidelines, section 15002i, which state:

(i) Discretionary Action. CEQA applies in situations where a governmental agency can use its judgment in deciding whether and how to carry out or approve a project. A project subject to such judgmental controls is called a "discretionary project."

(1) Where the law requires a governmental agency to act on a project in a set way without allowing the agency to use its own judgment, the project is called "ministerial," and CEQA does not apply.

(2) Whether an agency has discretionary or ministerial controls over a project depends on the authority granted by the law providing the controls over the activity. Similar projects may be subject to discretionary controls in one city or county and only ministerial controls in another.

Suzanne Hurt is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Nestlé Waters appeal filed

2009-11-25T07:03:42Z

Save Our Water Sacramento filed an administrative appeal involving the Nestlé water-bottling plant on Monday.

Davis attorney Don Mooney has agreed to take the case if the issue goes to court. Mooney represented McCloud residents in their six-year fight against a Nestlé Waters North America water-bottling plant near Mt. Shasta. The company abandoned plans for the plant in September.

Save Our Water Sacramento is appealing the city's designation of the Swiss company's $14 million construction project as ministerial, rather than discretionary, in an effort to win an environmental assessment of the plant. The group e-filed an appeal with the city clerk's office and sent a paper copy through registered mail.

Under the California Environmental Quality Act, a discretionary designation of a project that could possibly harm the environment triggers a requirement for an environmental assessment.

"The appeal was filed as a way to encourage the city to perform its legal obligations under CEQA without the need for court action," said lifelong Sacramento resident Loran Sheley, one of the leaders of Save Our Water Sacramento.

Attorney General Jerry Brown threatened to sue Nestlé in 2008 over an inadequate environmental review for its plan to bottle spring water in McCloud.

On Sept. 10, Nestlé Waters Chief Executive Officer Kim Jeffery said the company was building a plant in Sacramento to replace the plant proposed for McCloud.

On Sept. 14, the head of the city's Department of Utilities sent a letter to Mayor Kevin Johnson and the City Council that CEQA does not apply to the plant here because the requested building permit required ministerial rather than discretionary action.

Nestlé has said the appeal has no legal merit and that the company has followed the process established by the city.

Mooney has agreed to represent Save Our Water Sacramento if an administrative appeal doesn't lead to an environmental assessment and the group decides to file a lawsuit, Sheley said.

"We're sort of doing this as a last effort to handle the situation administratively," she said. "We feel we've done everything else."