Welcome to the world premiere Protect Our Waters blog. We are thrilled to launch our blog, website www.protectourwaters.org and introduce the elements of a great story: A beautiful pristine mountain setting with clear spring waters; The world’s most infamous corporate villain and an unsuspecting rural town recovering from the fall of the timber industry. Yes, we’re talking about the Nestle-McCloud controversy.
My name is Meadow Barr. I’ve been watching the story unfold from the beginning. Budding political ecologist as I am, I’ll be your narrator.
Nestlé’s story: Picture a giant Nestle Bunny dressed in a surprisingly casual get up—cowboy boots and jeans. This heroic character is “Father Nestle” come to replace “Mother McCloud” and rescue the dying mill town, build the world’s largest water bottling plant and take care of all McCloud’s people.
McCloud’s story: Some would paint the picture that the savvy outsider split the community clean in two—black and white—pro-Nestle, anti-Nestle. There are those holding strong to their posts on opposite sides of the spectrogram; on the one side outraged by the lack of political process—how a few made such a far-reaching, binding decision for everyone—adhering to a “No Nestle No Way” position. On the other side nostalgic for the time when the company town took care of everyone “the sound of the mill and trucks were music to my ears because people were employed and our schools were full” standing in full support of the Nestle proposal as the only alternative.
The Nestle Corporations’ proposal to build the world’s largest bottling plant in the tiny town of McCloud on Mount Shasta’s southeastern slopes ignited a roaring controversy. The heat of which galvanized a coalition intent on initiating needed dialogue about our most precious resource.
But stories aren’t black and white. Shades of gray add to their complexity, and the Nestle-McCloud story is rich with halftone. And fortunately so, because if everyone were clumped up on their side, we may as well pack up and go home—end of story: stalemate.
The climax of the story is still to come, and a happy ending is possible: there is hope for unity in McCloud and opportunity for a prosperous future. The hard work of bringing a divided community together to talk about what it really wants lies in the hands of those tired of heated arguments based on fear and uncertainty; those seeking an open dialogue with facts. We are at a critical juncture in the story, a release of a new economic report that shows the Nestle project could hurt McCloud’s developing economic base.
Can the town come together to have a real conversation and reconsider the contract with Nestle? Tune in after Thanksgiving for the next installment of this suspenseful blog.
12 comments:
Perhaps the community should look outside the "Nestle box" and create the McCloud Water Company.
I find it amazing that the Nestle websites, including McCloudarrowheadproject.org do not list any of the websites that are opposed to Nestle's extraction of water from McCloud. I guess they are afraid of "fair and balanced" truth! They have scads of spin masters weaving "tales" about how wonderful the future will be in McCloud. Question: Who pays those that weave the spin, including the economic report from Chico? Who pays the organization that paid for that report, the Siskiyou Economic Development Council?
I like the first comment about looking outside the Nestle Box. If I think 50 years into the future I see Mt. Shasta's springs being as famous as Perrier and Evian. It is a resource that will inevitably be tapped for profit for drinking water by some organization. Should it be Nestle? Obviously not based on their lack of good faith in dealing with the community to-date. However the watershed council and protectourwaters.org needs to be thinking about a crystal clear vision of "success" 50 years out. In my opinion that vision should include a sustainable bottled water facility that drives economic growth AND enhances the environment. I think it's possible. Other companies (even big business) like Herman Miller and Ford have figured out how to build sustainable production facilities. Check out the book titled Cradle to Cradle for other great examples. If a vision of success is clearly outlined then the community can quickly see if an existing company has the ability to execute the sustainable idea or if McCloud needs to try to finance and execute the project themselves. While I fully support pushing Nestle out of the picture if they are unwilling to do due dilligence on the science and renegotiate a fair deal for the community, a "lock it away forever" approach seems unrealistic to me in the long term.
Whoops! Perrier is owned by Nestle!! I do not agree that the springs will inevitably be tapped. We're not even sure how much water we have today, let alone how much we'll need for future growth. McCloud has been in a drought situation before where there was water rationing. What about future growth? Shouldn't water be the right of the people.....not to have it exported? What about the people who live downstream? What about the effects of climate change on our glaciers? Who does the water belong to?
Hi folks-
Great stuff here. I am not sure if we have the water to sell or not. In order to know, the first question to answer is, "How much water does the McCloud Community Services District (MCSD) have legitimate rights to?" The current proposal is based upon the (likely erroneous) assumption that MCSD has the rights to do as it pleases with ALL of the water flowing from Intake and Upper and Lower Elk Springs. It is likley that their actual (lagal) rights are predicated on their historic use, not on their arbtrary claim. It is also likely that, before the dust settles on the Nestle / McCloud issue, a court of law will weigh in on this and the MCSD water rights will be quantified.
Then there is the Science. Good science will tell us much about how much water there is and what the impacts of removal from the basin would be. The science is critical. Without it we have no idea what the impacts of any potential project would be.
I agree that our waters will be well known in 50 years.It remains to be seen if they will be famous for their bottled drinkability or for the incredibly unique ecosystem that they nuture, or both.
I also agree that, if they are bottled, the communtity of McCloud should benefit in all ways, economically, environmentally and socially. The current deal is cleary a rip-off and should be off the table.
Finally, someone to keep us updated on the Nestle fiasco.
Siskiyou County and nearby locations are facing multiple threats to its environment from companies like Nestle, PacifiCorp, Westlands Irrigation and even out own County Board of Supervisors.
Keep up the good work!
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