Statement from Deborah Lapidus, Corporate Accountability, at the Nestle Waters North America Headquarters

Welcome everyone, and thanks for coming out today. My name is Deborah Lapidus, and I’m a National Organizer with the Think Outside the Bottle campaign. The campaign is a Corporate Accountability International-led initiative to galvanize support for public water systems and expose the abuses of the bottled water industry.

At the forefront of these abuses is the fact that all across North America, Nestlé, the world’s largest food and beverage corporation, is staking claim to community water resources over local opposition. We are here today to demand this practice stop.

Today in Switzerland, as Nestlé executives, board and shareholders meet to review the corporation’s annual performance, we are delivering 10,000 messages in a bottle from communities and people across North America, who are saying, “our water is not for sale.”

What’s more, in the past month, over 1,300 people have sent Nestlé a photo of themselves with their message to the corporation, which you can see a sampling of with the photos that we have brought with us today. Why are so many people urgently calling on this corporation to change its ways?   

Well, here you can see representation of eight different Nestle brands and some of the communities affected by the bottling plants for each brand.  

Despite operating at least 23 bottling facilities across North America, Nestlé is looking to expand its bottling operations, making yet another run at bottling Mt. Shasta water over community opposition for its Arrowhead brand, looking for new sites in New England despite the recent passage of local moratoriums on water bottling for its Poland Spring brand, securing loopholes in the Great Lakes Compact to continue to export water from Michigan for its Ice Mountain brand, and fighting a Florida state proposal to tax bottlers to more fairly compensate the public for withdrawals for its Zephyrhills brand.  Most recently, in Colorado, Chaffee County residents are organizing to stop Nestlé from withdrawing 65 million gallons of water a year from aquifers that feed the Arkansas River.  Should drought occur, Colorado State University ecologists report that Nestlé’s pumping would affect the flow of the Arkansas River.   

As you’ll soon hear, these water grabs are having long lasting impacts on ecosystems and water supplies long held in the public trust. Nestlé’s business practices are raising serious questions about who should be allowed to control water, our most essential resource, and to what end.
The fact is, behind the glossy labels there’s a corporation that is bent on taking a shared resource from communities and selling it at an overwhelming markup to the rest of us.  And what goes in the bottle is much less regulated than what we can all get from the tap, without the waste and unnecessary expense.

But instead of heeding community concerns, Nestlé strikes backroom deals, runs manipulative PR campaigns to put a green veneer on its brands, and challenges residents who voice their opposition through costly legal battles.  

For years Nestlé has employed a range of tactics to wrest water rights from rural communities and downstream users, keeping its abuses out of sight and out of mind of the public. But, communities are making it clear this is a pattern that needs to stop.

Grassroots pressure by Think Outside the Bottle and its allies have thus far compelled Nestlé to commit to better source labeling, improved water testing disclosure and a “good neighbor” policy, but each commitment is deliberately vague and we have yet to see the print meet the pavement. “Green is as green does,” which may be a hard lesson for Nestlé to learn given the corporation’s history has been, “green is as green says.” If Nestlé gets the message in the bottle, it’ll change course and start honoring communities’ right to protect their local water resources and follow through on its promises to consumers.

At this point I’d like to introduce today’s speakers who will provide updates on the latest developments on Nestlé’s incursions into communities from the communities themselves. We’ll start with Terry Swier with Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation in Mecosta County, Michigan.  Then we’ll hear from Shelly Gobeille, with Protect Our Water and Wildlife Resources in Shapleigh, Maine.  We’ll take all questions at the end.  Thank you.

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