Statement: McCloud residents prevail over Nestlé bottling plans

Leslie Samuelrich, Deputy Director

After a six year campaign, our friend and Think Outside the Bottle campaign ally Debra Anderson and her neighbors are celebrating Nestlé’s departure from their historic mill town in the Cascade Mountains of Northern California. The food and beverage giant announced this Thursday that it is abandoning its water bottling designs on McCloud and leaving town for good.

The grassroots campaign to keep water under local control began the night of September 29, 2003. At a town meeting officials slammed the gavel, and Nestlé Waters North America was the proud new owner of the town’s water for 50 years…with an option for 50 more. The five member McCloud Community Service District board had been pressured by Nestlé to take stealth action to approve the deal. This gave the town’s 1,300 residents but a few days to review and consider the proposal prior to the meeting – hardly enough time to get organized.

But get organized they did. Debra and community members quickly formed McCloud Watershed Council (MWC) a grassroots group, working in concert with California Trout, Trout Unlimited, Concerned McCloud Citizens and other organizations to respond to Nestlé’s plans to build a 1,000,000 square foot bottling plant with untold consequences for the local environment (Nestlé initially failed to conduct a requisite environmental review). Collectively, the coalition hunkered down to protect local water resources and the surrounding environment of Siskiyou County for generations to come. 

Due to the dedicated organizing of residents, the initial contract was ruled null and void by the Siskiyou County Superior Court. But Nestlé continued to invest millions in public relations, lobbying and legal efforts to overcome this early obstacle to its bottling plans. National media exposure, continued grassroots mobilization, lawsuits, testimony before Congress and comments by the California Attorney General finally pressured Nestlé to honor the wishes of McCloud residents.

A heartfelt congratulations are due to Debra and her neighbors and to all who extended a hand to support these dedicated activists in their time of need.

This is a watershed moment, so to speak, in the effort to restore local control over water. Earlier this summer two other community groups – the Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation (MCWC) and Protect Our Water and Wildlife Resources (POWWR) in Shapleigh, ME – secured major victories over Nestlé. Michigan Citizen’s court victory against Nestlé came after nine years of legal battles and Nestlé appeals. The settlement requires Nestlé to dramatically reduce pumping during summer months at a critical well site in Northern Michigan, and prohibits the corporation from increasing pumping levels in the future.   

After Protect Our Water members discovered twenty three Nestlé test wells in their community in Shapleigh, ME they responded by going door-to-door, gathering enough petition signatures to pass ordinances asserting the right of townspeople to control their own water and prohibit commercial water extraction.

These victories are harbingers of more to come. Still, from Colorado to Florida to Maine Nestlé continues to subvert the right of communities to control their own water. There is more work ahead, but thanks to Debra and her neighbors it is clear there is power in the grassroots.