Wacissa, Florida Says NO to Nestlé

UPDATE:  After successfully compelling Nestlé to abandon plans to pump water from the Wacissa River in May 2011,residents recently passed an ordinance that will protect the Wacissa River from water bottling in the future. The Jefferson County Board of County Commissioners unanimously passed the landmark "Aquifer Protection Ordinance," that requires any water extraction be approved by a super majority of the county commissioners in public forums.

Jeff Granger never thought he would be the kind of man to stop strangers at the Wal-Mart and convince them not to buy something. But that’s just what he did recently when he saw two nurses who work at the Tallahassee Memorial Hospital trying to buy cases of bottled water.

“I told them their tap water is tested 600 times a month and that the bottled stuff is only tested once. Well, they both took their cases of water and put them back on the shelf!”

Jeff was referring to tap water being regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency, which has large capacity to ensure quality standards vs. bottled water being regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, which largely allows the bottled water industry to self-regulate.

Jeff, 50, a lifelong resident of Jefferson County - just east of Tallahassee, Fla. - is clear about which one he chooses: “I don’t buy bottled water anymore, I drink tap water.”

He has a personal reason to be critical about bottled water these days. He lives along a river called the Wacissa in a rural town with the same name. The river is fed by at least 13 natural springs at its headwaters. Recently, the Wacissa River and springs piqued the interest of water bottling giant - Nestlé Waters North America.

Wacissa is small. It houses 580 residents by last count, according to the volunteer fire department census. “It’s a small community,” Jeff explains. “It’s made up of one intersection and two stores. One store sells gas and one doesn’t.”

The river is sacred to this north Florida community. Weekend gatherings on the river with family and friends are a regular occurrence. People boat, fish, kayak and enjoy the varied wildlife. For Jeff, it’s the lifeline of the little town that borders it. When he was young, he and his family used to go to the river on Sundays after church to fish and play in the springs. His uncle lived so close to the river, they were still wet when they walked home.

Protecting a beloved river

Jeff and the other residents of Wacissa, who are organizing to protest Nestlé’s possible water extraction from the springs, never expected to take on the role of river protectors.

It started with a road closure. In early 2010, Malloy’s Landing Road – a river access road near Jeff’s house - was closed to the public. Confused that a road owned by the county for over 100 years was suddenly shut down, he contacted the Jefferson County Board of Commissioners and discovered that a private land owner had recently bought the surrounding land and closed the road.

First, Jeff and his neighbors fought the road closure, getting other Jefferson County voters to sign 570 petitions and delivering them to the Board. Then, without explanation, the road re-opened on June 17th 2010. The next day, trucks and drill rigs started to appear on Malloy’s Landing. Soon, they understood their problems were larger than a road closure. It turned out that Nestlé was assessing Wacissa’s natural spring sites, hoping to pump the water and truck it to Nestlé bottling plant in Madison County, Fla. The plant bottles water under the Deer Park and Zephyrhills brands.

Nestlé already had permits in-hand to drill several test wells to evaluate water flow and quality.

“They knew what they were after, and they knew what they had to do to go get it,” Jeff recalls.

Local residents of Jefferson County and other groups including a coalition of concerned residents from the surrounding counties called Friends of the Wacissa have come together to send a strong message that they do not want Nestlé in their community or anyone’s.

Discovering a trend of community intimidation

Jeff and another community water advocate at Friends of the Wacissa, Georgia Ackerman, began talking to other communities where Nestlé had come in, intimidated community members and pushed through back room deals to secure water rights at the expense of community access and control. In some communities in south Florida, Maine, Michigan and California, lakes and rivers were never the same, water tables and stream flows dropped, promises of jobs were exaggerated and agreements to reduce the amount of daily water pumped were ignored, even during times of drought.

Recently Jeff visited the town of Blountstown, Fla., another community where Nestlé had already made its mark.

“Nestlé came in behind everybody’s back and drilled wells there. Now it looks like a disaster zone. That’s just an hour from my house. It’s just like what they’re going to do in Wacissa.”

Wacissa is organized

The majority of residents do not want Nestlé in their community. Residents have signed petitions, sent letters, attended community meetings and presented at the Board of Commissioners. The town has come together to send a message: “Say No to Nestlé.” In February 2011, nearly 400 yard signs were displayed throughout the town with that message until the signs mysteriously disappeared one night. The sheriff is investigating who might have stolen the signs.

A hopeful future

There is still hope for Wacissa, its river and springs. Though Nestlé has approval to drill up to eight test wells on the Wacissa, Nestlé has not yet filed a required consumptive use permit request to pump the Wacissa springs. If requested, Jefferson County’s Suwannee River Water Management District (SRWMD) needs to approve the permit request, and then the Jefferson County Board of Commissioners needs to approve the land zoning requests in order for Nestlé to proceed.

Jeff and the rest of the community are not giving up.

As Jeff explained: “The Wacissa is the reason I live here. I’ve never been involved in something like this, and it’s changed my life drastically. I’m trying to preserve what I had for the kids, the nine-year olds who will see the damage to the river in their lifetime."

And Jeff has a message for other communities who may be next on Nestlé’s list:

“Fight them as hard as you can. Start now.”