Twenty years ago, sitting around a table talking about life and politics, the subject of selling water came up. Huh, I said? The water falls from the sky, it is part of the natural fabric of our life. Water is free. Nothing could have prepared me for the stark reality in 2016, bottled water. It started with sparkling water known as Perrier. It was sleek and cool, a sign of wealth and prestige. The sparkling water in a nice pretty green glass bottle, imported from Vergèze spring in France. Innocent enough, but the future tells another story. In 1992, Swiss giant Nestle brought Perrier. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perrier. Nestle is one of the largest producers of bottled water in the world, with hundreds of bottled water brands, Nestle makes billions of dollars a year selling water.
Bottle water, what could be so bad about that? After all, water is the best hydrating drink for satisfying thirst. It’s better than all that sugary soda and juice. In fact, a bottle of water at the little league game will cost you more than a can of soda. Seems kind of odd. Soda is comprised of ingredients and a process of creation, where as water, is water. Let’s take a deeper look beyond the surface of the billion dollar bottled water industry. Let’s go to a county in Michigan,Mecosta,home to a large fresh water aquifer surrounded by the Great Lakes.
Imagine living next to the Great Lakes of Michigan, surround by fresh water. In fact, Michigan has 20% of the world’s natural fresh water supply. Now imagine one day waking up and finding a multinational corporation sucking the water from the aquifer that is part of your municipal water supply. Thousands of gallons a day taken form the public water supply at no charge to Nestle. I repeat, NO CHARGE. Nestle was pumping 400 gallons of water a hour from the public aquifer and making huge profits. Local residents began to notice changes in the environment. Areas once full with fresh water began drying up. A small group of citizens took Nestle to court and for ten long years battled the giant.
The citizen’s of Mecosta won, well sort of. They were able to stop Nestle from pumping 400 gallons an hour, and limit pumping to 200 gallons an hour. Nestle still has the right to pump water at no cost or reimbursement to the public, whose water they are using to make money for themselves. They do pay a small permit fee of approximately $5,000. Not bad. They ship public tap water all over the world and make billions of dollars in profits. Yet the people in Michigan are left paying the toll. The 46th Governor of Michigan, John Engler, 1991-2003 had a very comfortable relationship with the giant bottling company, “The Engler administration has literally paid Nestle approximately $10 million in local property and state education tax abatements, job training, and infrastructure grants to steal Michigan’s fresh water. These subsidies actually led to three separate citizen blockades since April at the company’s new bottling plant in Stanwood.” Meanwhile a few hours from Mecosta the residents of Flint, Michigan, are being poisoned with bad water. While Nestle pumps water for nothing, and get’s tax payer subsides for doing so, “Nestle is selling the water that could be used for the people of Flint, and they are making a fortune doing it. All of this was encouraged by Michigan’s former Republican governor, John Engler. http://countercurrentnews.com/2016/02/flint-nestle-water-tax-scheme/
How did Flint end up with toxic water? For starters, Michigan’s current Governor Snyder, removed elected officials in Flint and replaced them with unelected Emergency Managers. The managers decided to save money and divert the Flint water supply from a safe place, to a toxic river. What’s that saying? If it ain’t broke, yeah that! This led to the crisis we see today, where the people of Flint, who pay the highest water bills in the country, are poisoned while surrounded by fresh water. It appears that the government in Michigan values Nestle over it’s own people. While Nestle pumps water for nothing, the people of Flint are paying to be poisoned. Nestle has been generous and donated Michigan water, in bottles, back to the poor residents of Flint. It would be better if Nestle would fill trucks of water, and send them to every neighborhood in Flint.It's the least they can do with all that free fresh Michigan water, but that’s not profitable.
For two years the people of Flint were silently poisoned with lead in their water supply. It is a wonder how Governor Snyder of Michigan has not been removed from office because of this crisis? His actions have led to sickness and permanent disabilities for the children and families in Flint. Not only that, homeowners have seen the value of their property sink to nothing. Who's going to buy a house where the water is full of lead? When we allow our natural resources to be extracted and sold for profit we lose in many ways. Flint, Michigan, is a sad example of a government gone bad. The water crises should be a warning to all of us, fresh water is not a commodity, fresh water is the essence of life. Bottled water is an extraction of a natural resource and the consumer should be aware of the true costs of bottled water. This is also a prime example of why we need to get private money out of public government. The people of Flint pay the price for leaders who serve money rather than the people. This tragedy can happen anywhere, we are all Flint, Michigan and Mecosta County.
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