This past Sunday afternoon (Jan 29th) the League of Women Voters and the Save Our Forest Association (SOFA) co-sponsored a community hearing at the Twin Peaks Community/Senior Center. The standing room only crowd came out to hear more about the Nestle Waters North American ground water removal operating under a 30-years expired permit from the US Forest Service.
Sadly, the US Forest Service and Nestle Waters decided not to appear and instead provided written statements. The CA State Water Resources Control Board provided a written statement about their efforts to determine if Nestle Waters has any rights to remove state water on public land.
Nestle Waters operates under an expired Special Use Permit, removing water from horizontal wells and tunnels within the Strawberry Creek watershed in our national forest. Nestle, a multi-national Swiss Company, pays the US Forest Service about $600/year, while removing an average of 62 million gallons/year. Nestle bottles and sells the water back to the public at a profit of over 100,000 times ! This sweetheart deal for Nestle does not “put America first”, but creates huge profits for Nestle (under the Arrowhead Spring Water label ) while robbing Strawberry Creek of its most valuable natural resource….ground water from our mountain top.
Join us in taking a stance against Nestle’s continued operation under the expired permit by:
-Requesting that Nestle cease all water extraction from Strawberry Creek until the 5 year
US Forest Service environmental analysis is completed by an independent team of scientists
– Urging the CA State Water Resources Board to determine if Nestle has any water rights
– Requiring annual reviews by the US Forest Service to insure sustainability of Strawberry Creek.
– Any water collection should ultimately be tied to prior years annual rainfall to protect
sustainable stream flow.
Contact information for your elected representatives is found at: saveourforestassoc.org.
Local action matters,
Hugh A. Bialecki, DMD
Pres., Save Our Forest Assoc., Inc.
