California Water News Daily Your Source For Water News in California
Though technically not a party to the lawsuit, Nestle Waters North America is probably quietly celebrating their good fate. Earlier this week a California federal judge ruled in favor of the U.S. Forest Service and the fact that has continued to allow Nestle to pump gallons of water from Strawberry Creek with a permit that expired 28 years ago.
Three environmental groups had filed a lawsuit alleging that the federal agency had allowed Nestle to pipe water from public land’s watershed and sell it back to the general public as bottled water – in this case as the Arrowhead water brand – without a current permit. The lawsuit was filed in October 2015 by the Courage Campaign Institute (CCI), the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Story of Stuff Project (SSP).
“We’re shocked by the court’s decision to let Nestle continue its operation, and we will continue to stand with hundreds of thousands of Californians and people across the nation to take back control of this public water,” said Michael O’Heaney, executive director of the SSP. “This fight is far from over.”
O’Heaney’s partners in filing the lawsuit expressed similar outrage. Ileene Anderson, senior scientist with the CBD said, “The court’s decision is disappointing, but the real tragedy lies in the fact that Strawberry Creek is dry8ing up, dooming the plants, fish and animals that have relied on it for tens of thousands of years. Bottling water is not worth sacrificing Strawberry Creek, so we’re considering our options for appeal.”
U.S. District Judge Jesus Bernal stated in the ruling that Nestle’s predecessor had reached out to the U.S. Forest Service in May 1987 to renew the license. The conglomerate never heard back from the Forest Service. The 12-page ruling reads (in part) that, “Plaintiffs do not identify, and the court cannot find, any authority holding that an agency’s failure to act within a reasonable time” is reason to invalidate a special use permit.
Valid permit or not, the Forest Service has continued to let Nestle pump water out of Strawberry Creek’s watershed. The Forest Service has confirmed that Nestle has continued to pay the annual permit fee of $24 for the right to run its 4-mile pipeline through the San Bernardino National Forest. In 2015, Nestle piped 36 million gallons of water from Strawberry Creek’s source water at the surface.
While Nestle Waters is not a party to the case, we are pleased that today’s ruling confirms the United States Forest Service can continue to move forward with the permit renewal process related to our Arrowhead brand,” said Christopher Rieck, spokesman for Nestle Water North America Inc., in a statement. “We take our responsibility as a water steward in California seriously and that is why we do not pump water from the Arrowhead Springs, but rather only source water that flows to the surface.”
In spite of the lawsuit ruling, California is entering its fifth year of unrelenting drought in Southern California. Statistics from late 2015 and this past summer show water levels at Strawberry Creek are now at record lows. The environmentalists claim that wildlife is threatened.
According to the Sun newspaper, the executive director of CCI said in a statement, “The court has just confirmed what many Americans fear, massive corporation play by a different set of rules than the rest of us. Nestle has been pulling a fast one for nearly 30 years, taking a public resource, depriving plants and animals of life-sustaining water, and selling that water at an obscene profit without the right to do so, but apparently our justice system is OK with that.”
Nestle’s permit is now being reviewed by the Forest Service. At present the proposal is to issue a permit that would allow Nestle e to continue its operations in the San Bernardino National Forest, operating its wells and pipelines for the next five years while environmental studies are conducted.
