For Immediate Release: October 20, 2020

As Nestlé prepares to sell off its bottled water brands, Ontarians join communities across North America demanding the return of their local water sources

Wellington County, Ontario is taking center stage in North America’s “water wars” as local advocates demand that Nestlé Waters Canada revert its claimed rights to the Aberfoyle Complex back to public ownership as part of the company’s planned sale of its bottled water brands.

The company’s initial attempt to sell the Canadian Pure Life brand and assets to Ice River Springs this summer was scrapped after Nestlé and the buyer were unable to successfully navigate Canada's regulatory approval process. New developments suggest the company is now accelerating the sale of its bottled water brands including Pure Life, Poland Spring, Arrowhead, Zephyrhills, and Ice Mountain to the tune of $5 billion.

Advocates including Wellington Water Watchers Ontario have been seeking government approval to phase out water-removal permits for bottlers altogether in recent years resulting from the company’s track record of broken promises, ecological harm, and removal of the community’s access to water.

Local Nestlé opponents join more than a dozen organizations in Canada, the U.S. and Switzerland, led by grassroots groups in communities that have been fighting Nestlé’s water extraction for years in writing to Nestlé CEO Ulf Mark Schneider to demand that the company return the Aberfoyle Complex and four other  of particularly controversial water sources to the public prior to any sale.

The letter marks the launch of a global campaign -- Nestlé’s Troubled Waters -- to pressure the company, potential buyers, regulators and lawmakers to see the ownership of these water sources revert to the public trust.

The Ohneganos Haudenosaunee grandmothers and youth water committee has verbally expressed they would like the Nestle plant in Aberfoyle returned to Six Nations to provide restitution for illegally removing waters without consent. Any private sale of the Aberfoyle Complex by Nestle Waters Canada will be opposed by Six Nations.

The Haudenosaunee Confederacy Council delivered a cease and desist letter in 2019 which informed Nestle´ Waters Canada that  “Pursuant to the Haldimand Proclamation and the 1701 Nafan Treaty your company sits on the traditional territory on which you are … removing aquifer waters”

Giving the Aberfoyle complex to Six Nations, a water insecure community is an appropriate act of reconciliation and the details of the transfer can be resolved by appropriate public parties.

The letter follows a string of controversies over Nestlé’s environmental and community impacts in Canada and the U.S. that have spurred protests, lawsuits, and legislative proposals. Indeed, Nestlé CEO Mark Schneider admitted to the New York Times in June that ‘environmental concerns’ had hurt sales.

● Wellington Water Watchers join groups from the US, Canada and Switzerland in calling on the world's largest water bottler to divest itself of The Aberfoyle Complex as well as other controversial water sources in Michigan; Colorado; Florida and California, prior to any sale.

●  Nestlé’s decision about a sale comes at a time when record wildfires, long-term drought conditions and the coronavirus pandemic are elevating the importance of access to clean, affordable local water sources.

●  Nestlé’s practices have previously led to legislative proposals in Ontario, Michigan and Washington to restrict the bottled water industry.

●  A hearing this coming week before Chaffee County, Colorado Commissioners over Nestlé’s request for a 10-year extension of its permit to draw water from Ruby Mountain Springs, despite significant public concern over a series of unfulfilled promises from the company’s first, now expired, permit; 

●  In Florida, the Suwannee Water Management District will soon review Nestlé’s effort to increase its water take from Ginnie Springs to almost 1 million gallons per day, though Nestlé’s name is not on the permit application -- it buys water from the permittee -- and despite threatening the flow of the endangered Santa Fe River’s iconic freshwater springs. 

These hearings aren’t all that Nestlé is facing:

● Californians continue to await a final Report of Investigation from the State Water Resources Control Board regarding its review of Nestlé’s shaky claim to water rights in the San Bernardino National Forest. The preliminary report found Nestlé had far overstated its rights for years.

●  In Michigan, the company is facing a final permit decision from that state’s environmental regulator, EGLE, which could allow it to increase its daily water withdrawals, with local groups pressing the state’s Attorney General, Dana Nessel, to address the impairment of two streams by Nestle’s present water withdrawals.

 

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