By Kevin McCarty, Sacramento City Council, District 6 With California in its third year of drought, the City of Sacramento’s water conservation strategy includes busting people who flood sidewalks. Since June, we’ve been telling residents they can water landscaping on only three specific days per week and there is to be no watering between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. Last year, the City Council decided to ban bottled water at its meetings. We did so in recognition that plastic water bottles are litt... kmccarty Freedom comment-16528 2009-10-28T03:17:14Z 2009-10-28T03:17:14Z This may come as a surprise to some but I fully support an environmental impact report on the bottled water project in Orland, but rather than these lenghty mostly boiler plate documents ,compiled by highly paid out of town firms I suggest a simpler form of which an example follows. First the impact of bottled water compared to other beverages. Alcoholic beverages of any kind. Impact: Vehicle accidents, domestic violence, liver disease and other ailments,trash along the roadways. Impact on jobs: More judges, more law enforcement, more ambulance personnel, more emergency room personnel. Sweetened beverages of any kind. Impact: Heart disease, obesity, diabetes and strokes, trash along the roadways. Impact on jobs: More doctors ,nurses, medical personnel. medical office jobs, medical equipment manufacturers and vendors of same. Bottled water of any kind. Impact: Trash along the roadways. So you can see in the jobs category bottled water is a clear loser. At this time a new drugstore is being built in Orland without any controversy or any clamoring for an environmental impact report. Again I will give my version of an impact report on this third drugstore in Orland. Impact: Easier access to prescription drugs and the abuse thereof. Easier access to ingredients for meth in a bottle. Less reason for personal responsibility in health matters to control ailments by diet and excercise. Impact on jobs: Increased work for coroner, doctors, nurses medical personnel. Freedom 2009-10-28T03:17:14Z Pinelli comment-16511 2009-10-27T23:05:44Z 2009-10-27T23:05:44Z "mmahood" you are not fooling anyone--you are a shill. Nestle invests money but the profits all go to the corporation, and the plant will employ about 25 people or less when operational. The point is that bottled water is energy wasteful, environmentally deleterious, and we could put those people to work building low-income housing, new schools, or simply helping others, rather than working for a massive and crooked corporation. The most disturbing part is the nefarious nature of the inception of this venture--the water is not owned by the business OR the city, it is owned by the people of California. Pinelli 2009-10-27T23:05:44Z John Schmidt comment-16499 2009-10-27T21:40:17Z 2009-10-27T21:40:17Z fargo: My point was that Nestle isn't being given any limits or restrictions in the amount of water they buy. Yes, I know they have a projected water budget for themselves, but frankly, who cares? It is just bad policy for any local government (our public servants) not to put some restrictions on a business who will use one of our public resources as their for-profit end product. I completely agree with your other points. Fantastic comments! John Schmidt 2009-10-27T21:40:17Z John Schmidt comment-16498 2009-10-27T21:28:59Z 2009-10-27T21:28:59Z Matt: Yes, but it has to be "fair" to everyone, not just to businesses. The promises of jobs and investment should not be substitutes for an open, fair, public review. Who decided that it was "good policy" for Nestle to come to Sacramento and bottle public water? The mayor? The Chamber? The City Development Department? We don't really know, and that is one of the problems in this case. Who decided that it was "bad policy" to put a pause on the project and discuss it? Apparently you did. "Political whim?" Really? From what little information has come out, it would appear the City Council was all too willing to completely ignore this project, even after having been informed about it. The only reason this has been agendized for a Council meeting is because a bewildered and agitated public has demanded input. Would this situation be better if the project had been subject to Council (public) review from the start instead of in midstream? Of course. I don't want to see businesses promised one thing only to have the rug pulled out from under them any more than you do. But this is the situation we find ourselves in. No one wants to hang a "closed sign" over Sacramento. But Sacramento residents are not going to be told to "take our 40 jobs and shut up" either. John Schmidt 2009-10-27T21:28:59Z Matthew Mahood comment-16490 2009-10-27T19:15:25Z 2009-10-27T19:15:25Z In choosing Sacramento, Nestle followed all the rules for the permits and utilities needed, and leased existing space from a local property owner. Nestle has received more than 2,200 job applications in just in just two months. The company has already hired 11 people and has a local contractor and their crew of 80 people, now standing idle. Nestle has already invested more than $3 million, with another $11 million to follow. If the city council stops this project due to nothing more than political whim, council members better be ready to take responsibility for hanging that “closed” sign on the Tower Bridge. World-class cities bring businesses to town in a fair manner, they dont scare them away with bad policies made after the fact. Matthew Mahood 2009-10-27T19:15:25Z fargopentameter comment-16487 2009-10-27T18:39:13Z 2009-10-27T18:39:13Z Paul, I for one don't know offhand how much residential water is used consumptively. It's true that a good portion of it comes to the river through the sanitary sewers and storm sewers, but treating that water is not cheap. And downstream water users are continually beating up on the Sacramento region to do a more thorough (and costly) job of treating wastewater. Leaving the water in the river in the first place, when possible, is better for the environment, better for downstream water users, and less expensive for Sacramento. fargopentameter 2009-10-27T18:39:13Z fargopentameter comment-16484 2009-10-27T18:47:53Z 2009-10-27T18:47:53Z As I said, I agree that the plant is a bad idea. And I never tried to defend the process as "fair." Nestle does, in fact, have a budget of sorts-- it projects using 150 acre-feet annually of water. It could go higher, but there are limits on the amount of water they can pull through existing connections. My point is that a single water bottling plant will NEVER, even under the worst-case scenario, come close to the volume of water used by residents of Sacramento to water lawns, wash cars, and fill the gutters. And while I agree that the Nestle plant is a bad idea, I would love to see people (and the City Council) get equally angry about this much more significant source of waste. I appreciate Council Member McCarty's interest in the City's stewardship of its water. I would like to see a similar statement from him in support of the City's aggressive enforcement of the conservation policy-- a policy that exists, I believe, because of an ordinance he voted for. As part of its fight "to protect the Lower American River from upstream diversions," the City made commitments in the Water Forum Agreement to get serious about conservation and waste reduction. Conservation is never popular, but we need our leaders to stand up for good policy even when it's unpopular-- not make backhanded slaps at the city for "busting" people for flooding the sidewalks. fargopentameter 2009-10-27T18:47:53Z Paul Cox comment-16483 2009-10-27T18:14:27Z 2009-10-27T18:14:27Z I think there is also something to be said about how much water used returns to the area in which it was originally consumed. Are there any % estimates on how much that is? The 150 acre-feet of water for Nestle leaves and doesn't come back. Whereas the 1 acre-foot per family does come back in the form of drainage from watering, as well as down the sink and down the toilet. Paul Cox 2009-10-27T18:14:27Z John Schmidt comment-16479 2009-10-27T17:40:10Z 2009-10-27T17:40:10Z I hope that EVERY one of you, regardless of your opinion on this issue, will come to the City Council meeting tonight. We the people finally have a chance to get this out in the open and discuss it with the policymakers. The fact that this project went ahead with no public input at all is at the crux of our concerns. It was never about "NIMBY" or simply a "knee-jerk" reaction as some here have claimed. John Schmidt 2009-10-27T17:40:10Z John Schmidt comment-16478 2009-10-27T17:35:10Z 2009-10-27T17:35:10Z fargopentameter wrote: "Even moderate reductions in per-household water use in Sacramento residences can add up to water savings that will dwarf the Nestle plant's entire water budget." But Nestle doesn't have a "water budget." THAT'S THE POINT. John Schmidt 2009-10-27T17:35:10Z Marion Millin comment-16464 2009-10-27T05:54:56Z 2009-10-27T05:54:56Z "Fair"? "Fair" like the mayor's team inviting Nestle -- with no legal or public review -- to set up a plant to bottle American River water -- with no set limit on how much they may take -- and sell it back to a public that is subject to restricted usage? A public that has fought long and hard to protect the Lower American River from upstream diversions? Marion Millin 2009-10-27T05:54:56Z savemidtown comment-16445 2009-10-27T02:26:03Z 2009-10-27T02:26:03Z Thank you Councilmember McCarty. savemidtown 2009-10-27T02:26:03Z fargopentameter comment-16418 2009-10-27T05:32:42Z 2009-10-27T05:32:42Z I agree that it's stupid to place a water bottling plant in a city that stands at the epicenter of a water supply crisis of epic proportions. But please, a little perspective. Nestle plans to use about 150 acre-feet of water per year. Compare that to the water that will be used by some residential developments in the region-- like, for example, the 3,500-unit Greenbriar development approved by the City recently. For comparison, you can roughly estimate residential water use by allotting 1 acre-foot per year for each family of 4. If each of the 3,500 units in Greenbriar will house a family of 4 (admittedly a liberal estimate), that would mean that Greenbriar will consume 3,500 acre feet annually-- more than 20 times the water used by the Nestle plant. And that's only a single proposed development project. Council Member McCarty, if we're concerned about water use in Sacramento, then the focus must continue to be on residential use. Even moderate reductions in per-household water use in Sacramento residences can add up to water savings that will dwarf the Nestle plant's entire water budget. It's not fair to use the Nestle plant as an excuse to beat up on the City for enforcing reasonable conservation measures, like limits on lawn watering and prohibitions on wasteful irrigation runoff. fargopentameter 2009-10-27T05:32:42Z Marion Millin comment-16414 2009-10-26T22:52:03Z 2009-10-26T22:52:03Z Thank you, Councilmember McCarty, for speaking out about this issue. "Nestle would make extreme profits with Sacramento water at a time when we are trying to preserve it." This community has also fought many extended battles to protect the American River from upstream diversions. For the mayor's team to invite Nestle to divert water without any environmental, public or council review is unacceptable. Marion Millin 2009-10-26T22:52:03Z