Newest articles on The Sacramento Press tagged as "nestle waters north america"

City considers large water user permits

2010-08-06T05:17:36Z

Sacramento officials should consider requiring special use permits for large water users, including water and beverage bottling companies such as Nestlé, a City Council committee decided Thursday.

The council's Law & Legislation Committee passed a recommendation that the City Council approve a working group to explore whether the city's biggest water users should be subject to conditional use permits that would help give the city more ability to monitor and regulate their water use.

The recommendation was approved unanimously Thursday afternoon by the committee's three present members, Chair Sandy Sheedy and councilmen Steve Cohn and Robbie Waters.

"We have a scarce resource that we don't seem to have any regulation on, other than you pay for the amount you use," Cohn said. "It almost sounds like we need to think about if you use above a certain amount of water...there ought to be a permit. The city ought to have some way to review that, rather than just be forced to sell it at whatever our rate is."

The committee also heard about the city's plans to consider creating tiered water rates that could take effect in 2012 or sooner. The city "may actually be subsidizing" water consumption by the biggest users, Cohn said, adding that water use should also be regulated to encourage conservation and sustainability.

The committee's decision was made despite a recommendation by the city's Community Development Department against requiring special use permits for water and beverage bottling companies. Bottling plants are permitted industrial land uses in zones approved for light industrial, heavy commercial and heavy industrial businesses in Sacramento.

However, the committee's proposal would not be limited to such companies.

The fourth committee member, Lauren Hammond, was absent. Last fall, Councilman Kevin McCarty, who is not a committee member, proposed an emergency ordinance to amend the city's zoning code to immediately require a special permit, and thus, environmental review and City Council oversight, for bottling companies to operate in the city. He made the proposal after city staff approved Nestlé Waters North America opening a water-bottling plant in his South Sacramento district.

Nestlé bottles and sells the most bottled water in this country. Globally, the Swiss multinational company used 10.82 billion gallons of water in 2006 and sold $10 billion of water under different brand names in 2007, according to a report from Food and Water Watch in Washington, D.C.

Nestlé told the city about 250 acre feet — or nearly 82 million gallons — of city-treated American River water would be bottled each year. Nestlé Project Manager Chris Kemp also said the company expected to bottle 30 million gallons of Sacramento tap water in 2010, while future use would be determined by sales. Existing water pipes could bring 250 acre feet of water to the warehouse if operations were run 24 hours a day all year, but that was only expected during peak months, he said.

The city did not seek public input or perform an environmental analysis of the plant's expected impact before it began operation last winter after a failed, six-year battle to bottle spring water in McCloud near Mt. Shasta.

The city does not regulate how much water industrial water customers use except to impose drought restrictions at times. There are no current drought restrictions on industrial users, although there are drought restrictions for outdoor irrigation use by residential users.

On Thursday, Sheedy agreed with Cohn's proposal, including the need to look at all of the biggest water consumers, regardless of whether the water is bottled and sold, used to make soup or to crush cement. Nestlé shouldn't be "singled out," she said.

"I think we have to look at what else is coming here," Sheedy said. "We are going to be losing that commodity if we don't start looking at it."

No more than 20 people turned out for the meeting. Some said they only found out about the meeting this week.

Representatives from Nestlé, Sacramento Coca-Cola Bottling Co. and the Sacramento Metro Chamber spoke out against requiring a special permit for bottling companies. After the meeting, Dave Palais, Nestlé Water's natural resource manager for Northern California and the Pacific Northwest, said the company wouldn't oppose an "overall evaluation" of water use by all users.

Sacramento Coca-Cola, which has been operating since 1927, "would be very disappointed if there would be new hurdles that were put in our way" for opening a big, new plant in North Natomas, the company's executive vice president, Bob Brown, said.

Several people spoke out in support of a special permit, including members of grassroots group Save Our Water Sacramento, which brought Nestlé's plans to open a Sacramento plant to light.

"I'm wondering what our children will do for water — and our grandchildren — once it's all contractually committed to others?" said Maxine Clark, a member of the Save the American River Association. "The word is out now: Nestlé got their way. When will we say no? Will we say no, ever?"

Bill Allayud, California Director of Government Affairs for the Environmental Working Group, said other cities held public forums so people could weigh in before water bottling plants were opened. Large water consumption by such plants can have "multiple impacts," he said.

"Water is not scarce in the city right now," he said. "But in the future, it could well become scarce."

McCarty later applauded the committee's decision.

"This is an important step toward going where we're trying to go," he said. "This issue isn't going away."

Photo by Suzanne Hurt, a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Nestlé Waters appeal filed

2009-11-25T07:03:42Z

Save Our Water Sacramento filed an administrative appeal involving the Nestlé water-bottling plant on Monday.

Davis attorney Don Mooney has agreed to take the case if the issue goes to court. Mooney represented McCloud residents in their six-year fight against a Nestlé Waters North America water-bottling plant near Mt. Shasta. The company abandoned plans for the plant in September.

Save Our Water Sacramento is appealing the city's designation of the Swiss company's $14 million construction project as ministerial, rather than discretionary, in an effort to win an environmental assessment of the plant. The group e-filed an appeal with the city clerk's office and sent a paper copy through registered mail.

Under the California Environmental Quality Act, a discretionary designation of a project that could possibly harm the environment triggers a requirement for an environmental assessment.

"The appeal was filed as a way to encourage the city to perform its legal obligations under CEQA without the need for court action," said lifelong Sacramento resident Loran Sheley, one of the leaders of Save Our Water Sacramento.

Attorney General Jerry Brown threatened to sue Nestlé in 2008 over an inadequate environmental review for its plan to bottle spring water in McCloud.

On Sept. 10, Nestlé Waters Chief Executive Officer Kim Jeffery said the company was building a plant in Sacramento to replace the plant proposed for McCloud.

On Sept. 14, the head of the city's Department of Utilities sent a letter to Mayor Kevin Johnson and the City Council that CEQA does not apply to the plant here because the requested building permit required ministerial rather than discretionary action.

Nestlé has said the appeal has no legal merit and that the company has followed the process established by the city.

Mooney has agreed to represent Save Our Water Sacramento if an administrative appeal doesn't lead to an environmental assessment and the group decides to file a lawsuit, Sheley said.

"We're sort of doing this as a last effort to handle the situation administratively," she said. "We feel we've done everything else."

Group to file Nestlé appeal

2009-11-18T05:10:34Z

In a precursor to any potential legal action, a grassroots organization expects to take its next step in the fight against the Nestlé water-bottling plant by filing an administrative appeal with the city of Sacramento this week.

A Swiss public TV crew is coming to Sacramento Thursday to interview members of the group, Save Our Water Sacramento, which will re-screen the bottled-water documentary "Tapped" at 7 p.m. Thursday at Crest Theatre, 1013 K St.

Afterwards, group leaders will discuss plans to appeal the city's designation of the Swiss company's $14-million construction project as ministerial, rather than discretionary. A discretionary designation of a project that could possibly harm the environment triggers a requirement for an environmental assessment under the California Environmental Quality Act. A ministerial designation does not.

The California Environmental Quality Act also requires all administrative remedies be exhausted before a lawsuit can be filed, said Evan Tucker, a Sacramento resident who helps lead Save Our Water Sacramento.

"Those are supposed to exist as an alternative to litigation," he said. "We can make our case to the city as to why the decision is incorrect."

The group has been seeking an environmental analysis of the plant since at least September, Tucker said. City Councilmember Kevin McCarty asked the council last month to consider amending the city's zoning code to immediately require special permits for water-bottling plants, but the proposal was never discussed.

In a Sept. 14 memo, Marty Hanneman, director of the Department of Utilities, told Mayor Kevin Johnson and the City Council that CEQA did not apply to the Nestlé Waters North America plant because the requested building permit required ministerial rather than discretionary action.

Save Our Water Sacramento contends the plant is being built under a discretionary Facilities Permit Program and that the city has made discretionary decisions, such as allowing construction without a building permit and issuing a stop-work order to halt construction while the lack of a permit was investigated, Tucker said.

Sacramento attorney Tina Thomas and the law firm Remy, Thomas, Moose and Manley — which wrote the book on CEQA, "Guide to the Environmental Quality Act," in 1993 — has been representing Nestlé in its efforts to open a water-bottling plant in Sacramento.

Nestlé contends the company has followed the process established by the city, Thomas said.

"There is no legal merit to this," she said in an email. "We have followed the city procedures throughout this process and continue to follow city procedures. We believe we should be treated no differently than any other similarly situated light industrial company coming into town."

The group expects the city will respond formally and then set up a hearing for the appeal. The California Public Resources Code requires the city to have such a process. However, no administrative appeals process could be found in the city code, he added.

Save Our Water Sacramento is discussing representation with prominent CEQA attorneys.

Suzanne Hurt is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

City halts Nestlé work

2009-10-27T02:48:16Z

A $14 million retrofit of a proposed Nestlé water-bottling plant has ground to a halt after the city of Sacramento issued a stop-work order while investigating whether the work began before the company had legal authorization from the city.

Late Friday afternoon, the city's Community Development Department issued a stop-work order for Phases II and III shortly before an interim or "urgency" ordinance request was added to the City Council's agenda for Tuesday night. The council is being asked to consider amending the city's zoning code to immediately require special permits for beverage bottling plants. The meeting starts at 6 p.m.

On Monday, City Councilman Kevin McCarty and officials from the city's Community Development Department were trying to determine when Nestlé Waters North America began interior renovation of an industrial warehouse being leased for a new water-bottling operation.

"We're still assessing all the facts," said David Kwong, acting director of the city's Community Development Department. "We're trying to make sure there's nothing being done out of the ordinary."

Legally, construction cannot begin before a start-work authorization or building permit is issued, he said.

A building permit for Phase I was issued Oct. 7, but no start-work authorization has been found, Kwong said, adding that a start-work authorization was issued for Phase II the same day.

"I don't know if there was an authorization to work for Phase I," he said.

Phase I included foundation work and moving walls, Kwong said. Phase II involves work on water and drainage lines and other operational needs. However, the company's description of the work to be done appears to overlap in the two documents.

Nestlé maintains the company has not done anything illegal.

"Nestlé Waters is in compliance with the city's building and permitting laws," Brendan O'Rourke, the company's supply chain director and national director of natural resources, said in a written statement. He arrived in Sacramento on Monday to help respond to the unfolding situation.

Phase I construction is complete, the company said. Nestlé began work two months ago and is halfway through renovation of the plant at 8670 Younger Creek Drive, Chris Kemp, Nestlé's Sacramento plant manager, said Wednesday.

"To date, the company has invested more than $3.7 million into this plant in form of permitting fees, construction costs, due diligence payments and costs associated with the movement of equipment from other Nestle Waters plants to Sacramento," read an e-mail from Nestlé on Monday.

The stop-work order may be temporary. A draft ordinance was still being finalized by the city attorney's office late Monday afternoon. The draft goes to council members before being made public, said Amy Williams, spokeswoman for the city manager's office.

The council ought to carefully consider commercial requests to bottle and sell city water, said City Councilman Kevin McCarty, who requested the item be placed on the agenda and later posted a story about his decision.

"Water is increasingly one of more most precious and valuable resources," McCarty said Monday. "My proposal would mandate a further dialogue on all future water-bottling facilities. I think it's an important discussion to have."

Changing the process now would be "troubling," O'Rourke said.

"We have followed the city and state laws throughout this process, invested more than $3.8 million into this facility and hired people to work, all based on the the current law and it would appear that this is an attempt to change those laws midstream," he said. "We find that prospect troubling not only for this plant, but for any business looking for certainty in the siting process."

Nestlé also questioned the legality of the stop-work order. The company said the stop-work order may not be legal because the city already had issued a start-work authorization for Phase II.

"The city has not provided any evidence to support this stop-work order despite the rules that require they do so within 24 hours," said O'Rourke.

The city gave Nestlé preliminary authority to start work on Phase II, but that doesn't give the company the right to continue the work. In addition, no building permit was issued for Phases II and III, said Sheryl Patterson, senior deputy city attorney.

"We do have the right to issue a stop-work order when no building permit has been issued," she said.

An interim ordinance, which would not require review under the California Environmental Quality Act, would give the city time to consider a formal amendment to the zoning code. An interim ordinance requires a super majority or two-thirds vote of the council, to pass, Patterson said.

Nestlé has paid the city $65,000 in permitting and application fees. The company also agreed to hire local contractors and has committed to paying them $600,000 for their work.

Nestlé applied for a building permit through the city's Facility Permit Program in order to make tenant improvements, including underslab plumbing, demolition of existing partition walls and construction of new ones.

Questions also are being raised over whether it was correct to use the Facility Permit Program in this instance. "The Facility Permit Program facilitates a rapid approval process for tenant alterations and improvements of commercial and industrial facilities: minor tenant improvements, including maintenance, repair and minor alterations; and major interior tenant improvements and remodels. This includes tenant improvements to new and existing structures," according to the city's Web site.

"I'm not sure if it all adds up," McCarty said.

Suzanne Hurt is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.

Bottled water foes may join forces; AG to consider review

2009-10-05T06:33:53Z

A group of residents trying to stop Nestlé from opening a water-bottling plant in Sacramento plans to join forces with other Northern Californians fighting the same battle elsewhere.

Meanwhile, California Attorney General Jerry Brown will consider whether to request a copy of the plan for a division of Nestlé, the world's largest food company, to bottle and sell spring water and an unlimited amount of city tap water taken from the American River every year.

NestléWaters North America plans to open a plant here after losing a six-year fight to bottle glacier-fed spring water near Mount Shasta. Brown threatened to sue the company over an inadequate environmental review for its plan to bottle spring water in McCloud, southeast of Shasta, in July 2008.

An area resident notified the attorney general's office about the Swiss company's plans for Sacramento Friday, Sept. 25. The deputy attorney general who worked on the McCloud case will soon meet with Brown in the matter.

"The attorney will discuss with the attorney general whether to request a proposal and take it under review," said Dana Simas, spokesperson for the attorney general.

Concerned over potential environmental impacts, a group called Save Our Water Sacramento has begun contacting residents battling commercial plans to take water in other areas to the north.

"I think that we do need to work together," said Davis resident Nancy Price, a member of Save Our Water Sacramento and West Coast coordinator of the Alliance for Democracy's Defending Water for Life campaign.

They've already reached out to residents of Shingletown, outside Lassen Volcanic National Park. There, a group called Local Water Stays Local is fighting an unidentified bottling company they suspect is Nestlé, said Dick Rullman, the group's president. That group has hired an attorney and will use all legal means "to prevent the depletion of the Shingletown, Inwood, Viola and Manton natural water supply for commercial use," according to their website.

"It's definitely a sore number up here," Rullman said.

Nestlé sells bottled water under many different brand names. Water bottled in Sacramento as Arrowhead Mountain Spring water will be trucked in from Lukens Spring in Placer County, Sopiago Spring in El Dorado County, Sugar Pine Spring in Tuolumne County and Arcadia Spring in Napa County, according to Chris Kemp, a long-time employee of Nestlé Waters North America who has been tapped to manage the Sacramento plant at 8670 Younger Creek Road. That plant, according to a local public relations consultant hired by the company, may already be undergoing interior renovation.

Nestlé may use water from other springs the company gets access to after opening the Sacramento plant, said Dave Palais, Nestlé Water's natural resource manager for Northern California and the Pacific Northwest, in a phone call.

"Yes, that's conceivable if the spring is licensed by the state department of health and passes their requirements," he said, adding that Nestlé is not pursuing spring water in Shingletown. Nestlé discussed buying water from a private property owner five or six years ago, but lost interest after hearing about future development the company believed might contaminate the water, he said.

Shingletown residents tell a different story. Nestlé tried to buy a big ranch with a large spring in the area, but the owner wouldn't sell to Nestlé, said Rullman, whose group believes a San Francisco Bay Area investor is trying to buy water from another property owner as a "front" for Nestlé.

Save Our Water Sacramento, made up of area residents interested in social and environmental justice, is now seeking a Sacramento City Council moratorium on beverage bottling plants in the city. Members of the group said they are worried partly because Nestlé's use of American River water would not be limited in any way, which has been confirmed by city employees.

In statements prepared for the public and the press, Nestlé says it will initially bottle about 30 million gallons of city water annually. However, in memos to the mayor, city councilmembers and a Nestlé consultant, city Department of Utilities Director Marty Hanneman indicates the company and its representatives have told the city Nestlé estimates it would use either 250 acre feet — or nearly 82 million gallons — a year, or 78 million to 117 million gallons a year.

Operating in Florin Fruitridge Industrial Park, Nestlé would initially pay less than $.71 per 100 cubic feet of water, or 748 gallons. City-treated tap water would be used for the company's Pure Life brand. Nestlé estimates it would extract 215,000 gallons of water on an average day, peaking at 320,000 gallons a day, according to one of the memos.

At .71 cents per 748 gallons, Nestlé would pay the city $204 for 215,000 gallons and nearly $304 for 320,000 gallons on peak days, which would come out to roughly $74,500 to $111,000 a year.

A local grocery store charges consumers $4.49 for a 24-pack of half-liter bottles of Nestlé Pure Life water. At .374 cents per litre, consumers would pay $304,754 for 215,000 gallons and $453,587 for 320,000 gallons of Pure Life water. Consumers would pay roughly $111 million to $166 million for a year's worth of Pure Life water at these rates of production. That, of course, doesn't factor in costs to run the plant, make plastic bottles and truck water to stores, or retail mark up.

Last year, Nestlé had $109 billion in sales, according to the company's 2008 financial statement.

The company has also said it would truck in 20 million gallons in spring water to be bottled in Sacramento each year.

The Sacramento plant would be one of the first — if not the very first — Nestlé water-bottling plants in the country where both spring and tap water would be bottled, said Price, who has helped community residents fight bottled-water battles in other states.

Around the world, corporate giants like Nestlé are going into communities to buy up and profit from their water, Price said. National groups like the Alliance for Democracy, which is working to end corporate domination in the United States, maintain that public access to clean water is a human right that must be protected for people and the environment.

The secrecy which has surrounded Nestlé's plan in Sacramento appears to be the way the company operates in all the communities where it seeks to buy up the water, said Sacramento resident Evan Tucker, a leader of Save Our Water Sacramento.

That group also believes the spring water Nestlé plans to bottle here may come from Shingletown, an area 20 miles long running along the Shingletown Ridge on State Route 44, between Redding and Mount Lassen. However, they don't know for sure, Tucker said.

The Shingletown group Local Water Stays Local is currently fighting a private property owner's attempt to sell nearly 300,000 gallons of water a day from Crook Springs, via a well on his property near Highway 44. In July 2008 — the same month the attorney general threatened to sue Nestlé — the developer, who lives in a different county, applied to the Shasta County Board of Supervisors to expand a use permit for that well from 26,000 to 288,000 gallons a day, according to Rullman and a permit amendment document.

"Big money has dollars signs in their eyes," said Rullman, a highway worker who's now retired.

In 1992, despite protests from local residents, the county board approved the original permit for use by a "mining operation" and classified water as a mineral, Rullman said. By law, only one person, an adjacent property owner, had been notified before the plan was approved. That person alerted other residents in 1992 and again in 2008 when notice of expansion plans went out.

Retirees such as Rullman and a long-time attorney and other folks living in the "nooks and crannies" along Highway 44 have been forced to spend money, time and energy fighting the expansion. More than 700 people lined up outside the Shingletown Store and backed up highway traffic to sign petitions against the expansion, he said.

"When it comes to somebody (coming) in and (talking) about taking all the water — we can't exist without water. So people get up in arms," Rullman added. "Nobody wants this up here."

The developer maintains that his well takes ground water from an aquifer. But the people behind Local Water Stays Local believe it's an underground stream that feeds Battle Creek, which is a tributary of the Sacramento River, as well as the Coleman National Fish Hatchery for Chinook salmon and steelhead, and that he has no water rights to it.

They're meeting with the head of the State Water Resources Control Board's water rights division Oct. 14 to determine if that agency has jurisdiction in the matter, Rullman said. His group has also contacted the deputy attorney general.

In rural communities where Nestlé or other companies bottle spring water, offers to create jobs often win people over. Nestlé said the Sacramento plant would create 40 jobs.

"They come into a town where the economy's shot, like McCloud, and they promise 'em jobs, and the peoples' eyes are as big as saucers," he said. "When water sources run out, the companies move to another location. They'll pull water out of here until the water runs dry and all the trees die, and no one will have anything to drink."

Suzanne Hurt is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.