McCloud, California has always been the outdoor enthusiasts dream vacation destination.  The beautiful views, clean air and excellent fishing has attracted tourists from as far as Japan.  The 1,300 inhabitants of this community were living peaceful until the corporation, Nestle, found a business opportunity.

Bottled water giant, Nestle Waters North America, saw a different opportunity in this tightly knit community.  Nestle struck a 100 year deal with McCloud to empty 1,250 gallons a minute from their streams formed by melting glaciers.  This water would be bottled, packed into 300 tractor trailers every day and sell the water for up to 1,000 times the price of tap water.  The bottled water center would be the size of 5 Wal-Mart super-centers combined in one.  Nestle struck a back door deal with McCloud’s town hall to have the plant up and running by 2006.

Nestle had already opened a plant in Michigan that nearly destroyed the ecosystem of the surrounding wetlands.  The plant in Michigan was only drawing 400 gallons a minute; imagine the effects of 3 times that amount emptied from McCloud.  The people of McCloud would not let this happen to their town and have stepped up to prevent the plant from being built.  As consumers, we need to help the people of McCloud by refusing to purchase bottled water from these corporations.  The solution to stop this corporate greed is filtering your own tap water and refilling your own reusable stainless steel bottle.

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