WSJ: Nestle Wants to Replace Spring With Municipal Well Water

May 25, 2010 By: Marshall Cutchin

Claiming that they want to take water “in a sustainable way,” Nestle is experimenting with replacing spring water — which they want to use to fill their Arrowhead water brand plastic bottles — with Oregon municipal well water. The spring water is currently used by a local hatchery to produce endangered Idaho Sockeye.
“Nestlé would pipe water from the spring to a proposed new $50 million bottling plant that would employ 53 workers. In turn, it would pump Cascade Locks’ municipal well water to the hatchery to replace all the water taken from the spring—buying 300 gallons a minute from the town for the switch, or about a sixth the total municipal capacity.” In the Wall Street Journal, Deborah Ball writes that because of fears of sabotage by environmentalists, the experiments are taking place under high security.