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GLOBAL FOOD PROVIDER Nestlé is in a battle with critics in tiny Osceola Township, Michigan where residents complain the Swiss company’s water extraction techniques are ruining the environment.
Maryann Borden, a retired teacher who has lived in the western Michigan town since 1953, has photos documenting changes in the Twin Creek river since Nestlé began pumping water in the region in the early 2000s for its “Ice Mountain” brand of bottled water.
“It’s not the same creek,” Borden, aged 73, told AFP. “It’s narrower and deeper and therefore warmer,” compared with the “biting cold” water of her youth.
“The trout can’t survive in it because the water is warmer,” she added.
Located about four hours north of Detroit and with a population of just 900, Osceola Township is a sleepy rural community whose biggest employer is SpringHill Camp, a Christian-oriented program for kids.
The town opposes granting Nestlé a permit to build a pumping booster station along a water pipeline that feeds a tanker load dock in Evart, another small town nearby.
The booster station would help the company pump more water from a controversial Osceola County wellhead if the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality approves the project. Nestlé wants to pump 400 gallons of water a minute, up from the 250 a minute currently.
Town officials voted in January to appeal a county court’s ruling in Nestlé’s favour, portending a judicial saga.
“If you look at the culverts, they provide a historic landmark,” said Tim Ladd, manager of Osceola Township.
“You don’t have to be a geologist or a hydrologist to see those water levels,” he added. “The water lake tables are lower today than what they were two years ago.”
Nestlé rejects this argument and also has some backing among supporters who praise the company for keeping water rates low.
“There’s been no measurable changes to the streams, the aquatic life there,” said Arlene Anderson-Vincent, natural resource manager at Nestlé Waters North America, who notes that dams in the area “can affect those streams”.
Nestlé points to company-sponsored research that backs up its stance, but there has been no independent scientific review of the matter.
$200 a year
Much of the anger in Osceola Township, that voted heavily for President Donald Trump in the 2016 US election, is due to a sense the town is being exploited by a powerful multinational blinded by profit.
Nestlé pays just $200 (€161) a year to the state of Michigan to pump more than 590 million litres of water.
Other US states have struck similar arrangements with big companies, authorising them to pump as much water as they wish for a pittance as long as they build the infrastructure themselves. This includes the beverage giants Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, which sell water under the Dasani and Aquafina brands.
“Nestlé has a reputation worldwide of going to poor rural communities, offering all kinds of economic benefits to the community that never really materialize, and taking as much water as they can get and when the stream runs dry they leave,” said Peggy Case, president of the Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation.
Nestlé said it spends $18 million (€14.5 million) a year in Michigan, including $2.4 million (€1,934,500) in taxes in 2016. The company employs 280 people at its factory in Mecosta County, about 40 minutes away from Osceola Township where about 50 Nestlé workers live.
Nestlé is turning to Twin Creek River as demand for bottled water rises. Wholesale bottled water sales hit a total of $16.4 billion (€13.2 billion) in 2016, surpassing soda sales of $12.5 billion (€10 billion) for the first time, according to the Beverage Marketing consultancy.
Nestlé’s water brands in the US, which includes Poland Springs and Pure Life in addition to Ice Mountain, garnered 55.3% of the company’s total worldwide water sales in 2016.
Affordable water?
Zackary Szakacs, city manager of Evart, credited Nestlé with keeping water rates low in the region. The average income in Osceola Township is just $20,000 (€16,121) per year, around the poverty level for a family of three.
“Thank God we have two of those wells in the city of Evart because I would have to lay people off,” Szakacs said.
“They help maintain and keep our water rates low so our residents that are poor that live in this community can afford to pay their monthly water bill.”
After finding the chemical perchlorate at some wells in 2015, Nestlé financed the cleanup.
Evart is only a couple of hours drive from Flint, where a major water contamination scandal has drawn national attention.
Access to affordable drinking water is becoming more problematic, and as many as 36% of US households may be unable to afford water within five years, according to a 2017 study by Michigan State University scholar Elizabeth Mack.
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When is this madness going to end?
When the EU starts returning these migrants to port of departure.
@deeze nuts: The only way this will end is if we secure the external EU borders. You intercept incoming boats, take the passengers on board your vessel, scuttle their boat, provide them with warm food, clothing and a health check.
Then return them right back from whence they left and continue to do so until they understand that it’s pointless trying to get to Europe illegally by boat. You won’t get to stay.
Then you work with NGOs on the ground in the refugee camps in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. Member states could then take in the most deserving in numbers that they can accommodate whilst simultaneously increasing payments to those running the camps so the standard of living there is adequate for those that remain.
This madness cannot continue indefinitely.
Speak for yourself paulo.
So it’s now racist to want to curb the flow of illegal immigration. Do one you clown, how the hell is that racist?
@Paulo mclawlor:
What has race got to do with it? no one but you brought up ‘Racist’. It seems it is you who is obsessed with race.
@Paulo mclawlor: (Liam)
I don’t think you’ve grasped the concept of Red/Green thumbs.
@Paulo mclawlor:
I fail to find any of those accusations you describe, also how is pro gun racist??
@Paulo mclawlor: . We live in free open society both North and South of this island of IRELAND every citizen of ireland should be able to express there opinions on migrants /refugees or whatever issue which they feel strongly about the fear of beening bully by the far left with such Names has Racists …
@Barnes: @Paulo mclawlor:
Are you deliberately attempting to stifle and shut down debate and criticism of illegal immigration?
How in the name of christ is he rascist????
Don’t fieed the troll. He’s obvious thick as shite and twice as ugly!
@Paulo mclawlor: The only reason that the US allowed in Irish migrants during the famine was because they needed cannon fodder and cheap labour. Not for humanitarian reasons and they didn’t give them a lick in welfare or any handouts.
You’re comparing immigration into vastly uninhabited new world, continent sized countries with resources to boot, to immigration into a tiny island off of the atlantic that is currently experiencing a social housing crisis, suffering from high unemployment and where essential services are being cut to the bone.
You realise that this is an absurd comparison to try and make, right? .
What age are you, 12?
Your posts labelling people racist for wanting to control immigration is ridiculous.
People have every right to that opinion, especially if they work and pay tax here.
Whether you like it or not Muslim immigrants in particular have a higher unemployment rate by far compared to European migrant workers. There is nothing racist in any of that you complete immature little fool.
@Barnes: Why are you accusing others have having more accounts? Your account appears to only two days old. So what other monikers are you posting under?
@OpenBorders:
Bad generalisation -
@OpenBorders: “Putin & Trump,the more red thumbs you get,the closer you are to their uncomfortable truths.”
Hahaha now that did make me laugh :-)
@Guybrush Threepwood:
Your account appears to be active since Dec 15 and yes a joined recently, what other monikers are you posting under… your point is??
Racist , ???not to want our borders and countries ruined , , speak for yourself
@Paulo mclawlor:
Yes “Paulo” Barnes was an evil ba$tard in that great movie, Tom Berenger played a great part but saying that you’d prob think the movie is “racist” as there are guns in it.
@Barnes: That didn’t answer my question. You joined 2 days ago and you’re already accusing others of multiple accounts by referring to them as ‘Liam’? So come on…out with it.
@Guybrush Threepwood:
You’re barking up the wrong tree I’m afraid, you’ll need to ask…
Diarmuid, Dick Cheney, Tariq, Petr Tarasov, Joey, Francis and Open Borders to name but a few.
@Paulo mclawlor: They did not migrate to the US illegally though. They bought their fare and presented themselves at Ellis
@mark rodriguez: You can play games accusing each other of different whilst 100 more people took an risk and paid with their lives. Realistically the only way to stop this is not to reward the risk. Unless any of you can think of any workable.
@OpenBorders: You’re not fooling anyone, you are at it again using multiple accounts to make statement supporting your own view. You clearly can’t support your own arguments, this is pathetic.
Instead of just throwing the word around. . Explain what part of his comment was racist?
@Barnes: Well spotted, Paolo needs to be added to the list. It takes up so much space here when people feed the trolls.
Red thumb an anti immigrant/refugee comment on the journal? Are you joking?
@Guybrush Threepwood:
The comment section is here for all to read don’t you know.
“some of which haven’t appeared to have posted since you joined”
There is a world outside the comment section, you should try it.
@Guybrush Threepwood: He;s got you there, Barnsey, but he’s still a shite-talker.
@mark rodriguez: After depositing the passengers back to their point of embarkation in north Africa, sure.
Openboarders / Paulo = one person .. he just likes to make out that someone else is agreeing with . Same way when Tariq commented .. Petr always followed afterwards to agree with him ..
@OpenBorders:
If I was Liam Egan i’d make some drastic changes to my life in fairness, firstly I’d get some therapy brought in, lose the bum fluff excuse for beard, put the sticky Koran down for 5 mins and maybe depart from the box room in the gaf down in Wexford, I would hopefully venture outside and lose the fear of the Infdel and white Christians…If i was Liam Egan that is.
@deeze nuts: When the EU leaders including Merkel who now knows she made a major mistake that traffickers are selling off our welfare system bit by bit. € 10,000 a head to risk your life and those of your family members on dangerous boats. This is about as cheap human life is to those people and African countries are aiding the flood of Europe and thousand of deaths too. Not one politician here is speaking up against the traffickers, one wonders why is that?
@ Paulo, I see you collect your own fair share of red thumbs!
@deeze nuts: It is just beginning and with Global warming then there will be more migrants, more wars and more diseases. The question will be then, how will countries prevent half the populations of these countries effected by global warming and its effects cope with infrastructure, food, logistics and space?
When are the rich countries going to stand up & take in these people. The richest countries out there are Qatar, Luxembourg, Singapour, Kuwait, United Arab Emirites. Why are these people not looking to go these countries.
@bings: Because these people are looking for a better life and in most of the countries mentioned by yourself they will not find a better life. Especially not as sub-saharans. In Qatar, Kuwait, UAE they would be facing suppression and most likely slave labour.
@Wodanaz von Mises: They are not all looking for a better life. I would think that approx 50% are looking for free hand outs. We have no idea who these people are, what they have done in their own countries. We are going with what they tell us. No way of checking. It’s just crazy. The rich countries should be made step up to the mark & take some responsibility. Send out the TD who went to Egypt to talk to these countries & get them to do some work for a change. Paddy’s day is coming up & the junkets are being booked now. So lets send the TD out to beg these countries to take or give money towards these people. Any TD takers out there PLEASE
@Wodanaz von Mises: If they’re looking for a better life, then they’re economic migrants. Each and every EU member state has a visa process for such people. If they don’t qualify, that’s their problem and not ours. It doesn’t mean they should be allowed illegally enter Europe and gain residency and welfare.
Unless you think that Europe has an infinite capacity to absorb migrants from the developing world?
@bings: The majority of those arriving are economic migrants.
“More than half of those fleeing to Europe from the Middle East and Africa are economic migrants and not asylum seekers fleeing the horrors of war in Iraq or Syria, according to first vice-president of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans.
Quoting what he said were new, unpublished, figures from the EU border agency, Frontex, Mr Timmermans said: “More than half of the people now coming to Europe come from countries where you can assume they have no reason whatsoever to ask for refugee status … more than half, 60 percent.”
According to the UNCHR website, the top ten nationalities arriving in Italy are;
Nigerians, Eritreans, Gambians, Ivory Coast, Sudanese, Guineans, Somalians, Malians, Senegalese and others. In that order. 78% are men, 10% claim to be children and 12% are women.
@OpenBorders:
That’s not true either. That is just as extreme as these right-wing nut jobs -
@Wodanaz von Mises: Complete nonsense. Japan controls its borders just fine. The Hungarian wall has worked – that’s why the media went ever so quiet about it since. Of course no border will ever be completely under the control of the state. Even north Korea has people sneaking out and, more rarely, in. That doesn’t mean that controlling one’s borders is an impossible and futile task and should therefore be abandoned.
Nor is it a choice between having proper border controls vs. ‘tackling the root causes’ of the current migration. One can of course do both simultaneously. So why present such false choices?
@Sean O’Connor: I agree that the majority are looking for handouts nothing else. I see it every day of the week where I live. We have enough of our own living on handouts for generations with out taking in more free loaders
@Wodanaz von Mises: Try to remember that as those seek a better life here, those who have paid to get a welfare system get a worse better, the system they sacrificed to provide for themselves has been water down by free loaders.
I’d say the Italians are raging at the mess that the Brits and French have caused. They had an agreement with Libya to stop these economic migrants from travelling to Europe before the French/Brits had the great idea of bombing one of Africans richest countries to oblivion, and in doing so created a stateless country carved up between warlords and Islamic terrorists!
Correct. And cheered on by HRC who openly celebrated the death of Ghadaffi
By trying to point out one stereotype, you fit yourself neatly into another one. That being the progressive who, rather than having an actual argument on hand, jumps directly into generalisations and insults. That attitude is what will kill the progressive side of the left and drag down the rest of the left with it.
@Jason Culligan:
The comment that this was in response to has since been deleted it seems.
Someone please enlighten me and tell me how many casualties were last year in Australian waters as result of their policy?
@Juan Venegas:
Shhh Juan…The idiot lefties and open border types on here might trigger pointing out that common sense approach.
@OpenBorders:
That is not true – not even close – a country is like a business too many customers is just as bad as too few if you cannot service the need. Not to mention we do not have the socioeconomic and sociocultural abilities to handle that. Just look what happens when you dump mass migration into countries. Canada, Sweeden, Germany – The world needs balance and you cannot have balance by just turning on the firehose.
@OpenBorders:
I do think in a global sense – It is why I have a greater understanding of what will and what will not work.
@OpenBorders: Open borders is the solution to the problem open borders has created? That is madness
@ paulo the the reality is that more people would agree with jason on refugees than would agreee with you.
Not a fan of Putin at all but if he had been president would have vetoed the UN resolution that allowed France. Britain and the US to attack Libya…..Let’s hope under Trump no more regime change
@Pádraig Ó Raghaill:
The majority of Irish people don’t want to take in any of these people.
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/poll-majority-against-taking-in-fleeing-migrants-1.2217564
It’s you open border loons who are in the minority.
@Pádraig Ó Raghaill: I may have a tiny brain, but I understand how polling works. You obviously don’t. 1,200 people is a perfect sample for a poll.
You don’t understand what apartheid is. There is no apartheid in israel. All citizens have the same rights
Look at all those poor women and children in the boat. Like I have said before all of this is by design it’s not some accident https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70e0sa1QHTM&t=1s
With the navies of Europe providing a taxi service tragedies like this are only going to increase in frequency as smugglers and migrnts take more and more risks. Douglas Murray gives a very good presentation on this crisis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSJ8YVEhgQk&feature=em-uploademail
@Pádraig Ó Raghaill: Yes, we’ve already seen that in reality people generally swing further to the right. Even so, the majority polled don’t want to take in any of these people.
@Pádraig Ó Raghaill: Not supporting unvetted mass immigration from the developing world is not “racism.”
It’s perfectly rational and sane.
This is a NON NEWS STORY in a similar vein to stories of so many poor dying because of unclean water or malaria or suicide bombs in Iraq or Afghanistan every month. We have enough issues facing us here every day without being concerned about those that we did not create and cannot rectify because as a tiny divided nation of six million on an island in the north Atlantic we simply don’t have the ability or resources. S.O.S. we currently owe the EU 200billion euro ourselves can anyone help us out please???
This is a terrible pointless loss of life. And it will continue as long as the only border bring respected is Libya’s. Open it now, return the boats. End the encouragement for this trade in misery, now.
@Pádraig Ó Raghaill:
You don’t know the meaning of the word Apartheid, I’d take the word of a man who suffered under it over your anti Jew propaganda any day.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=prager+apartheid+
@Barnes: would you ever learn how to reply under a comment for the love of god??!
It’s increasingly likely that we need a good old fashioned pro-west dictator installed in Libya to keep the oil flowing and stop the flow of illegal immigrants and furthermore that an agreement be signed with this person to ‘repatriot’ the illegals that have swamped Europe so far. Gadafi2 anyone?
@Pádraig Ó Raghaill:
Historically there never has been an independent state called Palestine, and the historical Philistines are not the Arab “Palestinians”; Jews had already lived in those lands for over 3000 years, archaeological evidence proves this.
Before they attacked Israel the Gaza strip belonged to Egypt and Judea and Sumaria(West Bank) occupied by Jordan. Israel no longer occupies the Gaza strip since 2005 as part of a agreement, and Egypt want no part of it either. Yet Hamas rockets, terror tunnels from Gaza etc are still a major security issue
Did you even read that article? Are you saying the jews are the ones suffering from ‘apartheid’?
@Pádraig Ó Raghaill:
How do you explain away the 2M Arab Israeli citizens in this apartheid state of yours?.
Archaeological evidence proves you wrong I’m afraid.
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/merenphatvictorystele.htm
@Pádraig Ó Raghaill:
@Barnes:
6th from bottom row last verse…explain?
Would u say the same about Pakistan
@Pádraig Ó Raghaill:
Military occupation, tell me, how did that come about again?
You need to the these Arabs.. https://www.memri.org/tv/fatah-militant-leader-gaza-fatah-has-lost-its-path-palestine-will-not-be-liberated-futile
Both those articles are just opinion pieces which completely contradict each other. Why should I believe one over the other?
@Barnes:
*tell
I wouldn’t claim the situations are comparable just the idea ‘Britain gave away land that wasn’t theirs’ applys to both Pakistan and israel
@Pádraig Ó Raghaill: @Pádraig Ó Raghaill:
The Egyptian Golden era was from 2613 to 2494 BC, The Merneptah Stele or Israel Stele is dated from 1213 to 1203 BC under the reign of the Egyptian King Merneptah, surely you new that.
@Barnes:
The Merneptah Stele—also known as the Israel Stele or the Victory Stele of Merneptah—is an inscription by the Ancient Egyptian king Merneptah (reign: 1213 to 1203 BC) discovered by Flinders Petrie in 1896 at Thebes, and now housed in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
Proportional response? Do you honestly think if they had one tent the strength of the Israelis. ..that they wouldn’t have used it????
Last years death toll of 5000 was the highest that have ever died in the Meditteranean since the crisis began. It shows that while well intentioned, the EU policy of sending patrol boats is just encouraging more migrants to risk the journey im the hope of being picked up. Consequently the net effect is probably more deaths than people saved.
@Barnes:
Need to update your Egyptology, we need to go back another ten thousand or 36 thousand years there is som debate about those two wide separated figures.
All for profiteering, they should be sought out & punished!
For so long as conditions in Africa and the Middle East remain so dire and desperate, often extremely dangerous and life threatening, people will continue to take terrible chances to achieve safer, more secure and better lives.
We don’t get to hear of the very many”boats” which sink with total loss of all lives and absence of all records.
Mass emigrations and movements of various peoples are part of the history of humanity. When conditions at home change, people migrate. Ireland ‘s peoplecare the sum total of waves of immigration into Ireland. Ireland has also been able to export its people at times of economic failure.
It sounds as if there were to be no rescue interventions that the migrations across the Mediterranean would stop but they would still continue. People will take a gamble if their situation is bad enough. That’s the reality.
The choice is to attempt to save some lives or leave these unfortunate people to their fate. That choice depends on what kind of people we are.
My viewpoint is that all human life is equally valuable.
@Tony Daly: The levels of immigration into Western and Northern Europe today are unprecedented. Don’t make it out it that this is normal. It’s absolutely not.
Who said all lives were not? This is illegal immigration and human trafficking were talking about.
Never has a there been a refugee crisis when the so called refugees have walked through multiple safe countries
This policy is disastrous. And will only increase the amount of drownings
And that’s 100 migrants that WANT be causing trouble in europe. If I were a European I’d be hoping for rough seas.
@Tony Daly:
“Mass emigrations and movements of various peoples are part of the history of humanity.”
You’re fully right Tony, mass emigration and mass movement is definitely a part of human history.
So is the social, economical and political upheval that they bring with them. A good example being the Roman Empire which was brought to utter ruin thanks to mass migrations from Northern and Eastern Europe. Or look at the Plantations in Ireland which has directly resulted in the partitioning of Ireland and continued sectarian tensions in the North.
It’s funny that, in your rush to make it seem like this is normal and good, you forgot to mention that most of the historical record of migration hasn’t been a very pretty read.
@Cian:
You’re right – my mistake should have been this one
http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/a-special-place-in-hell/1.671538
@Sean O’Connor:
Who said it was racism, Sean. As I said, you only seem to have the capacity to think in a single dimension.
have your say