Local activists from the MSBEC-sponsored W.A.T.E.R. group, the Gateway Neighborhood Association and others have been busy getting the word out about Crystal Geyser’s plans to start bottling water in the midst of an unprecedented drought.
Here more links to recent articles in the California, national and international press about this controversy:
KRCR Redding May 15, 2015 = “Bottled Water Battle…the county does not require the company to do an environmental impact study, plus they won’t have to follow state-mandated cuts”.
Action News Chico May 14, 2015 – “Residents Upset Over Water Bottling Plant”
NPR (National Public Radio)Â May 14, 2015 – “Companies like Nestle are being eyed for how and where they’re drawing the water.”
Los Angeles Times May 9,2015 – “…opposition has intensified in the fourth year of record-breaking drought that has shrunk the snowpack and strained the city’s water system.”
San Francisco Chronicle May 10, 2015 – “The move has infuriated environmentalists, American Indian tribes and many of the 3,394 residents of the city of Mount Shasta, who can hardly believe that a company is being allowed to bottle the same water that the rest of the state is under orders to conserve.”
Associated Press (KABC Los Angeles)Â May 11, 2015- “Grass-roots objections to bottled water companies tapping and selling groundwater are increasing as California’s drought moves deeper into its fourth year. Bottled-water companies tapping into groundwater on their own property are exempted from the 25-percent mandatory water cutbacks that Gov. Jerry Brown ordered for cities and towns earlier this spring.”
CBS News (KPIX San Francisco)Â May 4, 2015- “…the snowpack that supplies that water is only at 8 percent of normal for the season.”
The Desert Sun (Palm Springs)Â March 16,2015 – “A section of the county’s groundwater ordinance dating to 1998 requires a permit for the extraction of groundwater to be used outside the area, but there is an exemption for bottled water. The city of Mount Shasta’s regulations include a similar exemption.”
Also see the March 8, 2015 story “Bottling Water Without Scrutiny – Companies Tapping Springs and Aquifers in California with Little Oversight”
Capital & Main (Washington, DC) May 11, 2015 – “To many Californians, the idea of erecting a new facility to export groundwater out of state during a drought may seem beyond paradoxical.”
And finally:
The Guardian, UK – “Walmart’s bottled water comes from the Sacramento municipal water supply.”
We will continue to post breaking news and information here on our website as this story unfolds!