Nestlé critics expecting battle over anti-bottled water ballot initiative

 – Kelly House, The Oregonian/Oregon Live

A group of Hood River County residents want voters to decide whether the Nestlé corporation should be allowed to bottle and sell water from the Columbia River Gorge…

The Cascade Locks City Council has approved Nestlé’s plan to build a $50 million bottling plant in town…

Nestlé’s supporters laud the plant as an economic development opportunity for the cash-strapped town and a job opportunity for its residents, nearly 19 percent of whom are unemployed.

“This is an economic development question,” said Gordon Zimmerman, city manager…

Opponents argue selling water to Nestlé amounts to privatization of a public resource. They question whether it’s a wise move given the ongoing drought gripping most of Oregon.

Zimmerman countered that Cascade Locks’ ample rainfall makes it immune to many of the water problems plaguing dryer parts of the state.

“Water is an abundant resource here,” he said.

We Respond & Your Comments

Let’s get this straight… Nearly 1 in 5 workers can’t find a job. There’s plenty of water. Nestlé wants to spend $50 million on a bottling plant and hire a bunch of locals. Right?

And these Einsteins don’t want it because it would “privatize” a “public resource”?

We’re betting these dingbats would sell Eastern Oregon to Exxon if they’d plaster solar panels all over it. They’d sell Crater Lake National Park if Big Oil, Inc. promised to smother it with windmills. But they hate Nestlé because it’s a big, evil, out of state corporation.

Does it make you want to stick knitting needles through your eyeballs, or what?

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