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Wild Bill
climber
Ca
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Topic Author's Original Post - Jan 17, 2007 - 12:52pm PT
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I'm thinking I should invest in Nestle stock, but am nausiated by the thought.
Here's an excerpt from this story. Check out the last sentence in my post below
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/01/17/BUG35NIVFK70.DTL&type=printable
"In the United States, bottled water is dominated by three companies: Nestle, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. The largest, Nestle, sells water under a wide variety of brands, including Perrier, Arrowhead, Poland Spring, Ice Mountain and San Pellegrino.
In 2002, Nestle consolidated its dozens of bottled-water brands worldwide into a single subsidiary, Nestle Waters. The division now accounts for nearly 10 percent of the Swiss food conglomerate's total worldwide sales, with almost half of that amount coming from North America.
To help meet steadily rising demand, Nestle signed an agreement in late 2003 to bottle water from the slopes of Mount Shasta and sell it under the Arrowhead brand.
The 50-year deal envisions construction of a 1-million-square-foot plant at the base of the Northern California mountain, bottling as much as 520 million gallons of water annually from the local watershed.
Other companies, including Dannon and Crystal Geyser, already bottle water in the area.
Some residents of the small town of McCloud, located near the proposed Nestle plant, fought the deal. Among other things, they said that by paying only about $300,000 a year for access to local water, Nestle would be giving the town roughly a penny for every 17 gallons it can sell."
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Wild Bill
climber
Ca
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 17, 2007 - 01:54pm PT
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Ok, I will be the first to rant on this one.
What gives Nestle the right to make so much dough off of California's water?! Is this governed by the Dept. of Interior or something? Getting 520 MILLION gallons per year for $300,000 sounds like a corporate handout to a corporation that doesn't need it.
Can someone do the math for me: how much does a liter of bottled water cost? How many liters in 520 million gallons? Once Nestle recoups the cost of its ONE MILLION SQUARE FOOT FACILITY, this adds up to a lot of gravy.
Oh yeah, one more thing - Nestle is a FRENCH OWNED CORPORATION. I guess we can't call it "freedom water" eh?
Any Shasta area folks here want to weigh in?
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John Moosie
climber
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Jan 17, 2007 - 02:02pm PT
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California has a history of giving its resources away. Just look at oil. Texas and Alaska reap huge benefits from its oil reserves but california just voted down doing the same thing. We are idiots.
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dfrost7
Social climber
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Jan 17, 2007 - 02:03pm PT
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... and the irony of bottled water.
We have it in our market place because we, as consumers, buy the fear. We buy the
fear of our city water and don't know squat about what is in the bottle.
Not to mention, we have created, as a culture, water that pollutes with the ever
convenient, endless plastic bottles. Water that pollutes. I've seen enough of those
bottles on the roadside and in rivers, streams, and ocean.
I'm just sayin ......
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Chaz
Trad climber
So. Cal.
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Jan 17, 2007 - 02:11pm PT
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Wild Bill may not be the Investment Type if making profit nauseates him.
When I invest in something, they damn well better make a boatload of money, and do it in a big fukken hurry!
I just drink Tap Water. The Tap Water around here tastes way better than any water that comes in a bottle because it comes from the local mountains.
It's way cheaper, too.
And I know my money isn't going to line the pockets of Big Water.
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Wild Bill
climber
Ca
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 17, 2007 - 02:13pm PT
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Janet: If history is any guide, America won't be "looking" up in Canada - we will just invade Canada and own the water.
dFrost7: Yes, the ubiquitous plastic water bottle. How much energy goes into manufacturing those bottles, bottles to hold water.
The real pollution apparently is found in the bottle of water itself. The plasic bottles leech out toxins into the bottled water, thereby defeating the whole purpose of buying "pure" spring water:
"Among other health concerns, the report recalled that a potential carcinogen, benzene, was found in Perrier in 1989 and bromate - another carcinogen - in Coca-Cola's Dasani in 2004.
Water from bottles made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) also contain low levels of the heavy metal antimony. On leaching, the report warned: "It is possible that some potentially toxic chemicals may migrate out of the plastic product and into whatever it is in contact with." This happened in October 2005 when the BBC found unopened bottles of Volvic that had been contaminated with napthalene.
Sustain said that water bottles contained little if any recycled plastic and had travelled up to 10,000 miles - in the case of "most notorious example", from Fiji."
From http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/article2121980.ece
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Wild Bill
climber
Ca
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 17, 2007 - 02:15pm PT
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Chaz: "Wild Bill may not be the Investment Type if making profit nauseates him. Honey, pass me the diamonds."
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maldaly
Trad climber
Boulder, CO
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Jan 17, 2007 - 02:39pm PT
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We all need to be boycotting bottled water. Empty plastic bottles have become the new plague of natural spaces. Just walk on any un-groomed beach, anywhere in the world, and you trip over the ubiquitous plastic water bottle. Just say no! Fill up your own water bottles, dammit.
Unfortunately polycarbonate (Nalgene), everyone's favorite, leaches Bisphenol A into the contents and f*cks with your endocrine system by mimicing estrogen (Read about it here: http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/NewScience/oncompounds/bisphenola/bpauses.htm);, raw aluminum tastes like s*hit and may give you Alzheimer's. I switched over to those cool Sigg bottles that have some sort of ceramic liner. I had forgotten what tasteless water was like-- actually refreshing. Try it, you'll like it. Watch out though. I froze a bottle this weekend in Ouray and split the side.
Mal
PS-Speaking of Ouray, there's a local water bottling plant there, Biota, which uses a bottle made from corn starch that will bio-degrade in 30 days in a commercial composting facility. Cool.
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climbingjones
Trad climber
grass valley,ca
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Jan 17, 2007 - 03:08pm PT
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Water is more expensive than gas. Your average bottle of Aquafina (1 liter) costs $1.09 (here in Northern California anyway). Roughly 3 and3/4 liters per gallon. Thats around $4.80 a gallon. And so many love to bitch about the price of gas. I guess that is because they can die Dub-ya to oil. So lets see, Al Gore is a "champion" of the environment (read: earth). And the vast majority of the earth is water..... hey, I think I just tied Al Gore to the inflated price of bottled water. I mean come on, we have to have it right?
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Wild Bill
climber
Ca
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 17, 2007 - 03:23pm PT
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At $4.80 per gallon, producing 520 million gallons per year out of Shasta, Nestle will gross $2,496,000,000 (over 2 billion dollars gross). Remember, Nestle pays $300,000 for that water.
Not bad for Nestle.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Jan 17, 2007 - 10:04pm PT
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Aquafina is Pepsi free Pepsi.
In the mid 90s Pepsi decided to do something about making regional differences in product go away. These differences were due to variations in water quality from region to region. They installed RO systems at every bottling plant and as there's not a big cost penalty for doing it made them all three times the initial size they needed to allow for future growth.
Then someone figured out they could sell the water at the same price or a premium. Within a year they were all running at capacity.
Deja Blue is Dr Pepper free Dr. Pepper. Dasani Coke free Coke. The Basques that set up shop in Olancha have made a killing. Every water wholesaler (Caliagua, MWD, Olivenhain, etc.) and even the reclaimed water districts have their own private labels for promotional use.
The activated carbon filter on the frige is good enough for me.
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john hansen
climber
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Jan 17, 2007 - 10:40pm PT
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You might not believe it but bottled water (desalinated ocean water from 2000 feet below the surface) has become the state of Hawaii's biggest export product. It's huge in Japan ( Spinal Tap reference... sorry) supposed to have all kind of minerales ect. Bigger then Kona coffee, and pineappel, and tropical flowers,,, sells even better then the "bobble head hula dancer doll "..
Aloha
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Wild Bill
climber
Ca
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 18, 2007 - 05:58pm PT
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And how about that Fiji water? Magical properties or somethin?
I was wrong about Nestle being French - it's a Swiss corporation.
Damn Swiss.
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Mimi
climber
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Jan 19, 2007 - 11:28pm PT
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Bump for social consciousness! You make a very good point about the sale of public water for profit without paying specific royalties.
This unnecessary bottled water craze is also causing problems for landfills due to their huge numbers. They aren't all making it to the recyclers. And many recycle operations are glutted and are sending their collections to the landfill anyway.
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mrtropy
Trad climber
Nor Cal
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Jan 19, 2007 - 11:29pm PT
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Fuucking sick
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Off the Couch
Trad climber
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Jan 20, 2007 - 12:58am PT
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Isn't anyone going to stop them from building a 1 million square foot facility and sucking 540 million gallons per year out of the area?!
Removing that much water cannot be without some sort of consequence.
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TradIsGood
Happy and Healthy climber
the Gunks end of the country
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Jan 20, 2007 - 06:28pm PT
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The nice thing about water is it really is "renewable". So "taking 540 million gallons..." just means you aren't taking it from some place else. And it all ends up coming back as rain eventually anyway.
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Dave
Mountain climber
the ANTI-fresno
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Jan 20, 2007 - 07:10pm PT
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So, a question?
Who has the senior water rights in the area? Is nestle buying those senior rights from the owner(s)?
If so, what exactly is the problem?
If you don't know, you might want to find out.
Water law is not an easy thing. In wet years people think they can sell off surplus and make a quick buck. this creates problems come droughts. Senior owners of water rights take precedence - if they haven't sold off their rights.
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Mimi
climber
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Jan 20, 2007 - 09:15pm PT
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The annual water usages for the neighboring municipalities should be looked at too. Maybe 540 MMgals isn't that much on the local town/city usage scale. But it sounds like a lot to me, especially in areas like CA where water is scarce and usage is so controversial.
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d-know
Trad climber
electric lady land
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Jan 21, 2007 - 01:12pm PT
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buying bottled water legitimizes the privitization
of a common commodity.
lots of water there is, but how much of it is safe to drink?
it is establishing an example that indicates
a potential future where only the people who can
afford clean water shall have it.
cadillac desert by marc reisner is a good read on the subject
of h2o in the american west.
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