Bloomberg -Last
year, U.S. bottled water sales reached $16 billion, up nearly 10
percent from 2015, according to Beverage Marketing Corp. They outpaced
soda sales for the first time as drinkers continue to seek convenience
and healthier options and worry about the safety of tap water after the
high-profile contamination in Flint, Mich., about a two-hour drive from
Mecosta. Nestlé alone sold $7.7 billion worth worldwide, with more than
$343 million of it coming from Michigan, where the company bottles Ice
Mountain Natural Spring Water and Pure Life, its purified water line.
The
Michigan operation is only one small part of Nestlé, the world’s
largest food and beverage company. But it illuminates how Nestlé has
come to dominate a controversial industry, spring by spring, often going
into economically depressed municipalities with the promise of jobs and
new infrastructure in exchange for tax breaks and access to a resource
that’s scarce for millions. Where Nestlé encounters grass-roots
resistance against its industrial-strength guzzling, it deploys lawyers;
where it’s welcome, it can push the limits of that hospitality,
sometimes with the acquiescence of state and local governments that are
too cash-strapped or inept to say no. There are the usual costs of doing
business, including transportation, infrastructure, and salaries. But
Nestlé pays little for the product it bottles—sometimes a municipal rate
and other times just a nominal extraction fee. In Michigan, it’s $200.
In the U.S., Nestlé tends to set up shop in areas with weak water
regulations or lobbies to enfeeble laws. States such as Maine and Texas
operate under a remarkably lax rule from the 1800s called “absolute
capture,” which lets landowners take all the groundwater they want.
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