Only miles away from Flint, Michigan -- where the government switched the water supply and poisoned the community's water to save a few bucks -- the Michigan water authority is considering letting Nestlé double the amount of groundwater it takes to bottle and sell for profit.
The cost to Nestlé? $200 a year.
Tell Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality to cancel this ridiculous plan.
Residents are furious, and rightly so. This is a massive corporate giveaway.
Nestlé is already the largest owner of private water sources in Michigan, and the water-guzzling corporation has deep ties to Governor Rick Snyder’s office. Deb Muchmore, the head spokesperson for Nestlé Michigan, is married to Governor Snyder’s former chief of staff. Perhaps we should stop wondering why Nestlé keeps getting so much from the state government for so little.
Luckily Michigan water regulators haven't made a final decision yet -- and we still have time to raise a huge outcry and pressure them to back down. What's more, the pressure is working -- after public pressure earlier in November, the Department of Environmental Quality promised to hold a public hearing and accept public comments on the project.
No one fights Nestlé’s greedy water grabs like SumOfUs members. Just last summer, the corporate giant was taking millions of gallons of water from Canada’s western water table for pennies while wildfires threatened the entire coast. Hundreds of thousands of us stood up and said: “NO!” We made front page news in Canada and got the government to commit to review water rates. And we’ve helped do the same in California and in Oregon -- where the tiny county of Hood River stopped Nestlé in its tracks.
Tell the State of Michigan to say no this massive corporate giveaway. Stop Nestlé now.