Communities Speak Out: Nestle, Stop Stealing Our Water

Corporate Accountability International. Posted April 10, 2009.

We formed our group, Protecting Our Water and Wildlife, and began educating anyone that would listen.  I called the DEP at the state and the EPA and they simply said, "We can't help you; there's nothing they could do."  We then worked night and day and weekends, talking, going to the dump, talking to people on street [unintelligible], talking with the media and attending all community events to try to educate.  Many battles ensued with Shapleigh Boards because the selectmen were siding with Nestlé.  They felt jobs would be created but Nestlé told me at the hearings, there will be no jobs; this will simply be a bore well in the ground. 

We eventually got petition signed and placed a moratorium on for 180 days and then had to call a special town meeting by a notary which was rarely done in our state but that was accomplished with the vote for water rights and local self-government which passed overwhelmingly in both towns.  Through the strength of our voters, we now have the ammunition in place to defend our water rights.  Nestlé was labeling us as the "Culture of No" but we began using that in our press as the "Culture of Know" and we faced monumental resistance with Nestlé painting their story of how green and warm and fuzzy they are. 

They made their biggest mistake by actually driving to the school with one of their very large water trucks and people appeared and surrounded it and what happened was they actually saw the size of them, right by the two schools where they would have been passing by. At that point, the citizens turned to our side and they made their own mistake by doing that.  At this time, with water rights and local self-government, on our books, Nestlé is now saying they will just walk away which is hard to believe.  I have emailed the DEP to enforce removing the monitoring wells and have received no action.  I've talked with our representative and he's going to speak to the chairman who oversees the DEP and try to force those wells out of our land preserve.  Nestlé is now working every day at our state house and for the first time in Maine, we now have fourteen pending water bills to be voted on in our house and we are hoping that our representatives will listen to the people.    Thank you.

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