Dive Brief:
- Bottled water company Crystal Geyser and Siskiyou County are the targets of a lawsuit filed by We Advocate Thorough Environmental Review (WATER) concerning plans for a new water bottling plant to be built near Mount Shasta in Northern California, which is currently battling a severe drought.
- The lawsuit is "accusing Crystal Geyser of pushing through an illegal plan to suck thousands of gallons of water a day from an aquifer that feeds the drought-diminished Sacramento River," according to SFGate.
- The group said the company did not get the proper permits and would violate land-use provisions if it builds this facility. Siskiyou County is also being accused of "allegedly ignoring its own rules and pushing the project through," Associated Press reported.
Dive Insight:
For this group, an environmental impact report is "the ultimate goal," Bruce Hillman, president of WATER's board of directors told the Associated Press. "We don't know what the effect of this plant will be on the local environment, so we are asking for an injunction until these issues have been decided."
However, city and county officials claim that it is not in their legal jurisdiction to require such a report.
Despite California's drought problems, which have lasted for four years and continue to be significant, water bottling issues seem to keep popping up there. In May, Californians protested Wal-Mart stores over their use of the state's water for the Great Value bottled water brand.
Also in May, Nestle announced a $7 million plan to reduce water consumption in California. This was nearly a year after the company came under fire last summer when news came out that Nestle was pumping millions of gallons of water through its pumping plant built on the reservation of the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, not to mention bottling controversy this year.