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Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Contact City Council to Stop Nestlé Raid on Sacramento Water : Indybay




Contact City Council to Stop Nestlé Raid on Sacramento Water : Indybay:

"Save Our Water, the coalition of Grassroots community activists mobilizing against the Nestlé Corporation's plan to build a new bottling plant in south Sacramento, is asking the Sacramento City Council to quickly adopt an urgency ordinance requiring a special permit for water bottling facilities in the city in order to stop the internationally boycotted corporate giant from coming to the Capital City.

Councilmember Kevin McCarty at last Tuesday's city council meeting asked for the issue to be agendized for a future city council meeting so that an 'urgency ordinance' can be passed. This would require this type of project to come before the city council and be subject to environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

'We are excited about this development, but concerned about the timeline,' said Evan Tucker, an activist with Save Our Water. 'If the council does not agendize this issue soon, it could be too late for the new law to affect Nestle. We want to make sure the ordinance would affect Nestle, not just bottling plants in the future.'

Vice Mayor Lauren Hammond also said she was concerned about water bottling in this city and wanted this issue addressed by the council, noted Tucker. However, Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson supports the proposal by Nestlé to open up the plant, claiming it would bring 'jobs' to Sacramento."