Nestlé lawsuit claims food and beverage giant is illegally bottling California water

A consortium of environmental advocacy groups filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the US Forest Service, alleging that the federal agency has allowed food and beverage giant Nestlé to illegally pump millions of gallons of water from California’s San Bernardino National Forest for decades, despite the current historic drought.

The Story of Stuff Project, along with co-plaintiffs the Center for Biological Diversity and the Courage Campaign Institute, claim that Nestlé is breaking federal law, operating on a permit expired nearly 20 years ago, in 1988, removing between 50m-150m gallons of water each year from a creek in the southern Californian forest to use in its Arrowhead bottled water brand. The organizations are asking the US Forest Service to immediately turn off the water spigot and conduct a permit review, assessing the environmental impact of Nestlé’s operations.

“They are taking water from a national forest that desperately needs that water,” said Michael O’Heaney, executive director at the Story of Stuff, a group that advocates to clean up consumer culture. “The Forest Service is obligated by law to ensure the natural resources of the forest are protected.”

Lisa Belenky, senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said the Forest Service “has a duty to look at permits and make sure they’re current and do an environmental review to make sure it isn’t impacting areas of the forest”.

But Nestlé says it isn’t breaking any laws, and insists that its permit hasn’t expired.

“We adhere to all local, state and federal regulations regarding our operations, all of which are in good standing, including our permit to transmit water in the San Bernardino National Forest,” Tim Brown, CEO of Nestlé Waters North America, wrote in an op-ed in April. “Like several hundred other special permit holders in the San Bernardino National Forest – and some 3,000 nationwide – whose permit is under review, our permit remains valid and, according to federal law, ‘does not expire until the application has been finally determined by the agency’.”

California is currently grappling with a severe, record-breaking drought, which has led to mandatory water restrictions across the state. Companies including Nestlé, Coca-Cola and Starbucks came under fire from angry Californian residents earlier this year, who have demanded the companies stop bottling water during the drought, which has entered its fourth year. Starbucks acquiesced, announcing in May that it would move the sourcing and bottling of its Ethos brand of water out of the state.

But according to trade group International Bottled Water Association, bottling manufacturers account for just 0.02% of all the water used in California each year. Brown, in the same op-ed, insisted that Nestlé’s water usage in the state was insignificant.

“Nestlé Waters operates five California bottling facilities, using a total of 705m gallons of water per year,” he said. “To put that amount in perspective, this is roughly equal to the annual average watering needs of two California golf courses.”

But the groups filing the lawsuit say that removing such a vast amount of water negatively impacts the forest, affecting wildlife like fish and frogs in streams, as well as the habitat surrounding the creeks, including the birds that are dependent on the trees that grow around it.

“We believe that Nestlé’s actions aren’t just morally bankrupt, they are illegal,” said Eddie Kurtz, environmental director at the Courage Campaign Institute. “Quite simply we’d like to see Nestlé stop taking California’s public water and turning it into private profit when there is no water to spare.”

Over the past two decades, the Forest Service allegedly discussed conducting a review of the permit, which would have involved an environmental assessment of the effects of removing water from the forest, but no action was taken.

“The Forest Service has acknowledged that this is not proper, and has promised several times over the years to address the problem, but so far has done nothing,” said Rachel Doughty of Greenfire Law, attorney for Story of Stuff and the Courage Campaign Institute.

“Meanwhile, our drought-parched public lands are deprived of a critical source of water that is instead being bottled for profit.”