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The Courts United States Businesses

Nestle Cannot Claim Bottled Water Is 'Essential Public Service,' Court Rules (theguardian.com) 75

Posted by BeauHD from the murky-water dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Michigan's second-highest court has dealt a legal blow to Nestle's Ice Mountain water brand, ruling that the company's commercial water-bottling operation is "not an essential public service" or a public water supply. The court of appeals ruling is a victory for Osceola township, a small mid-Michigan town that blocked Nestle from building a pumping station that doesn't comply with its zoning laws. But the case could also throw a wrench in Nestle's attempts to privatize water around the country.

The Osceola case stems from Nestle's attempt to increase the amount of water it pulls from a controversial wellhead in nearby Evart from about 250 gallons per minute to 400 gallons per minute. It needs to build the pump in a children's campground in Osceola township to transport the increased load via a pipe system. The township in 2017 rejected the plans based on its zoning laws, and Nestle subsequently sued. A lower court wrote in late 2017 that water was essential for life and bottling water was an "essential public service" that met a demand, which trumped Osceola township's zoning laws. However, a three-judge panel in the appellate court reversed the decision. "The circuit court's conclusion that [Nestle's] commercial water bottling operation is an 'essential public service' is clearly erroneous," the judges wrote. "Other than in areas with no other source of water, bottled water is not essential."

"The court noted that infrastructure that provides essential public services included electrical substations, sewage facilities or other similar structures," the report adds. "Nestle's pumping station does not fit in that category." The judges also disagreed with Nestle's argument that it represented a 'public water supply.' They said state law 'unambiguously' implies public water supplies are 'conveyed to a site through pipes' while nonessential water is provided in bottles."
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Nestle Cannot Claim Bottled Water Is 'Essential Public Service,' Court Rules More

Nestle Cannot Claim Bottled Water Is 'Essential Public Service,' Court Rules

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  • Nestle's CEO says it's not a right (Score:5, Informative)

    by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Thursday December 05, 2019 @10:37PM (#59490054) Homepage Journal

    A lower court wrote in late 2017 that water was essential for life and bottling water was an "essential public service" that met a demand, which trumped Osceola township's zoning laws.

    Nestle's CEO Brabeck-Letmathe said that the idea that water was a basic human right was "extreme". So how can bottling water be an "essential public service" if water's not essential?

    • Re:Nestle's CEO says it's not a right (Score:4, Funny)

      by whoever57 ( 658626 ) on Thursday December 05, 2019 @11:09PM (#59490114) Journal

      1. Username checks out.
      2. Do you really expect consistency from the CEO of a major company where business is concerned?

    • Easy (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Thursday December 05, 2019 @11:19PM (#59490126)
      The bottling of the water itself is what's essential because of the value it adds. This doesn't mean you have a right to bottles of water, just that bottling them is essential as a public service.

      See, you can do anything when you work backwards from your conclusion. How do you think we maintain the private health insurance system in America?

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by xonen ( 774419 )

        Having tasted the tap water in the USA, i'm tempted to say bottled water is a necessity.

        Tap water is only drinkable after it's been treated using carbon filters or extensive boiling. Even tea water is preferably treated with a filter to make said tea drinkable. Better use bottled water for tea or coffee or any cooking.

        • Re:Easy (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Dutch Gun ( 899105 ) on Friday December 06, 2019 @03:53AM (#59490490)

          You realize that "tap water in the USA" is not at all uniform in taste, right? Different regions have quite varied composition, based on source / local mineral composition. Some of it is excellent, and some of it is awful.

          • He must have had the Flint, mi. vintage of '14.

          • Yep. Florida is notorious for having horrible flavored water

          • Bullshit; the best of it still tastes like dilutes pool water.
            • ...diluteD

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by epine ( 68316 )

              Bullshit; the best of it still tastes like dilutes pool water.

              That's why it's possible to sell liquid speaker wire at $1000 a foot. Different strokes for different folks. You're evidently one of those guys for whom solid wire isn't fit to manufacture a toilet brush.

          • You realize that "tap water in the USA" is not at all uniform in taste, right? Different regions have quite varied composition, based on source / local mineral composition. Some of it is excellent, and some of it is awful.

            Best tap water I've had is from my faucet, we had it tested, and the company was honest - told us we didn't need a filter.

            Worst was in a town in the middle of Ohio. I stopped there to eat once on travel, and asked for a glass. The waitress asked if I was sure, because their water was terrible. I was curious, so said yeah. Jeebuz, she was right. Smelled and tasted like leachate from a superfund site. I have no idea how that was fit for human consumption.

            Second worst was some well water from a mid-Pennsyl

          • You realize that "tap water in the USA" is not at all uniform in taste, right? Different regions have quite varied composition, based on source / local mineral composition. Some of it is excellent, and some of it is awful.

            Not surprisingly, foreigners tend to visit metropolis areas, and they experience what they experience there. The rest of us just snort in disbelief at what they think of various "USA" things.

        • It goes without saying urban water is highly treated vs. untainted rural water sources if you ever watched the doc "Tapped" you'd realize the majority of bottled water is tainted almost as bad some tap water due to rogue chemicals in bottle manufacturing. Populations around bottle plants are contracting cancer at an alarming rate and people who drink bottled water piss plastic.

          Reverse Osmosis and a carbon filter can work wonders on tap.

          • The 'untainted' rural water out of my well contains 90 times the safe limit of arsenic. It also contains a cocktail of fun things like sulfur, iron, and manganese. The only thing missing is lead.

            Even with RO and then the subsequent 3 step filtration it would take to make suitable to drink I'd love to have Phoenix or LV water. Municipal water is not something to take for granted, no matter what a silly documentary would have you believe.

            • Seems to be a misunderstanding. I wasn't categorizing all rural water as untainted. I meant literally a rural water source that is untainted. (I was speaking to the wide spectrum of overall water quality one can be exposed to.)

              Sounds like you live next to a coal plant or factory by the metrics of your water. Sounds bad, that's definitely why water testing is a must in rural areas.

              My comment was referring to general tap water in regards to RO and carbon filter since, most city taps besides extreme tain
        • There is no consistency in tap water in the US. One area taste completely different than the next.

          My area taste pretty good.

          • There is no consistency in tap water in the US. One area taste completely different than the next. My area taste pretty good.

            That's what she said.

          • Same here. We've got a dozen or so industrial wells that supply my city, and different parts of town have water from different wells. They're mostly the same, but not all the same. What's great is that the municipal water department produces an annual report on each well, and you can look up exactly what's in the water you're drinking.

            If you look at the geographic location of the wells and compare the water report you can see what parts of the area have more iron in the rock, where the magnesium rich rock i

        • Having tasted the tap water in the USA, i'm tempted to say bottled water is a necessity.

          Why do you instantly jump to this insanely wasteful practice when you could simply just run water through a carbon filter? Carbon filters are cheap, easy, and can be installed directly in a faucet. Saying that you should use bottled water for cooking ranks on a scale somewhere between completely fucking asinine and outright shilling for Nestle.

          • Carbon filters don't work nearly as well as reverse osmosis - and those installations can cost hundreds or thousands. Performing it at scale is more efficient. But individual bottles are a terrible method of distribution.

            Saying that you should use bottled water for cooking ranks on a scale somewhere between completely fucking asinine and outright shilling for Nestle.

            I do use only carbon-filtered water for cooking, though (except boiling pasta). The taste is noticeably better. It's way out there on the scale, but it's not completely off the deep end.

          • Having tasted the tap water in the USA, i'm tempted to say bottled water is a necessity.

            Why do you instantly jump to this insanely wasteful practice when you could simply just run water through a carbon filter? Carbon filters are cheap, easy, and can be installed directly in a faucet. Saying that you should use bottled water for cooking ranks on a scale somewhere between completely fucking asinine and outright shilling for Nestle.

            The bottled water con job is one of the most successful business cons ever. They've managed to take virtually the same thing as comes out of the tap, put it in little bottles, and make for an astronomical markup. And they've convinced people that if it isn't in a bottle, you'll die from drinking one sip because chemicals.

            https://abcnews.go.com/Busines... [go.com]

            So unless there are specific things to remove, that carbon filter is just fine.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Ogive17 ( 691899 )
          Compared to where? Most places I've been around the world do not drink water from the tap at all. In my town, I think we have very good tap water. Though I do know of a few towns in the region that do not have good water. It's all dependent on the source.

          20oz bottled water is a con and waste. I understand the need to deliver water during emergencies. They should be giving out 5 gallon jugs.
        • LOL, now that's funny. Where did you taste the tap water? Are you going to claim that you personally tasted water from every water dept in this nation? The taste of water is highly specific to the source, the nature and degree of treatment and the pipes it runs through to the users. Water in neighboring towns can have very different tastes.

          My water tastes pretty good. The water in the next town over where my ex and my kids live doesn't unless you let the water run for a while first or let it sit out fo

          • Are you going to claim that you personally tasted water from every water dept in this nation?

            You'd have to taste water from every well, not just from existing water departments. An enormous number of people have their own well. I wish I did.

          • The taste of water is highly specific to the source...

            And then they add chlorine. Or were you talking about well water?

            • If the water is clean enough when it's added, you can't taste nor smell it. Learned this while cleaning pools as a summer job, in college for chemistry no less - the residual free chlorine is at a low enough level you can't detect it; it's only when it reacts with organic impurities and forms a bevy of chloramines, which are way more pungent than free chlorine. I used to run my pools well north of 3ppm (twice what I was told to do), between cleaning them well and keeping them at a heavily buffered pH 7.5 I

        • I drink water essentially to the exclusion of all other beverages, and almost all of it tap water. In NH, the water from a private well, with no additional filtering, was wonderful. In Santa Barbara, I tried for months to see if I could come to accept the tap water as palatable, and ultimately just couldn't do it. It's the only place I've ever lived where I bought bottled water.

        • Hey look another arrogant European who thinks America is completely homogeneous. You would probably try to drive across it in a day too if we let you.

          • Just route 'em around Oklahoma; they already think poorly enough of us as it is.
            • And West Virginia, Ohio, Carolina, hell the entire south except parts of Dade and Monroe counties in Florida. Jump them from northern Virginia to Colorado and remove Idaho and Montana from the map.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Cederic ( 9623 )

            Given it's been done in under 29 hours while avoiding arrest for speeding, yeah, if you let me I reckon I could.

            America isn't so big.

            • It is not Russia big but is big enough. Montana is roughly the size of Germany and Oregon is the size of Romania.

        • Re:Easy (Score:4)

          by twocows ( 1216842 ) on Friday December 06, 2019 @08:27AM (#59490828)
          Tap water tastes different from city to city, let alone from state to state. I travel to another city about 50 miles away once a week and their tap water tastes awful compared to the stuff we have locally.
        • Brita Blue or Zero Water. Or if you want to go all out reverse osmosis setups can be had for $300+ installation (I suck at plumbing). And we could solve the water taste problem at the source too if you want, you'd just have to vote for it

        • Having tasted the tap water in the USA, i'm tempted to say bottled water is a necessity.

          Tap water is only drinkable after it's been treated using carbon filters or extensive boiling. Even tea water is preferably treated with a filter to make said tea drinkable. Better use bottled water for tea or coffee or any cooking.

          So you have tasted all the tap water in the USA? It's a pretty big place. And having travelled a good bit, I've found there to be way too wide a range of quality for such statements. I've been in places where the water approaches mountain spring quality, and others where I've gotten a "Are you sure?" when I've asked for a glass of water. Of course I'll want a sip just to see why they hate their water so much.

          My own tap water isn't quite mountain spring water, but it's close. And it tastes better than mos

      • DRINKING water is essential.
        How one get's water - not so much.
        It's far more eco-friendly to pipe water than to add all those plastic bottles to the chain.

        Allowing capitalistic grabs on water is a crime against humanity.

    • A court in Lithuania ruled that brewing beer is an "essential service" under the law. Maybe that's where Nestle's lawyer got that idea.

      The CEO in the beer case pointed out that HE never said beer is an essential service, the lawyer pointed out the "essential service" values to the judge. Yes, the decision was widely ridiculed, as it should have been.

    • the long game is the day of $250 /case water being the only clean choice or then forced by law jail / prison water.

    • The result of the first case is patently absurd which means you have to wonder about the motivations of the judge in that case. Corporatist America is not a public service, the interest of corporations are in direct conflict with the interests of citizens.

    • Megacorps laugh at your puny attempts at reason and logic. Mental gymnastics? not needed.

      Because money.

    • I'm just going to leave the video of the Nestle CEO that Drinkypoo is talking about right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

      Creepy...

  • Should've ordered them to build it (Score:5, Funny)

    by weilawei ( 897823 ) on Thursday December 05, 2019 @10:41PM (#59490060)

    Should've ordered them to build it, and supply all the water passing through as bottled water to the residents, for free, if it's essential. No profit or revenue allowed to be made, except whatever the state sets for a water rate.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by weilawei ( 897823 )

      Troll?

      Apparently Solomonic justice isn't in style for those who would try to seek rent on the backs of others.

    • This should have been modded insightful, the moderator has clearly had an aneurysm.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by GuB-42 ( 2483988 )

      I actually could imagine a serious agreement coming out of that.
      Ex: Nestle gets its facility, in exchange, they are required to provide a certain quantity of bottled water at a set price, for emergencies. Beyond that, Nestle can profit all they want.

      That's not an uncommon way of doing things.

      Being an "essential public service" is a double edged sword. You have some privileges, but you also have a lot of obligations and get a lot attention from regulators.

    • Well, not free. But you have the right idea. They should've just categorized it as essential, and regulated it like a utility. The public utilities commission [wikipedia.org] regulates utilities and caps their profit at a certain percentage of the cost to provide the service.

      Water desalinated via reverse osmosis (the same process Nestle uses to make their bottled water) costs about $2000 per acre-foot [mercurynews.com]. That's 0.16 cents/liter. The plastic used to make the bottle costs about 2-4 cents [quora.com]. So the PUC should've just req
  • im sure nestle will win in the end. its seems that is how everything works these days.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Not quite everything. Sometimes legislators might be better ROI.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by v1 ( 525388 )

      I wonder if Nestle will be seeking a refund for the money they paid the lower court judges to make the original "essential services" ruling?

  • Obligatory Lewis Black: (Score:4, Funny)

    by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Friday December 06, 2019 @01:18AM (#59490304)

    https://youtu.be/ZB8EsGmYBYs [youtu.be]

  • Advertising? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by alanw ( 1822 ) <alan@wylie.me.uk> on Friday December 06, 2019 @02:52AM (#59490404) Homepage

    If it was essential, they wouldn't have to advertise it, would they?

  • When the pipes burst, you might reconsider then.

    • Or simply order bottled water from another supplier when that earthquake hits. There are hundreds if not thousands of water bottling plants across the nation. Some large some small. One supplier from one of their nationwide network of wells and bottling plants being restricted from increasing the flow from that well is not going to seriously limit the supply of bottled water. Not even from that one brand. Nestle has bottling plants across the nation, if blocked here they'll increase supply from another

    • When the pipes burst, you might reconsider then.

      In Michigan? If you have money in Michigan, like a judge surely does, then you live outside of town with your own well and a generator for when the power inevitable goes out in the winter ice storm. Earthquakes are somewhat rare, let's just say.

  • How do the people in Flint MI feel about this ruling?

  • They are one of the most evil companies on the planet, they need to die a horrible and violent death.

  • Is Starbucks still and essential public service? (Score:3)

    by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Friday December 06, 2019 @09:18AM (#59491024)
    Next thing they will tell us is that Starbucks isn't an essential public service. Blasphemy.

  • This story remains me to a similar story who made it in the press. (well not quite exactly, but...)
    The intention of the ban seems to be different, same result.
    Locals would have to buy their on local water, but in bottles.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    Ban on bottled water
    In July 2009 "Bundy on Tap",[10] a community initiative in Bundanoon, declared itself opposed to the sale of bottled drinking water on environmental grounds; local businesses instead committed themselves to filling re-usable bottles with

    • How the fuck is this the same? The town rejected Nestle's plans for building a larger pumping station. They didn't ban bottled water. Nestle sued saying their bottle water was a 'essential public service'. The appeals court disagreed RTFA..
  • Here in Ontario, there ARE some places where bottled water is an essential service. Grassy Narrows, where the Reserve's water supply was contaminated by corporate mercury pollution. See Grassy Narrows [thecanadia...lopedia.ca] for details.
    • It is, however, not essential to a county hundreds of miles away. It is definitely not an 'essential service' to drain their water table and sell it off in areas far removed from the source. Preventing this occurrence is the only example of an 'essential service' in this whole story.

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