Guelph’s Mayor & Martin Cohn Weigh In On Nestlé Water Taking Permit
Local and National media media outlets are really starting to publicize the issues surround Nestlé’s application for a new water taking permit in Aberfoyle. Below are two more articles I found today that I thought Puslinch residents may appreciate reading.
Profiting from bottled water at public expense
By Martin Regg Cohn, Waterloo Region Record
Local residents say there is considerable hostility toward the bottling plants. “The tribals and villagers of this region took a while to wise up to the cause of the water crisis,” said C. R. Neelakandan Namboodiri, who lives in the area and described himself as a leftist and freelance environmentalist. “But now even the womenfolk are mobilized, and are staging a peaceful protest at the gates of the Coca-Cola factory,” Mr. Namboodiri said.
If the preceding paragraph — taken verbatim from a 2003 New York Times story out of India — has a familiar ring to it, that’s because Third World history and geography are repeating themselves right here in Ontario. Right now.
The names may be different, but the plot lines are perennial and the themes universal: A multinational bottler tapping into the local water table under the noses of irate locals.
Instead of rural India, the setting is southwestern Ontario, in Aberfoyle, just outside Guelph. And the besieged bottler in our backyard is global behemoth Nestlé, not Coke.
[Click here to continue reading this full story…]
Guelph’s mayor weighs in (sort of) on Nestlé bottled water debate
By Jessica Lovell, Guelph Mercury
In response to concern from residents, Guelph’s mayor has waded into the local bottled-water debate.
“I’ve had a lot of questions as of late regarding Nestlé and our low levels of water in Guelph currently,” Mayor Cam Guthrie said in a blog posting Monday. He went on to say questions have spiked with recent news of the water-bottling company’s purchase of a well site in Elora.
The questions prompted Guthrie to seek answers from city staff. He posted the answers on his blog in an effort to bring more clarity to the issue.
At the top of the list is the question of why the city doesn’t stop Nestlé from taking and bottling local water for profit.
“Nestlé takes its water from its own well located in Aberfoyle outside the City of Guelph,” Guthrie said in the posting.
