For Immediate Release - March 16, 2021 

Wellington Water Watchers will join Front-line communities from Maine, California, Michigan, Colorado, and Florida to call on regulatory agencies and legislators to closely examine Nestle´s sale of its North American operations, to a private equity firm. This sale, for an estimated $4 billion, would be a massive private transfer of ‘water wealth,’ an especially ominous development in light of Wall Street’s accelerating interest in ‘water futures’ trading.

People who share concerns about water profiteers are invited to join the international rally online Thursday, March 18 at 7:00pm EDT (RSVP here). re  Grassroots leaders from communities where Nestle´ extracts water  will be joined by U.S. Representative Rashida Tlaib, musical guests, and celebrity endorsers. Wellington Water Watchers and The Story of Stuff will be live-streaming the event.

Paying next to nothing in royalties, Nestlé makes billions of dollars per year mining and exporting groundwater sources. In communities across North America, the pattern repeats itself: Nestlé enters a local town making promises of “local” job opportunities and the highest sustainability and environmental standards to its water bottling operations. Over time the surrounding communities see a trail of broken promises, environmental degradation and a struggle to regain access to their water supplies.

“Jeff Yurek, (Ontario’s Minister of Environment, Conservation and Parks) must not allow Nestlé’s current permits to take water for bottling to be transferred to a private equity firm” stated Rob Case, chairperson of Wellington Water Watchers. “Minster Yurek extend the current moratorium in new permits to bottle water beyond the current April 1^st deadline, and commit to phasing out permits to bottle water in Ontario.”
Arlene Slocombe, Executive Director, Wellington Water Watchers states “As residents across the continent are now calling for Nestle’s existing contracts to end, It’s time for us to engage in the important questions of how groundwater can be stewarded locally, so that we can ensure the protection of these precious waters for future generations.”
 
Nestlé, the world’s largest food and beverage corporation, is seeking a pay-off by selling its North American bottled water brands to private equity profiteers One Rock Capital Partners in a more than $4 billion deal. Despite this sale, Nestlé continues to fight for extensions and expansions to its water permits across an entire continent in an effort to package a profitable business venture for the next corporation.

In the context of a global pandemic and increasing droughts and wildfires across North America, it’s clearer than ever that water should be stewarded by and for the people, with respect for all living things. All too often over recent years, we’ve seen water being commodified and sold in single-use plastic packaging that’s accelerating a waste crisis.
 
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About Wellington Water Watchers: Founded in 2007, Wellington Water Watchers (WWW) is a volunteer-run, non-profit organization based in Guelph, Ontario. Wellington Water Watchers is a non-profit organization founded in 2007 dedicated to the protection, restoration and conservation of drinking water in Ontario