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Meanwhile Nestlé is pumping 1.1 million gallons of groundwater per day in Michigan for the cost of $200 a year. https://www.clickondetroit.com/consumer/2018/07

by dyeje 6y ago

Meanwhile Nestlé is pumping 1.1 million gallons of groundwater per day in Michigan for the cost of $200 a year. https://www.clickondetroit.com/consumer/2018/07/18/residents-outraged-by-new-water-deal-allowing-nestle-to-pump-millions-of-gallons-from-michigan/ https://www.clickondetroit.com/consumer/2018/07/18/residents...

xyzzyz 6y ago
Michigan is not lacking in water, and 1.1 million of gallons a day is pretty much a drop in a bucket. Like Michigan loses 10 000 times as much every day due to evaporation, for example.
- triangleman 6y ago
  Still they ought to pay their fair share
  - ahepp 6y ago
    They do pay their fair share. Anyone in the state of Michigan can stick a straw in the ground and start sucking out water. If they suck out a lot, they have to pay a couple hundred dollars for a permit. These rules are the same for farmers, industrial users (like car manufacturers), nestle, or you and me.
    - dontbeevil1992 6y ago
      you and me are not a multinational billion dollar for-profit corporation. we have different capabilities, incentives, and externalities to our behavior. nestle is taking advantage of the commons for massive profit, they should contribute back
      - mr_woozy 6y ago
        >you and me are not a multinational billion dollar for-profit corporation. ahhhh my sweet summer child........
      - ahepp 6y ago
        To say they are "taking advantage of the commons" implies they're leaving the commons worse off. I haven't heard any good arguments that this is the case. Particularly because the amount of water they're pumping really isn't that significant compared to agricultural or industrial users. They do contribute back through taxes, including income tax their employees pay directly to the state of Michigan. If they aren't paying enough, I think reforming corporate taxation is a better solution than arbitrarily taxing extraction of a plentiful resource out of dislike for the extractors. Hopefully that doesn't make me some kind of anarcho-capitalist nut.
        dontbeevil1992 6y ago
        > To say they are "taking advantage of the commons" implies they're leaving the commons worse off I don't agree. All it means is that they're benefiting privately from something that belongs to everyone. This is particularly glaring in this case because Nestle has a history of unethical behavior - for example, there is a plausible argument that one of the reasons why the Flint lead problem hasn't been fixed is because of profits on bottled water. Taxation is not a perfect solution because the government doesn't always use the funds ethically, particularly when it is in bed with corporations. But it's better than nothing. > The amount of water they're pumping really isn't that significant compared to agricultural or industrial users. Then why not have them pay a use fee that is proportionally small compared to agricultural and industrial users? If we don't charge them at all then logically why can't they just go ahead and privatize the entire water supply for the cost of $200? Natural resources shouldn't be made arbitrarily available for private profit.
    - triangleman 6y ago
      Well then I'd say the rules ought to be changed and if you pump more than 100 gallons per month, you should pay a little more.
      - Cerium 6y ago
        Ten thousand gallons per month would be a more reasonable limit, enough to cover basic home usage.
        s1artibartfast 6y ago
        Why should they subsidize home usage. If they are paying to pump their own water, and doing so in a sustainable matter, why do they own anyone anything?
        triangleman 6y ago
        Yeah my bad, I meant 100 gallons per day, or 3000 gallons per month.
      - s1artibartfast 6y ago
        If they are paying to pump their own water and it is sustainable, why should they pay anyone?
  - s1artibartfast 6y ago
    They are. this is on par for most agricultural and industrial water.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- mint2 6y ago
  Not having a lot of background on Michigan aquifers, but equating surface evaporation to ground water pumping is completely wrong in western states. Surface evaporations is largely from water that is easily replenished on a relatively short timescale. Pumping groundwater at too high rates irreversibly decreases the groundwater reservoir capacity and even if it doesn’t, can take ages to replenish.
  - coryfklein 6y ago
    Tangential, but is Michigan considered a western state?
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > Tangential, but is Michigan considered a western state? It's typically considered a “Midwestern” state (a term which is kind of odd with the modern boundaries, since the “Midwest” is in the northern half of the country running, on the east-west axis, from the central part of the continental US fairly far to the east.)
- Cd00d 6y ago
  I find that number dubious. I'd need some evidence that 1.1 million gallons is a drop in the bucket - I have trouble imagining that size of water, tbh. Looks like the Onassis reservoir in central park is a billion gallons. Honestly uncertain if 0.1% daily is drop in the bucket or not. I guess technically 0.1% of a 5 gallon bucket is about a tablespoon, so bigger than a drop.... Ooops, I got distracted. https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=0.001*5gallons+in+tablespoons https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=0.001*5gallons+in+tabl... Anyway, even if the referenced "drop" is accurate, it's not like the evaporated water only rains down in Wisconsin or Indiana.
  - s1artibartfast 6y ago
    >I find that number dubious. 1 million acre feet is a pretty small amount in comparison to most industrial or agricultural uses. The common unit of water usage is acrefeet 1 million gallons is ~ 3 acrefeet California wine production uses 667,000 acre*feet per year. [1] California total agricultural uses 24,500,000 acre feet per year [2] 3/24.5 million =0.00000012 https://aic.ucdavis.edu/publications/Economic%20wine%20and%20water.pdf https://aic.ucdavis.edu/publications/Economic%20wine%20and%2... https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Highlights/2019/2017Census_Irrigation_and_WaterManagement.pdf https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Highlights/2019/2017C...
  - xyzzyz 6y ago
    > I'd need some evidence that 1.1 million gallons is a drop in the bucket As I said, 1 million gallons of water evaporates from Lake Michigan every 10 seconds. That’s the deal: where water is abundant, it’s really abundant. Almost all of the cost of municipal water, for example, is from building and maintaining the distribution system. In non-arid areas, there almost never is any shortage of water at the source, and water pricing is priced per use not because it costs that much to “produce it” or because the reservoirs are running short, but rather to limit the use so that there is no need to expand water carrying infrastructure. If Nestle is building its own infrastructure, and the water is so abundant that there is absolutely no risk of it running anywhere close to short, why should the government or people care? Suppose Nestle builds a farm of windmills, that slows down a million gallons of moving air by 20 miles per hour every day. To be sure, they would be using up large amounts of natural resource, the wind energy. Should they pay significant fees for the privilege? I don’t think so; that would be completely ludicrous. There are of course circumstances where Nestle should pay more. For example, if they were using water coming from government built and maintained infrastructure, or if the water was not so abundant as it is in Michigan. For example, if they were pulling it from deep aquifer that’s depleting faster than its refilling, as it is the case in many places of arid Southwest. But, to my knowledge, none of this is the case for Nestle in Michigan.
webinvest 6y ago
Nestlé, a foreign non-US company, is also raiding another part of America, Florida, by pumping 1.1M gallons of groundwater per day from Ginnie Springs. The reason bottled water pumping is so much more damaging is because the water does not return back to the water aquifer once it is transported away. https://electrek.co/2020/03/10/nestle-wants-floridas-spring-water-for-almost-free-to-then-sell-it-back-to-us/ https://electrek.co/2020/03/10/nestle-wants-floridas-spring-...

by dyeje 6y ago

xyzzyz 6y ago

Michigan is not lacking in water, and 1.1 million of gallons a day is pretty much a drop in a bucket. Like Michigan loses 10 000 times as much every day due to evaporation, for example.

triangleman 6y ago
Still they ought to pay their fair share
- ahepp 6y ago
  They do pay their fair share. Anyone in the state of Michigan can stick a straw in the ground and start sucking out water. If they suck out a lot, they have to pay a couple hundred dollars for a permit. These rules are the same for farmers, industrial users (like car manufacturers), nestle, or you and me.
  - dontbeevil1992 6y ago
    you and me are not a multinational billion dollar for-profit corporation. we have different capabilities, incentives, and externalities to our behavior. nestle is taking advantage of the commons for massive profit, they should contribute back
    - mr_woozy 6y ago
      >you and me are not a multinational billion dollar for-profit corporation. ahhhh my sweet summer child........
    - ahepp 6y ago
      To say they are "taking advantage of the commons" implies they're leaving the commons worse off. I haven't heard any good arguments that this is the case. Particularly because the amount of water they're pumping really isn't that significant compared to agricultural or industrial users. They do contribute back through taxes, including income tax their employees pay directly to the state of Michigan. If they aren't paying enough, I think reforming corporate taxation is a better solution than arbitrarily taxing extraction of a plentiful resource out of dislike for the extractors. Hopefully that doesn't make me some kind of anarcho-capitalist nut.
      - dontbeevil1992 6y ago
        > To say they are "taking advantage of the commons" implies they're leaving the commons worse off I don't agree. All it means is that they're benefiting privately from something that belongs to everyone. This is particularly glaring in this case because Nestle has a history of unethical behavior - for example, there is a plausible argument that one of the reasons why the Flint lead problem hasn't been fixed is because of profits on bottled water. Taxation is not a perfect solution because the government doesn't always use the funds ethically, particularly when it is in bed with corporations. But it's better than nothing. > The amount of water they're pumping really isn't that significant compared to agricultural or industrial users. Then why not have them pay a use fee that is proportionally small compared to agricultural and industrial users? If we don't charge them at all then logically why can't they just go ahead and privatize the entire water supply for the cost of $200? Natural resources shouldn't be made arbitrarily available for private profit.
  - triangleman 6y ago
    Well then I'd say the rules ought to be changed and if you pump more than 100 gallons per month, you should pay a little more.
    - Cerium 6y ago
      Ten thousand gallons per month would be a more reasonable limit, enough to cover basic home usage.
      - s1artibartfast 6y ago
        Why should they subsidize home usage. If they are paying to pump their own water, and doing so in a sustainable matter, why do they own anyone anything?
      - triangleman 6y ago
        Yeah my bad, I meant 100 gallons per day, or 3000 gallons per month.
    - s1artibartfast 6y ago
      If they are paying to pump their own water and it is sustainable, why should they pay anyone?
- s1artibartfast 6y ago
  They are. this is on par for most agricultural and industrial water.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mint2 6y ago
Not having a lot of background on Michigan aquifers, but equating surface evaporation to ground water pumping is completely wrong in western states. Surface evaporations is largely from water that is easily replenished on a relatively short timescale. Pumping groundwater at too high rates irreversibly decreases the groundwater reservoir capacity and even if it doesn’t, can take ages to replenish.
- coryfklein 6y ago
  Tangential, but is Michigan considered a western state?
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Tangential, but is Michigan considered a western state? It's typically considered a “Midwestern” state (a term which is kind of odd with the modern boundaries, since the “Midwest” is in the northern half of the country running, on the east-west axis, from the central part of the continental US fairly far to the east.)
Cd00d 6y ago
I find that number dubious. I'd need some evidence that 1.1 million gallons is a drop in the bucket - I have trouble imagining that size of water, tbh. Looks like the Onassis reservoir in central park is a billion gallons. Honestly uncertain if 0.1% daily is drop in the bucket or not. I guess technically 0.1% of a 5 gallon bucket is about a tablespoon, so bigger than a drop.... Ooops, I got distracted. https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=0.001*5gallons+in+tablespoons https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=0.001*5gallons+in+tabl... Anyway, even if the referenced "drop" is accurate, it's not like the evaporated water only rains down in Wisconsin or Indiana.
- s1artibartfast 6y ago
  >I find that number dubious. 1 million acre feet is a pretty small amount in comparison to most industrial or agricultural uses. The common unit of water usage is acrefeet 1 million gallons is ~ 3 acrefeet California wine production uses 667,000 acre*feet per year. [1] California total agricultural uses 24,500,000 acre feet per year [2] 3/24.5 million =0.00000012 https://aic.ucdavis.edu/publications/Economic%20wine%20and%20water.pdf https://aic.ucdavis.edu/publications/Economic%20wine%20and%2... https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Highlights/2019/2017Census_Irrigation_and_WaterManagement.pdf https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Highlights/2019/2017C...
- xyzzyz 6y ago
  > I'd need some evidence that 1.1 million gallons is a drop in the bucket As I said, 1 million gallons of water evaporates from Lake Michigan every 10 seconds. That’s the deal: where water is abundant, it’s really abundant. Almost all of the cost of municipal water, for example, is from building and maintaining the distribution system. In non-arid areas, there almost never is any shortage of water at the source, and water pricing is priced per use not because it costs that much to “produce it” or because the reservoirs are running short, but rather to limit the use so that there is no need to expand water carrying infrastructure. If Nestle is building its own infrastructure, and the water is so abundant that there is absolutely no risk of it running anywhere close to short, why should the government or people care? Suppose Nestle builds a farm of windmills, that slows down a million gallons of moving air by 20 miles per hour every day. To be sure, they would be using up large amounts of natural resource, the wind energy. Should they pay significant fees for the privilege? I don’t think so; that would be completely ludicrous. There are of course circumstances where Nestle should pay more. For example, if they were using water coming from government built and maintained infrastructure, or if the water was not so abundant as it is in Michigan. For example, if they were pulling it from deep aquifer that’s depleting faster than its refilling, as it is the case in many places of arid Southwest. But, to my knowledge, none of this is the case for Nestle in Michigan.

webinvest 6y ago

Nestlé, a foreign non-US company, is also raiding another part of America, Florida, by pumping 1.1M gallons of groundwater per day from Ginnie Springs. The reason bottled water pumping is so much more damaging is because the water does not return back to the water aquifer once it is transported away. https://electrek.co/2020/03/10/nestle-wants-floridas-spring-water-for-almost-free-to-then-sell-it-back-to-us/ https://electrek.co/2020/03/10/nestle-wants-floridas-spring-...