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Welcome to the No Nestle In the Gorge Blog. Our goal is to be a source for coalition members as well as any members of the general public looking to become more informed or involved in the campaign to keep Nestle out of the Gorge. Please remain patient with the initial stages of the blog, and of course, any and all comments regarding the blog and how to make it better and more useful are encouraged.

Reposting: The Next Big Thing In Industry: Water Profiteering

Executive Director Wenonah Hauter got the inside scoop on what the water industry is up to at the 2011 Global Water Summit in Berlin.

Last week I was in Berlin at the Global Water Summit 2011, a meet up for corporations that want to profit from water as it becomes scarcer. Sponsored by all the bad actors in the water industry, from Veolia to General Electric, the conference URL was http://www.watermeetsmoney.com. Even the Koch Brothers’ empire was represented (Koch Industries helped pollute water with its fossil fuel operations, so why not profit also from cleaning up the mess?)

My colleague, Anil Naidoo from the Council of Canadians, and I were invited to the meeting to debate the libertarian economist David Zetland and William Muhairwe, managing director of Uganda’s national water company. Both Zetland and Muhairwe are big proponents of full-cost pricing and dismissive of the government’s role in providing water.

Some may wonder why Anil and I would go there to debate, especially when the audience was comprised of people employed in the water industry. The truth is that there is no better place to really figure out what they are up to. An hour debate was a small price to pay for free entrance to the $2,500.00 event that gave us real insight into the newest plans of the global water cartel.

The conference started on a sour note with a keynote address from Michel Camdessus, former Managing Director of the IMF. Camdessus is one of the masterminds behind the scheme to force the 1.44 billion people who make $1.25 a day to pay for the full cost of water. It was also disappointing that Kofi Annan appears to be running interference for the water corporations, basically saying in his speech that the time for protest is over and that we all need to get along.

Nestle Waters, Lobbying firm receive Oregon ethics board rebuke

Nestle Waters and 13 other groups were reprimanded by the Oregon state ethics commission following the failure of their lobbying firm, Portland-based CFM, to properly file quarterly spending reports and other documents required under Oregon government-ethics law.

The state ethics commission issued a warning Friday in the form of a “letter of education” to 14 companies and others that failed to file spending reports on lobbying activities, most for the first three quarters of 2010.

They are alphabetically: Boise Cascade LLC (two quarters); Boise Inc.; Calbag Metals Co.; Coalition of Local Children and Families Commissions; Darden; Douglas Timber Operators; Harris Corp.; Hispanic Metropolitan Chamber (two quarters); Jeld-Wen; Nestle Waters; Northwest Career Colleges Federation; Oregon Winegrowers Association; Paramount Equity Mortgage (one quarter); TransCanada/GTN.

Although Nestle was not responsible for the ethics violation, the actions of CFM, who Nestle chose to do business with, do not instill confidence in the Nestle’s business ethics.

Read the whole thing here.