The crystal clear water of the White Pine Springs well in Evart, Michigan is just a short two-hour drive from Flint.
But despite its close proximity, it might as well be another world. While the spring serves as the source of Nestle's Ice Mountain bottled drinking water,
Flint residents are lamenting their fourth anniversary of dealing with a water crisis that has left citizens with lead-laden water and households unable to drink the water out of their own faucets, and caused children and adults alike to fall sick. So it is almost unbelievable that the state has decided to approved Nestle's plan to boost the amount of water it takes from the White Pine Springs well by nearly 65%. The move will allow the food and beverage giant to suck up
valuable clean drinking water at about 576,000 gallons a day. That's more than 6.5 gallons a second!
Nestle is already making a killing off the current amount they bottle. The company
reportedly only pays $200 a year to pump
"100,000 times as much water as the average person in Michigan uses in an entire year." Then they turn around and charge customers around $1.00 per bottle!
Meanwhile Flint residents themselves still find themselves obligated to use bottled water to do even the most simple tasks, from preparing food, to brush her teeth, not to mention for drinking - and,
to add insult to injury, since last year they have been forced to pay for the unusable water that has been flowing through their pipes. Clearly, Flint residents need access to clean water. The state has failed to provide it and despite donations from all around the country, the life-saving resource is still scarce.
Now that Nestle has been given the green light to pump more water at an even greater profit, we have to wonder, will they share the wealth and provide Flint with the water they need?
Ask Nestle to be a good corporate citizen and donate a year's worth of water to Flint. With their help, they can help change lives in a city that has been suffering for four long years.