Sacramento, CA

Davis attorney Don Mooney has agreed to take the case if the issue goes to court. Mooney represented McCloud residents in their six-year fight against a Nestlé Waters North America water-bottling plant near Mt. Shasta. The company abandoned plans for the plant in September.

A $14 million retrofit of a proposed Nestlé water-bottling plant has ground to a halt after the city of Sacramento issued a stop-work order while investigating whether the work began before the company had legal authorization from the city.

Discussion over a Nestlé water-bottling plant appears to be growing in Sacramento, as the Swiss multinational prepares a facility for operation and new hires begin work.

The Sacramento City Council, which was not involved in the decision to approve the plant, will discuss the issue publicly for the first time after a request two weeks ago by council members Kevin McCarty and Lauren Hammond. They asked the council to consider an emergency ordinance requiring a special permit before Nestlé Waters North America begins bottling city tap water and spring water at a plant in South Sacramento.

Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson recently told The Bee that, "We need to light a fire under the city's efforts to save water." Most Sacramentans did not interpret this as meaning we should save water for Nestlé to truck away in disposable plastic bottles.

Nestlé wants to start taking a reported 30 million gallons of local municipal water a year in early 2010, despite objections that there was no public input or environmental review for their proposed water-bottling plant.

The Sacramento City Council will discuss whether it should draft an urgency ordinance that would require special permits for water bottling facilities after some members of the community raised concerns over a new Nestle water plant planned for south Sacramento.

Councilman Kevin McCarty asked Tuesday night for city staff to place the discussion on a council agenda in the near future. He also asked the city's utilities department to explore a system of tiered water rates for commercial facilities.

McCloud, Calif. -

There are no plans to pull out of McCloud quite yet, which was reported in Monday’s Siskiyou Daily News, according to Dave Palais, Nestlé Waters North America’s natural resources manager for Northern California.

Palais, who has been involved with the plans for a bottling plant in McCloud for several years, said in an interview Monday that Nestlé has selected a site in Sacramento for a new proposed bottling facility, but the impact that facility will have on plans for McCloud is yet to be analyzed.

Nestlé Waters North America Inc. will pump $14 million into the local economy to convert a warehouse in the Florin Fruitridge Industrial Park into a two-line water bottling plant.

The company announced Friday that it will create by early next year a bottling plant that will employ about 40 people. The plant will be created from 214,434 square feet of existing warehouse space on Younger Creek Drive in Sacramento.