Community Rights

Take a comprehensive look at the City of Mount Shasta Water Rights Ordinance - what the ordinance does; what it does not do; who enacts it into law; and why it focuses on "rights" and specifically the right of nature.

Initiative Measure to be submitted to City of Mount Shasta voters in November 2010 elections.

Mount Shasta, Calif. —

More than 100 community members offered vocal support during Monday night’s Mount Shasta City Council meeting for an ordinance that would prevent corporations from cloud seeding and bulk water extraction within city limits.

The council heard dozens of passionate appeals during public comments, then voted unanimously to order a special report on the Mt. Shasta Community Water Rights and Self Governance Ordinance, which will appear on the November election ballot.

Nestle Waters North America's Poland Spring subsidiary finished removing the last of more than a dozen test and monitoring wells near the border of Shapleigh and Newfield on Friday, a Poland Spring official confirmed.

Mark Dubois, the company's natural resource manager, said the decision followed the end of unsuccessful negotiations with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife to tap into an underlying aquifer for commercial bottled-water production.

"We weren't able to come to an arrangement with the department, so we are not going to be pursuing that site," said Dubois.

Should nature be able to take you to court?

Last February, the town of Shapleigh, Maine, population 2,326, passed an unusual ordinance. Like nearby towns, Shapleigh sought to protect its aquifers from the Nestle Corporation, which draws heavily on the region for its Poland Spring bottled water. Some Maine towns had acquiesced, others had protested, and one was locked in a protracted legal battle.

MCCLOUD, Calif., April 23 /PRNewswire/ -- The McCloud Watershed Council and California Trout, who, along with Trout Unlimited, comprise the Protect Our Waters Coalition, announced today that they have engaged the national law and consulting firm of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP. The firm will represent the Coalition in their fight to safeguard the rights and quality of life for residents of McCloud, California and beyond who would be affected by operation of a planned Nestle Waters North America water bottling plant in the Mt. Shasta area.