California’s Drought Issue and Nestle


Nestle is an international organization that boasts millions in profits from different products, one of them being bottled water. The focus of this piece will center on the drought occurring in California, United States and how Nestle is causing further damage. The presence of a bottled water industry in the United States is beyond reason as water has been regulated and filtered to the point that tap water is as clean as bottled water. Furthermore, the documentary Last Call at the Oasis from Jessica Yu reveals bottled water is less regulated than tap water. In the case of Nestle’s presence in California, bottled water sold by the organization is actually taken from their capitol, Sacramento, and resold at a significant profit.

The California drought has been around for four years now, but it has escalated significantly as a result of a record high temperatures this winter, which causes dry conditions that are not favorable for farming. The agriculture industry in California relies heavily on water as it consumes 41 percent of the state’s total supply. Due to this scarcity, farmers have begun practices that are causing more environmental damage such as drilling deeper for groundwater, but many have been forced to seek other means of employment. Another important angle to view this is that many of the nation’s vegetables and nuts are grown best in that region. For example, almonds from the United States are grown there exclusively, which is why affects the country as a whole. For that reason, this should be viewed as a national state of emergency as opposed one at only the state level.


Meanwhile, Nestle continues to do what major corporations do best, exploit resources without a regard to the quality of life that they are damaging. How can this be? Their website explicitly states that they are committed to environmental sustainability. This may fool the uninformed citizen, as many wish to remain, but many have taken to protesting the organization’s presence in Sacramento. Recently, the governor of California unrolled a new plan in which billions of dollars would be reallocated to dealing with this crisis. The real issue here, however, is that corporations such as Nestle continue to exploit already depleted resources for their own personal gain. This is the issue that must be addressed moving forward as the quality of the planet’s environment is decreasing and the global footprint of large multinational corporations continues to grow.