Willingness to change

McCloud, Calif. -

Dear Editor,

In Nestle’s science meeting on June 2, Nestle’s natural resource director Brendan O’Rourke said, “I think we have different ideas about what adaptive management means.”

This is concerning.

The preliminary scientific studies being conducted are important for establishing thresholds of impact, but adaptive management is a long term iterative process that addresses the uncertainty inherent in complex ecosystems.
New data and new understanding often requires a change in behavior in regards to the use of a resource — water in McCloud’s case.

If climate change trends continue and water flows continue to decrease as PG&E’s scientific studies in the McCloud watershed indicate, a change in water management will likely be necessary in the future.

Will Nestle be willing to change its behavior once they are drawing from the watershed? What will the enforcement mechanism be for these changes?

In Mecosta County, Mich., the enforcement mechanism was the judicial system. Last week, a Michigan court ended a nine year legal dispute over the amount of water Nestle was bottling.

The agreement reached makes permanent an injunction originally issued in a 2003 court case that reduces Nestle’s original intended water removal by 50 percent. This represents an egregious failure in adaptive management.

Once Nestle is here, and the tax revenue is rolling in, and McCloud has a few jobs, the change often necessary for successful adaptive management will not be so easy to implement, despite Nestle’s verbal claims of stewardship and compliance.

Aaron Beverly
McCloud