Sound Familiar?

The product is controversial. The company is controversial. The proposal is opposed by Columbia Riverkeeper and the Oregon Sierra Club. It is questioned by fishing groups. The proposal would offer jobs in a community with a high unemployment rate and double the tax base. Environmentalists argue the plant would take valuable resources and damage a scenic area with it's mere existence. Those who are fighting it question the need for the product and say the company has a bad environmental track record. Some argue the company is offering very little in exchange for the profits it will likely see and is taking advantage of a down economy and a struggling community.

Sound familiar?

It should, but we are not talking about LNG on the Columbia. It's a water bottling plant proposed by Nestle for Cascade Locks.

Under the proposal the corporation would build a $50 million plant on the site of an old gravel pit. The source of the water is a spring that since the 1930's has fed a small fish hatchery operated by ODFW. Under the proposal ODFW would trade the city the spring for well water to feed the hatchery. The city would then sell the spring water to Nestle at a very low rate by all accounts. The trade off would be about 50 jobs and the tax value of the plant. ODFW says having access to well water should allow for increased fish production but at this point they are guessing.

Think of every objection you have heard about LNG and it's just amazing how easily those same objections fit into protesters arguments on bottling water.