LETTER: Join fight against bottling plant

Those of us who sport huge lapel buttons that read “Water for Flathead’s Future” have been appalled by the lack of interest in a subject that is vital to all lives here in the valley. Many already know a bit about the turnkey bottling plant in Creston poised to bottle 2 billlion 12-oz. bottles of water per year sucked from the aquifers that supply our homes and ranch lands, but few have bothered to educate themselves beyond that. Let us help direct you to information that will both awaken and shock you into action.

Who are we and why should you care?

We are not “tree huggers” nor “wacko environmentalists.” We are your neighbors: farmers, ranchers, small business owners, middle- and low-income, hard-working folks, including many retirees on fixed incomes who can ill afford the $8,000-$10,000 cost of digging new wells that will possibly be forced by the plant’s projected immediate lowering of our water table. We deplore the proposed water bottling plant at Creston and all the other plants expected to follow. We have very little time left to keep it from happening.

Be horrified, as we were, to view the (easily downloaded) documentary “Tapped,” an expose about bottling plants in general and Nestle specifically. For the scholars among you, read the classic “Cadillac Desert” and find out how the Owens Valley in California, once an American Switzerland, became a dustbowl due to the manipulations of greedy robber barons of the past. Don’t forget Jared Diamond’s book “Collapse” and its apocalyptic warning about too many straws in drought-stricken Montana’s aquifers. Each community in America that allowed these bottling plants to take hold has deeply regretted it. Let’s not add to the statistics. We can fight them off just like the little town of Cascade Locks in the Columbia River Gorge did recently. Become pro-active! Show your love for Montana.

Watch for the large lapel buttons and the blue ribbons on fenceposts. Access waterforflatheadsfuture.org and sign petitions to remind our commissioners of their oath to protect our interests first, not those of corporate giants. Wear a button! Decorate your fenceposts with blue ribbons! We may feel helpless sometimes about the doings in D.C., but we can certainly control what goes on in our own backyards. Folks, we cannot afford to be blase about Creation’s most precious gift. As Mahatma Gandhi once said, “There is enough water for human need, but not for human greed.” —Nancy and Bill McGunagle, Kalispell