Big bottlers vs. small towns

Re “A new kind of water war springs up,” April 2

The Times’ article about Nestle trying to bottle Colorado’s water got the headline wrong.

There’s nothing new about Nestle targeting small rural communities to make a profit off of their pure spring water. Here in California, the residents of Siskiyou County have been fighting Nestle for more than five years to prevent the company from building one of the nation’s largest water-bottling plants at the headwaters of the McCloud River, which feeds the Sacramento River, an important water source for the entire state.

Siskiyou County residents have managed to delay Nestle’s plan for a plant on the McCloud, but Nestle fights on, even though Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared a state of emergency because of our state’s growing drought. Californians should tell bottling companies to leave our water alone once and for all.

Nina Erlich

Goleta