Documentary screening pits global water activists against Nestlé

TORONTO – A documentary about the bottled water industry has grabbed the attention of global water activists – and it’s not just the film that is making waves, but the question of who would screen it.

Maude Barlow, water activist and chairperson of the Council of Canadians, was in Guelph, Ont. Monday night for a screening of Tapped.

Tapped, dubbed “the film Nestlé doesn’t want you to see,” is at the centre of controversy in the southern Ontario city after a letter from Nestlé Waters Canada led to the cancellation of a city-sponsored film screening.

“This debate around the future of water is growing in the world…We’re a planet running out of clean water,”
said Barlow in a radio interview on Monday.

“It really does matter who is going to make decisions around access to water in the future. Is it going to be a handful of corporations? Is it going to be service utilities? Is it going to be bottled water companies? Is it going to be water traders? Or is it going to be democratically-elected governments looking after water on behalf of their people?” Barlow said.

In September, the City of Guelph Water Services and Wellington Water Watchers (WWW) – a non-profit organization dedicated to the protection and conservation of drinking water in Guelph – hosted Water Conservation Documentary Nights.

Tapped, which takes a critical look at the bottled water industry, was one of three films to be screened about global water conservation and water management issues.

On Sept. 7, Guelph Mayor Karen Farbridge received a letter from Nestlé that expressed concerns over the film screening.

You can read the letter here.

In the letter, John Challinor, director of corporate affairs at Nestlé, said the company was disappointed the city was co-sponsoring the documentary screening.

Challinor argued Tapped demonizes the bottled water industry and presents misleading information.

“We expect all levels of government to take a learned, well-researched and even-handed approach to all matters that come before them, regardless of their nature,” he wrote.

On Sept. 12 the mayor sent a letter back to Nestlé in which she explains the decision for showing the movie and the importance of promoting water literacy.

In the end, the screening of Tapped was cancelled, but Farbridge added that other local groups may choose to screen it
at non-city sponsored events – something she wouldn’t stand in the way of.

You can read the mayor’s letter here.

Later on her blog, the mayor further explained the decision to cancel the screening, writing that city staff had not viewed the film prior to agreeing to co-sponsor it.

After the letter from Nestlé, Wayne Galliher, the city’s water conservation project manager, viewed the film and decided that, his department couldn’t support the screening as a co-sponsor.

Farbridge also expressed her personal belief that Nestlé was attempting to pressure the city with one particular paragraph in their letter:

“Given that we are occasionally sought out by national and international business concerns to offer our perspective on Canada, Ontario and Guelph as places to invest, I would appreciate receiving your guidance about how we should respond to any future outreach by commercial interests regarding Guelph’s suitability as a place to invest.”

Barlow calls Nestlé’s letter to the mayor a heavy-handed tactic used by bullies.

“It really was not very much of a veiled threat,” said Barlow.

“Maude did not read the letter,” Challinor said to Global News on Tuesday. “She has no idea what it said. And the fact of the matter is that in my letter to Mayor Farbridge I did not request that the screening of Tapped not occur.”

Challinor said it was not the screening of the film itself that prompted Nestlé to send the letter, but the fact the city was a co-sponsor of the event.

“Our only concern was that it was being co-sponsored by the City of Guelph, which is supposed to be objective about these sorts of things,” said Challinor.

Tapped screening

On Monday night, Tapped was screened in front of a nearly full house on the University of Guelph campus. Barlow attended as a guest speaker.

Event supporters argue that, by attendance alone, the whole ordeal had backfired on Nestlé.

Only a dozen people were expected to attend the original screening, said Mark Calzavara, regional organizer for the Council of Canadians. Instead, the documentary drew over 350 people to War Memorial Hall.

Again Challinor disagreed with the Council of Canadians. “The event was not well-attended. It’s a small number of people who are interested in these kinds of issues,” he said.

Background

Water conservation has been a hot topic in Guelph for years.

The city is almost entirely dependent on groundwater as its source of drinking water, something that is unprecedented in most parts of the country (with few exceptions like Prince Edward Island, where 100 per cent of the population is dependent on groundwater).

According to Environment Canada, 30.3 per cent of the Canadian population relies on groundwater and 28.5 per cent of Ontarians rely on groundwater for domestic use. Guelph is 85 to 90 per cent dependent on groundwater.

According to the city, “groundwater takes much longer to replenish after drought-like conditions than surface water,” making it much more vulnerable to overuse.

In addition, WWW says the amount of groundwater available in the Grand River watershed is unknown. As such, “allowing large-volume water taking is like writing blank cheques on a bank account with an unknown balance.”

Nestlé is the largest water bottling company in Canada. Its largest bottling plant is in Aberfoyle, Ont., 13 kilometres southeast of Guelph.

In February 2011, WWW led a campaign protesting a proposal that would extend Nestlé’s permit to pump water from the Grand River watershed at a volume of 3.6 million litres per day for the next 10 years.

This past summer, the city’s Water Services department issued a Level 2 – Red water notice, stopping all non-essential watering, due to hot temperatures and drought-like conditions.

“For a bottled water company to continue pumping throughout a serious drought, it kind of adds insult to injury,” said Calzavara.

“All unnecessary use of water should be eliminated during such times and bottled water ought to be the first on that list. Nestlé declares they reduced their consumption 20 per cent in all four of the declared drought periods the watershed has experienced in the last five years. How many years of drought will it take before we stop the nonsense and waste that comes with bottled water?” Calzavara said.

Guelph city council endorsed two actions in July as part of the Blue Communities project. First, to recognize water as a human right, and secondly “to maintain public water and wastewater services in the public domain.”

A third action was not endorsed by city council, which entailed “banning the sale of bottled water in public facilities and at municipal events.”