Corporate Welfare in Florida

How ridiculously short-sighted of the State of Florida. Public investment, private profit. Not to mention, the source of the water is in drought condition already.

Nestle came into Florida and managed to pull off quite the coup.

The company got a permit to take water belonging to Floridians — hundreds of millions of gallons a year from a spring in a state park — at no cost to Nestle.

No taxes. No fees. Just a $230 permit to pump water until 2018.

Nestle bottles that water, ships it throughout the Southeast — much of it to Georgia and the Carolinas — and makes millions upon millions of dollars in profits on it.

The state granted Nestle permission to draw so much water against the strong recommendation of the local water management district staff. Because drought conditions were stressing the Madison Blue Spring, the staff said the amount of water drawn on the permit should be cut by more than two-thirds.

[From Environment: Water: Water's trip to your glass is complicated]

I'm pretty sure Nestlé has a similar deal pending in Michigan to pump fresh water out of the Great Lakes for a nominal fee.

And like always, the corporation's response is: "But, but, but we're creating jobs!!" Of course, the number of jobs is quite small. In this case, 300 jobs (or less).

In a memo dated Nov. 15, 2002, the water management district staff recommended reducing the amount of water Nestle could draw under the permit it would obtain from 1.47-million gallons a day to 400,000 a day.

Historically, the average flow of the spring is 55-million gallons a day, but it was down to 34-million gallons a day.

"The current drought has reduced the flow of Madison Blue Springs to record lows," Jon Dinges, director of resource management, wrote to the water management district's governing board. "The drought has become severe since the permit was issued, thus requiring a reduction of the (average daily withdrawal) to ensure resource protection."

In January 2003, the governing board — gubernatorial appointees who make final decisions about water use — heard Nestle's pitch to continue the permit as originally approved.

The company promised to invest $100-million in the plant over seven years and create 300 jobs — but only if the permit remained as it had been when first approved for Bruic.

To make the travesty even more ridiculous, Jeb Bush's appointees gave Nestlé a massive tax subsidy:

As an added incentive for Nestle, the state approved a tax refund of up to $1.68-million for the Madison bottling operation. To date, Nestle has received two refunds totaling $196,000 and requested a third tax refund.

Nestle had promised to create 300 jobs over five years. The most people it has ever employed was about 250. The number dropped to 205 late last year, 46 of them from Georgia, which Nestle defends as common for a work force along a state line.

(H/T)