Voters in Oregon recently went to the polls and overwhelmingly approved a measure to prevent Nestle from extracting water there.

For seven years the residents of Cascade Locks, Oregon, have been facing the prospect of a huge water bottling plant being built in their town. Nestle Water, Pacific Northwest, sought, with the support of local governmental agencies, to invest over $50 million in the plant with the intentions of drawing 100 million gallons of water yearly from the Oxbow Spring.According to the Nestle Waters PN website the water extraction operation would have brought in 50 full-time jobs and significant tax revenue to the area.Nestle's proposed Cascade Locks project would have been much larger than the water extraction currently being proposed for Eldred Township. In Eldred, Nestle is looking to extract 200,000 gallons of water daily from two production wellheads. The project includes a loading facility and two storage tanks. The water collected in Eldred would be shipped by tanker trucks to the Nestle bottling facility in Breinigsville."We stand to learn a lot from how other small towns are going about dealing with the issue of water extraction," said Eldred resident and Planning Commission Chairman Bob Boileau."Win or lose it gives us something to think about, what did they do right or wrong. Also, these reports give us additional resources, names of people that we might be able to share information with or learn something new from."Boileau also said that Eldred's residents should continue to feel motivated to keep on fighting.Earlier this year those opposing the operation in Oregon succeeded in getting a measure on the ballot to let the voters decide if water bottling should take place in Hood River County.On May 17 the voters went to the polls and overwhelmingly approved the measure, which lists the prohibitions against water extraction making it illegal to engage in the act of commercially producing bottled water from any source within the county, transporting any commercially produced bottled water from the county or transporting any bulk water from the county.The Coalition for a Strong Gorge Economy stood in opposition to the measure and ran a strong campaign against the measure.in mid-May it was discovered the Nestle had contributed over $105,000 to the coalition.The measure was filed by the Local Water Alliance. According to their website Hood River County suffered drought conditions just last year. Its site also clarifies that the purpose of the measure was not to defeat Nestle but to "protect our limited water supply for uses that actually matter - our orchards, homes and small businesses."However, this may not be the end for Nestle's extraction bid in Oregon. On Mondaynight, Cascade Locks council voted to explore legal options to allow the Nestle project to continue.