Despite the jobs it would have created in a hard-hit area, voters in a green and wooded corner of America's Pacific Northwest have approved a ban on the production and transport of bottled water.  It effectively kills a proposed Nestle water bottling plant.

Nestle had made plans to pump 238 Million gallons of pristine spring water from the town of Cascade Locks, Oregon.  Opponents say ill-advised town leaders had invited the Swiss transnational food and beverage company to help itself to a precious natural resource during a two-year drought drought, and privatize it on terms that benefit only the company.

Cascade Lakes with its 19 percent unemployment rate is like a lot of other towns in the northwest that never recovered from the collapse of the timber industry due to shrinking forests and the need to protect wildlife.  But farm and orchard owners said water bottlers would compete with the needs of the growing regional population for its shrinking water supply.  Native Americans cited global warming, salmon die-offs, and water conservation as reasons to reject the bottling plant.  And others just didn't want trucks making 200 trips a day to and from the plant.  There was also concern over politicians who did not hold full public hearings on the proposal, who accepted trips from Nestle to California. 

"While we firmly believe this decision on a county primary ballot is not in the best interest of Cascade Locks, we respect the democratic process," said Dave Palais of Nestle Waters North America.

Nestle is the world's biggest seller of bottled water.  In 2013, Nestle Chairman and former CEO Peter Brabeck set off alarms in environmentalist and water-resource circles by declaring that water is not a human right, but rather a foodstuff that should be privatized and monetized on the "free market".  Shortly after that, Nestle amended its web site to declare that water is a Human Right.