Nestle Will Continue Water Distribution In Flint After August Deadline

The City of Flint announced that Nestle will keep giving residents bottled water after the August cutoff that was originally in place.

After the state cut off free bottled water distribution, Nestle stepped in and said that they would give Flint free bottled water. They made the announcement in April, and said that the distribution would go through August of 2019. There was no hard line cut off date or anything, so the extension isn't  a huge surprise.

Mayor Weaver made the announcement on the City of Flint Facebook page.

According to Mlive, Nestle estimates that theyve given away more than 6.5 Million bottles of water to Flint. Mayor Weaver thanked Nestle on Facebook saying,

We appreciate that Nestlé Waters has agreed to extend supplying bottled water beyond the August end date, and this extension will help the residents as we continue to replace lead tainted service lines

The water in Flint is improving, and most testing shows that the water is safe to drink, especially with a filter. The problem now is trust. It's going to be a long time before anyone in Flint trusts the Michigan government.

The distribution centers for the Nestle water can be found on the City of Flint website here. If you have more questions, Flint residents can call 2-1-1.

I'd regret it if I didn't at least point out the irony in this story. Nestle is looking like a hero for what they are doing in Flint, and I understand why. I don't think that we should let that good deed wash out the fact that they are literally sucking Michigan dry when it comes to water. The sweetheart deal that they received to drain Michigan's ground water is a crime. It doesn't have the same immediate effect as the Flint Water Crisis, but in the future we are all going to be wondering why anyone would agree to it.