#Rafay Systems

[otiskeene]

Rafay Systems Named As A Cool Vendor In The 2023 Gartner Cool Vendors In Container Management

Rafay Systems, a prominent platform provider for Kubernetes management and operations, has recently earned recognition as a "Cool Vendor" in the 2023 Gartner Cool Vendors in Container Management report. This recognition underscores Rafay's commitment to enabling enterprises to accelerate digital transformation initiatives and enhance developer productivity while ensuring the necessary controls for enterprise-wide adoption.

One of the key aspects of Rafay's approach is its SaaS-first methodology, which empowers enterprise platform teams to streamline complex Kubernetes infrastructure operations across both private and public cloud environments. This efficiency boost aids developers and data scientists in bringing new applications and features to market more rapidly. Gartner's research indicates a growing trend, predicting that "by 2027, more than 90% of G2000 organizations running containerized applications in hybrid deployments will be leveraging container management tooling, up from fewer than 20% in 2023."

Haseeb Budhani, the CEO and co-founder of Rafay Systems, expressed pride in being recognized as a Gartner Cool Vendor, emphasizing that this acknowledgment validates Rafay's mission to enable enterprises to deliver innovative applications quickly. Rafay's Kubernetes Operations Platform aligns with the fast pace of innovation by providing self-service capabilities for developers and data scientists while offering the automation, standardization, and governance that platform teams require.

Read More - https://bit.ly/3RpOFe9

[bumblebeeappletree]

Air pollution kills millions each year, especially in the world’s megacities. But we found some surprising news: In many places, it’s actually getting better! Here’s how megacities around the world are already making their air cleaner and safer. 

#planeta #smog #airpollution

We're destroying our environment at an alarming rate. But it doesn't need to be this way. Our new channel Planet A explores the shift towards an eco-friendly world — and challenges our ideas about what dealing with climate change means. We look at the big and the small: What we can do and how the system needs to change. Every Friday we'll take a truly global look at how to get us out of this mess.

Credits:

Author: Kira Schacht

Video Editor: Frederik Willmann

Supervising Editor: Kiyo Dörrer

Fact-check: Kirsten Funck 

With thanks for interviews (included and not):

Rafay Alam:

/ rafay_alam

Zoe Chafe: https://www.c40.org/our-team/zoe-chafe/

Sophie Gumy, Technical Officer at WHO's Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health

Frank Hammes, IQAir: https://www.iqair.com/

Bhavreen Kandhari:

/ bhavreen-kandhari-8028...

Abid Omar:

/ abidomar

Read more:

WHO Ambient (outdoor) air pollution:

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sh...

C40 – Air quality:

https://www.c40.org/what-we-do/scalin...

Pakistan Air Quality Initiative:

/ pakairquality

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

00:46 The problem

01:31 Our analysis

02:00 The causes

02:36 Transport

04:04 Industry

04:45 Waste

05:39 Energy

07:12 What now

09:46 Outro

[infernovm]

Conquering the costs and complexity of cloud, Kubernetes, and AI

Platform engineering teams are at the forefront of enterprise innovation, leading initiatives in cloud computing, Kubernetes, and AI to drive efficiency for developers and data scientists. However, these teams face mounting challenges in managing costs and complexity across their expanding technological landscape. According to industry research conducted by my company, Rafay Systems, 93% of teams…

[indiarightnow]

Google says it fixed crashing issues with apps on Android devices

Google says it fixed crashing issues with apps on Android devices

Google on Tuesday said it has resolved the issue with WebView that caused some apps on Android to crash for users globally including in India. “We have resolved the issue with WebView that caused some apps on Android to crash for some users. Updating Android System WebView and Google Chrome via Google Play should now resolve the issue,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement. Earlier, some…

[eretzyisrael]

Israeli security forces caught the two terrorists who carried out a deadly attack in Elad, four days after they went on a rampage in the city.

IDF forces, Shin Bet officers and police caught the two suspects 19-year-old As’sad al-Rifai and 20-year-old Emad Subhi Abu Shqeir, both from Rumana in the Jenin area of the West Bank, alive in a forested area close to Elad near Park Nahshonim.

They were located after a massive manhunt where security forces including special forces from the IDF’s commando units, advanced technologies including intelligence, canine units and helicopters.

On Saturday a force consisting of Shin Bet officers as well as troops from the IDF’s Maglan commando unit and Mirol Reserve Unit identified suspicious objects in the area, which led security forces to concentrate around a quarry. The force returned to the area on Sunday morning and identified suspicious movement and arrested the two.

The terrorists were unarmed.

In a video from the scene, al-Rifai is heard identifying himself and his accomplice Subhi Sbaihat. When asked by an officer what he was doing in the area, he answered “an operation, the Elad operation.” The officer asked what happened in the operation to which he answered “I don’t know exactly, we hit people.”

The three victims in the deadly attack on Thursday were identified as 40-year-old Yonatan Habakuk, a father of five, 40-year-old Boaz Gol, a father of five and 35 year-old Oren Ben Yiftach a father of six from Lod. Together they left behind 16 children.

At the opening of the Cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett extended his condolences to the families of the three victims and thanked the security forces for capturing the terrorists.

“We said we would get our hands on the terrorists, and so we did,” he said, adding that nevertheless, the capture of terrorists is no longer sufficient.

“We are at the beginning of a new stage in the war on terror - it is impossible to incite and rest. You can not throw a match and run away,” he warned, adding that “the greatest task of the Israeli government is to restore personal security to the citizens of Israel.”

Therefore, he said, “I instructed the National Security Council, in coordination with the Defense Ministry to present to the government an orderly and budgeted plan for the establishment of a national guard, by the end of the month.”

"I want to make it clear here that there is not, and will not be, any political consideration when it comes to the war on terror,” Bennett stressed.

Public Security Minister Omer Bar Lev commended the security forces on the arrests, saying that “we will continue to pursue with determination our enemies all the time, and everywhere, and we will reach them. "

"I congratulate the security forces on capturing the two terrorists who committed the murder in Elad. In the last two days, the best forces in the police, the Shin Bet and the IDF have worked together to get their hands on them, and so it has happened. With determination, we seek our evil all the time, and everywhere, and we will reach them. "

Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai arrived at the scene shortly after the arrest and thanked the security forces for their work.

"We said we would not be quiet or rest until we put our hand on them and so it was,” he said. Every terrorist knows that the long arm of the Israel Police and the entire security system will reach anyone who harms Israeli citizens. We are determined to continue the war on terror.”

IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kohavi praised the forces saying that just this morning he took part in a situational assessment about the manhunt.

“Over the past weekend, IDF forces worked together with the police and the Shin Bet, leading to the capture of the murderers. We will continue to work to stop terrorism and strengthen the security and sense of security of the citizens of the State of Israel,” he said.

Earlier in the day Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai was quoted by Ynet News as saying that "we're in the right direction overall - we assume that the terrorists are still in the area, and activating all their resources and abilities.”

Following their arrests, Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem saluted the attackers, saying that “the heroes of the Elad operation stopped the Zionist entity that possesses nuclear weapons with just one foot and exposed the fragility of the Zionist security system.”

[releaseteam]

via Twitter https://twitter.com/releaseteam

[thefastmode]

Rafay Systems Raises $25M Funding to Boost Kubernetes Operations Platform https://bit.ly/3DI2gUu

[rolandfontana]

Does Reform Matter? The Hopelessness of a Life Sentence

Throughout Victor Hassine’s decades of imprisonment in Pennsylvania he achieved remarkable things, from receiving awards for his writing to, most notably, the publication of Life Without Parole: Living and Dying in Prison Today, which is used as a text on several college campuses.

But there will need to be an epilogue to future editions that reads “Mr. Hassine committed suicide after he was denied release for the sixth time.”

Hassine’s death on May 2 has given me pause. And it should make anyone who considers the fate of those serving life sentences wonder whether anything that a lifer does to remake himself into someone who could meaningfully contribute to society means anything.

Without freedom, all of that potential for success is meaningless.

My life is a testament to this meaninglessness.

I’ve achieved extraordinary things in spite of my life sentence. I am not being arrogant: I am simply stating a fact. The adoption of my legal analysis by the Washington Court of Appeals is one illustration.

Yet make no mistake about it. Nothing that I have accomplished—from earning my bachelor’s degree through independent means to publishing in law journals to writing a regular column in The Crime Report—has positively affected my subjective experience of imprisonment or improved my conditions of confinement.

All is the same in both respects so long as I remain behind razor-wire and fences.

Intelligent or ignorant, hard working or lazy, accomplished or a failure—all of those who are imprisoned share the same benighted experiences.

Had I spent the last decade using my meager resources purchasing marijuana rather than pursuing correspondence courses and textbooks, I would still be in the same situation that I am at this moment: Residing in a cell with no privacy, impoverished and indebted, starved of physical affection, and scarred psychologically.

I can change myself, but I cannot change this reality.

Nobody serving a life sentence can change this reality.

I have potential—potential that I have painstakingly developed—but potential does not improve one’s physical surroundings or sense of wellbeing. Award-winning writer Arthur Longworth, confined with me at Washington State Reformatory, can attest to this. Rest assured that he too would trade in his success for a release date in an instant because, without freedom, our lives will forever be spent imagining what could have been—and regretting the crimes that brought us here decades ago when we were lost and angry teenagers.

You can, however, find meaning by fooling yourself into believing that having a positive effect on others and trying to make prison a better place are worthy endeavors—as if this airy nothing could ever be a sufficient substitute for one’s liberty.

Call it the Change Agent Delusion. I used to suffer from it. I was bright-eyed and optimistic in the grips of this madness.

As a leader in the Concerned Lifers Organization long ago, I helped to organize regular presentations to audience members ranging from policymakers to mental health professionals, highlighting inequities in the criminal justice system and proposing reforms. When the presentations were over, I returned to the cellblock and life continued as miserable as before.

As a member of the Prisoner Advisory Committee for the University Beyond Bars, which is a nonprofit higher education program at Washington State Reformatory, I helped to guide the curriculum and assist the outside Board fulfill its mission. When the meetings ended, I returned to the cellblock to the same monotony and deprivation.

For years, I helped shepherd younger prisoners through their sentences, trying to instill all the knowledge and sense that I could in them. After giving them an embrace or handshake before they left to return to the community, I returned to the cellblock to continue serving out my life sentence.

Always back to the cellblock.

Reform is irrelevant.

You can receive praise from the highest quarters. But it means nothing because you will still remain imprisoned serving your life sentence. I have received praise from such quarters.

This Facebook post from the King County Prosecutor’s Office about me manifests that even if the agency that was instrumental in securing your life sentence is impressed by your efforts and wishes you the best, it is nothing more than an ironic anecdote to share with the rest of the lifers on the cellblock.

I regained my sanity after being denied parole in 2017. It was then that I truly understood the irrelevance of reform. Since then, working to help change the lives of others and trying to have an impact on society is no longer satisfying. I continue to do it out of routine and the absence of alternatives that seem worthwhile aside from sleeping.

But my heart is no longer in it.

Ultimately, wasted potential is destructive to a lifer’s psyche because long after hope is gone, they continue moving forward like zombies. Stubbornly, we cling to the hope that one day we will be freed due to a change in the law, a successful appeal, parole (if you’re eligible), or executive clemency.

I see them on the cellblock every day.

I see one in the mirror every morning.

We grow older. Our hair grays and hairlines recede. Yet our skills, intellectual gifts and positive qualities continue to be wasted on the cellblock solely for the sake of retribution.

Atif Rafay can write the Best Canadian Essay for 2013 and become a Nietzsche scholar, but he knows full well that his potential is shackled.

Arthur Longworth can be a role model for prisoners such as Michael J. Moore, helping him publish his novel After the Change, but Longworth is still destined to die imprisoned notwithstanding his remorse, reform, and writing awards.

I use these two examples due to my affinity for the writers who are confined with me. Yet countless rehabilitated prisoners across the country have the potential to meaningfully contribute to society and will never have the opportunity because of a life sentence.

Victor Hassine undoubtedly knew this better than me, given his 35 years in captivity.

For decades, he must have taken heart in the belief that his writing was affecting future policymakers. He surely saw himself as a voice in the battle against mass incarceration. Prisoners probably saw him as someone to emulate. Officials likely gave him kudos for his efforts.

Yet getting out of prison was unmistakably his highest priority. Such is the case for everyone who has sense and is serving a life sentence.

I can assure you that he wanted to use a word processor instead of a typewriter circa 1990. He wanted to lecture at Pennsylvania State University rather than to guests at Graterford Correctional Institution. Yet at the end of the day, neither his acclaim nor curriculum vitae enabled him to escape the grim reality that prisons dispense misery quite generously.

Success cannot inoculate against despondency.

So, while college students studied his text, he continued to be strip searched, face the threat of violence, and suffer the other countless indignities that are a product of punishment in America.

Jeremiah Bourgeois

He reached his limit, put down his prize-winning pen, and ended the cruelties by taking his own life—underscoring that acclaim and a curriculum vitae are the zenith of wasted potential for those who are imprisoned serving life sentences.

Jeremiah Bourgeois is a regular contributor to TCR, and a Washington State prisoner who has been serving a life sentence since he was 14 years old. He is due for another hearing before the Washington State parole board in early August. Those who wish to support his release can sign the petition here. He welcomes comments from readers.

Does Reform Matter? The Hopelessness of a Life Sentence syndicated from https://immigrationattorneyto.wordpress.com/

[michaelemathew]

Toronto-Based Startup Saves You From Dishonest Mechanics And Huge Repairs! Selling Now On Kickstarter

Toronto- based Carnostic is now available at Kickstarter.  The startup aims to save car owners money and avoid the hassles of dealing with dishonest mechanics. Carnostic offers drivers in-depth information about the status of their vehicles and this is delivered conveniently from their mobile devices. Carnostic’s crowdfunding Kickstarter link is https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/carnostic/carnostic-your-car-is-talking-to-you-listen?ref=429c1g.

Carnostic is an automotive diagnostics tool that will help drivers understand their vehicles better. This tool collects, analyzes and uses data coming from 600 sensors on the driver’s car as well as other vehicles. This information taken by the system’s OBD scanner will allow drivers to accurately predict problems in their cars even before they drive. With Carnostic’s diagnostic tool, car owners will never overlook an appointment service or spend money on useless enhancements. Real-time feedback about the status of a vehicle will be provided straight from the car owner’s mobile phone. 

Carnostic is a cloud-based diagnostic maintenance platform that utilizes artificial intelligence and machine learning to use data gathered from customers and drivers all over the world. Carnostic’s data engine is currently ready for use. The diagnostic platform is accepting beta testers to enhance their data-based predictions and achieve their vision.

Carnostic’s Kickstarter campaign is in full swing. Supporters can choose from six different pledges and support the campaign for as low as CA$ 45 to as high as CA$499. Each pledge has a corresponding reward which includes an OBD2 Adapter, membership to Carnostic’s paid features and so many more. Anyone from anywhere around the world can join Carnostic’s Kickstarter campaign and all they need to do is to visit https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/carnostic/carnostic-your-car-is-talking-to-you-listen?ref=429c1g.

Carnostic offers users a brand new proprietary pre-emptive diagnostics which can be used to gradually enhance driving habits and reduces mistakes related to maintenance and repairs. Users will also enjoy maintenance service schedules and free professional diagnostics. With Carnostic’s Blackbox Mode users will be able to monitor the speed and performance of their cars and multiple cars linked to one account.   

A few quotes about Carnostic:

“Carnostic is a diagnostic tool designed to provide drivers with instant information on current and FUTURE maintenance/repairs right through their mobile devices! The entire concept is built to protect consumers from being upsold into services by dishonest mechanics through the power of data analysis and machine learning. Something we can all agree we need!"

“It is very difficult for the average driver to understand all the ins and outs of their vehicle, nevertheless with the help of Carnostic all the information you need is displayed in an easy to understand app right on your phone. Simply plug in your Carnostic OBD device and begin! The app comes with a variety of handy features and resources for users to learn more about how their cars work, and of course, save tons of money!"

More information about Carnostic is found at their official site: https://www.carnostic.com while details about their Kickstarter campaign are available at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/carnostic/carnostic-your-car-is-talking-to-you-listen?ref=429c1g.

About Carnostic

Carnostic is more than just a catchy name; it could be the next thing to change the face of the automotive industry. The company aims to educate you about your vehicle so that you can “Know Your Car” and so it can serve as a driver’s right hand." More information about Carnostic is available from their official site: https://www.carnostic.com. Details about their Kickstarter campaign are available at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/carnostic/carnostic-your-car-is-talking-to-you-listen?ref=429c1g.

Contact Info: Rafay Khilji Carnostic Inc. Email: rafay@carnostic.com Kickstarter Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/carnostic/carnostic-your-car-is-talking-to-you-listen?ref=429c1g. Phone: 647 929 1766 Milton, ON Canada

[releaseteam]

via Twitter https://twitter.com/releaseteam

[tyler-brassard6vt9ity-blog]

Masque of the red death essay

Masque of the red death essay

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The Masque of the Red Death Essays: Over 180,000 The Masque of the Red Death Essays, The Masque of the Red Death Term Papers, The Masque of the Red Death Research

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25.04.2017 · “The Masque of the Red Death” is a remarkable and bloodcurdling story written by Edger Allan Poe, who is very crafty in the goth

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“The Masque of the Red Death” is a Gothic style story written by Edgar Allan Poe. In this story, many setting and descriptive details contain symbols.

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Free Mask of the Red Death Essays and Papers

13.11.2018 · The short story "The Masque of the Red Death" was written by the famous Edgar Allan Poe. This story took place in the 1300s, when the Black Death was

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Masque of the Red Death; Masque of the Red I will also include reference to other techniques used in the story used to create this Gothic consciousness in this essay.

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Free Essay: Surely, all of mankind would agree to have the natural fear of death and live in attempts to avoid and escape death at all times. Nevertheless,

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Mask of the Red Death Essay | Bartleby

“Masque of the Red Death” & “The Raven��� Comparison Essay Sample. Edgar Allan Poe was a writer noted for consistencies in the dark and gothic style in his writing.

[gmailogin]

About portion of all Android gadgets are as yet powerless by two genuine program abuses

Roughly 45% of Android gadgets have programs defenseless against two genuine security issues, yet a few nations have a fundamentally higher level of clients influenced by the information than others. Portable Security Lookout.

Two security issues were found a month ago by security specialist Rafay Baloch and portrayed by different scientists as a private catastrophe. They enable an assailant to cross the center security limit, known as a similar inception approach (SOP), that exists in all programs.

SOP keeps contents from cooperating with a space from another area. For instance, contents that keep running on a page facilitated on space A won't have the capacity to connect with content stacked in agreement from area B.

Without that restriction, an aggressor could make pages that heap Facebook, Gmail, or some other touchy site in an imperceptible iframe, and after that trap clients into going to those pages to take their sessions. what's more, perused their email or Facebook message.

SOP vulnerabilities found by Baloch influence more established Android variants 4.4, as per information from Google that is introduced on 75 percent of all dynamic Android gadgets that visit the Google Play Store. Android 4.4 isn't powerless against assault since it utilizes Google Chrome as its default program rather than the more established Android Open Source Project (AOSP) program.

Google has discharged patches for two vulnerabilities through AOSP, which go about as the reason for custom Android programming introduced on the maker's gadgets. The assignment currently falls on the gadget merchant to import those patches and discharge firmware updates to end clients.

In any case, history has demonstrated that the accessibility of Android programming refreshes shifts a considerable measure between makers, diverse gadgets from a similar producer and even crosswise over nations, since the Local specialist organizations likewise assume a part in appropriating refreshes over the system.

This is considered in information these two vulnerabilities gathered by Lookout from its clients of its versatile security items. In general, "around 45% of Lookout clients have a defenseless form of the introduced AOSP program," Lookout representatives Jeremy Linden and Meghan Kelly said in a blog entry. "We trust our client base gives a decent perspective of how Android clients are by and large influenced by these vulnerabilities."

In any case, a more top to bottom investigation of defenselessness measurements in every nation will draw an alternate picture. 80% of Lookout clients in Japan have a defenseless form of the AOSP program introduced, contrasted with only 34% of US clients. In Spain, 73% of clients are probably going to endure, while in UK is 51%.

These huge contrasts might be because of the normal future of phones in the United States and the recurrence of updates in a few nations, Linden and Kelly said.

While Lookout's information reflects how the Android biological system is scattered, especially with regards to security patches, it is important that for this situation there is just a powerless variant. of the AOSP program introduced does not imply that the client's gadget is in danger. Android clients can introduce and utilize Chrome, Firefox, or some other non-defenseless program rather than the pre-introduced AOSP program.

[ericvanderburg]

Rafay Systems to Exhibit at @CloudEXPO | @RafaySystemsInc #HybridCloud #AI #DevOps #AIOPs #Serverless #Docker #Kubernetes

http://i.securitythinkingcap.com/R4cCvJ

[filtration-products]

Nestlé Makes Billions Bottling Water It Pays Nearly Nothing For – The Water Filter Lady’s Blog

The company’s operation in Michigan reveals how it’s dominated the industry by going into economically depressed areas with lax water laws.

In rural Mecosta County, Mich., sits a near-windowless facility with a footprint about the size of Buckingham Palace. It’s just one of Nestlé’s roughly 100 bottled water factories in 34 countries around the world. Inside, workers wear hairnets, hard hats, goggles, gloves, and earplugs. Ten production lines snake through the space, funneling local spring water into 8-ounce to 2.5-gallon containers; most of the lines run 24/7, each pumping out 500 to 1,200 bottles per minute. About 60 percent of the supply comes from Mecosta’s springs and arrives at the factory via a 12-mile pipeline. The rest is trucked in from neighboring Osceola County, about 40 miles north. “Daily, we’re looking at 3.5 million bottles potentially,” says Dave Sommer, the plant’s 41-year-old manager, shouting above the din.

Silos holding 125 tons of plastic resin pellets provide the raw material for the bottles. They’re molded into shape at temperatures reaching 400F before being filled, capped, inspected, labeled, and laser-printed with the location, day, and minute they were produced—a process that takes less than 25 seconds. Next, the bottles are bundled, shrink-wrapped onto pallets, and picked up by a fleet of 25 forklifts that ferry them to the plant’s warehouse or loading docks. As many as 175 trucks arrive every day to transport the water to retail locations in the Midwest. “We want more people to drink water, keep hydrated,” Sommer says. “It would be nice if it were my water, but we just want them to drink water.”

Water bottles in motion at the Nestlé Ice Mountain facility in Stanwood, Mich.

PHOTOGRAPHER: BRENDAN GEORGE KO FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK

Nestlé SA started bottling in 1843 when company founder Henri Nestlé purchased a business on Switzerland’s Monneresse Canal. “Ever the curious scientist, [he] analyzed and experimented with the enrichment of water with a variety of minerals, always with a singular goal: to provide healthy, accessible, and delicious refreshment,” reads Nestlé’s website. Today there are thousands of bottled water companies worldwide—there’s even Trump Ice—but Nestlé is the biggest globally in terms of sales, followed by Coca-Cola, Danone, and PepsiCo, according to Euromonitor International. Nestlé Waters, the Paris-based subsidiary, owns almost 50 brands, including Perrier, S.Pellegrino, and Poland Spring.

Last year, U.S. bottled water sales reached $16 billion, up nearly 10 percent from 2015, according to Beverage Marketing Corp. They outpacedsoda sales for the first time as drinkers continue to seek convenience and healthier options and worry about the safety of tap water after the high-profile contamination in Flint, Mich., about a two-hour drive from Mecosta. Nestlé alone sold $7.7 billion worth worldwide, with more than $343 million of it coming from Michigan, where the company bottles Ice Mountain Natural Spring Water and Pure Life, its purified water line.

The Michigan operation is only one small part of Nestlé, the world’s largest food and beverage company. But it illuminates how Nestlé has come to dominate a controversial industry, spring by spring, often going into economically depressed municipalities with the promise of jobs and new infrastructure in exchange for tax breaks and access to a resource that’s scarce for millions. Where Nestlé encounters grass-roots resistance against its industrial-strength guzzling, it deploys lawyers; where it’s welcome, it can push the limits of that hospitality, sometimes with the acquiescence of state and local governments that are too cash-strapped or inept to say no. There are the usual costs of doing business, including transportation, infrastructure, and salaries. But Nestlé pays little for the product it bottles—sometimes a municipal rate and other times just a nominal extraction fee. In Michigan, it’s $200.

A bridge at sunset in Evart, Mich.

PHOTOGRAPHER: BRENDAN GEORGE KO FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK

The Romans were among the first to see water as more than a basic need. They ranked theirs by taste; Aqua Marcia, from a spring about 60 miles outside of Rome, was among the best. In the 19th century, some of the first mass-market brands were S.Pellegrino and Vittel, now owned by Nestlé, and Evian, a Danone label. Sales were driven by taste, as well as the age-old notion that the mineral contents are therapeutic, curing ailments from hangovers to kidney stones. But mineral water consumption in America cratered in the early 20th century in part because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration made it harder to tout medicinal benefits without expensive testing.

Today, Americans often drink bottled water for what they hope is not in it. Fears about what comes out of the tap aren’t completely unfounded; 77 million Americans are served by water systems that violate testing requirements or rules about contamination in drinking water, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. In agriculture-heavy regions, pesticides, fertilizers, and nitrates from animal waste leach into the ground. Despite the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974, compliance with harmful chemical restrictions isn’t monitored carefully, and most wastewater-treatment systems aren’t designed to remove hormones, antidepressants, and other drugs. The Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency is also attempting to roll back existing regulations. That said, bottled water isn’t necessarily more pure than tap. In the U.S., municipalities with 2.5 million or more people are required to test their supply dozens of times each day, whereas those with fewer than 50,000 customers must test for certain contaminants 60 times per month. Bottled water companies aren’t required to monitor their reserve or report contamination, although Nestlé says it tests its water hourly.

There’s also the issue of scarcity. The United Nations expects that 1.8 billion people will live in places with dire water shortages by 2025, and two-thirds of the world’s population could be living under stressed water conditions. Supply may be compromised in the U.S., too. A recent Michigan State University study predicts that more than a third of Americans might not be able to afford their water bills in five years, with costs expected to triple as World War II-era construction breaks down.

Failing infrastructure has already led to a near-total reliance on bottled water in parts of the world. Nestlé started selling Pure Life in Lahore, Pakistan, in 1998 to “provide a safe, quality water solution,” the company says. But locals wonder if the Swiss multinational is exacerbating the problem. “Twenty years ago, you could go anywhere in Lahore and get a glass of clean tap water for free,” says Ahmad Rafay Alam, an environmental lawyer in the country. “Now, everyone drinks bottled water.” He adds that this change has taken the pressure off the government to fix its utilities, degrading the quality of Lahore’s supply: “What Nestlé did is use a good marketing scheme to make tap water uncool and dangerous. It’s ubiquitous, like Kleenex. People will say, ‘Give me a bottle of Nestlé.’ ”

Nestlé has been preparing for shortages for decades. The company’s former chief executive officer, Helmut Maucher, said in a 1994 interview with the New York Times: “Springs are like petroleum. You can always build a chocolate factory. But springs you have or you don’t have.” His successor, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, who retired recently after 21 years in charge, drew criticism for encouraging the commodification of water in a 2005 documentary, saying: “One perspective held by various NGOs—which I would call extreme—is that water should be declared a human right. … The other view is that water is a grocery product. And just as every other product, it should have a market value.” Public outrage ensued. Brabeck-Letmathe says his comments were taken out of context and that water is a human right. He later proposed that people should have free access to 30 liters per day, paying only for additional use.

Compared with the water needs of agriculture and energy production, the bottled water business is barely responsible for a trickle; in Michigan, it accounts for less than 1 percent of total water usage, according to Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). But it rankles many because the natural resource gets hauled out of local watersheds for private profit, not used in the service of feeding people or keeping their lights on. There’s also, of course, the issue of plastic pollution.

In the U.S., Nestlé tends to set up shop in areas with weak water regulations or lobbies to enfeeble laws. States such as Maine and Texas operate under a remarkably lax rule from the 1800s called “absolute capture,” which lets landowners take all the groundwater they want. Michigan, New York, and other states have stricter laws, allowing “reasonable use,” which means property owners can extract water as long as it doesn’t unreasonably affect other wells or the aquifer system. Laws vary even within states. New Hampshire is a reasonable-use state, but in 2006, the municipality of Barnstead became the first nationwide to ban the pumping of its water for sale elsewhere.

Towns in Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin have turned away Nestlé. In Washington, the mayor of Waitsburg, Walt Gobel, resigned last year after it was revealed that he’d conducted secret talks with the company about building a $50 million plant. “The representatives asked for confidentiality of this proposal until they could determine the feasibility,” Gobel wrote in his resignation letter. Town leaders later voted to reject Nestlé’s advances.

Water tower in Evart.

PHOTOGRAPHER: BRENDAN GEORGE KO FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK

Elsewhere, Nestlé has largely prevailed against opposition. In Fryeburg, Maine, it took the company four years to successfully appeal a zoning board resolution to build a facility it said it needed for its Poland Spring line. Last year it gained rights to extract water for the next 20 years—and perhaps 25 more after that. In San Bernardino, Calif., Nestlé has long paid the U.S. Forest Service an annual rate of $524 to extract about 30 million gallons, even during droughts. “Our public agencies have dropped the ball,” says Peter Gleick, co-founder of the Pacific Institute, which focuses on water issues. “Every gallon of water that is taken out of a natural system for bottled water is a gallon of water that doesn’t flow down a stream, that doesn’t support a natural ecosystem,” he says.

Nestlé isn’t the only bottled water company operating in Michigan, but it’s the most controversial. Pepsi and Coca-Cola bottle municipal water from Detroit for their Aquafina and Dasani brands, respectively; they pay city rates, then sell the product back for profit. In Mecosta County, Nestlé sucks up spring water directly from the source, which water conservationists say does more damage to the flow of streams, rivers, and wetland ecology. Municipal supplies come from larger bodies of water, so massive depletions, they argue, have less of an impact. Nestlé’s chief of sustainability, Nelson Switzer, responds: “Water is a renewable resource. As long as you manage the area, water will flow in perpetuity.”

Nestlé purchased Ice Mountain from Pepsi in 2000 and moved the production facilities from the East Coast to mountain-less Mecosta. State and local officials appreciated the business and offered a $13 million, one-time tax break. When people found out that Nestlé was pumping water in their backyards, however, they formed an opposition group, Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation. Spearheaded by retired librarians and teachers, the group added more than 2,000 members statewide, enlisted the land-and-water-rights lawyer Jim Olson, and filed a lawsuit to stop Nestlé.

The case dragged on for eight years and cost the group more than $1 million. To raise money, it charged membership fees and threw fundraisers. “Garage sales twice a year, Texas Hold ’em, raffles, a few grants from nonprofits,” says President Peggy Case, a retired schoolteacher who rigged her own water towers to irrigate the gardens on her 35-acre property.

In 2003 a judge ruled against Nestlé, saying that data documenting three years of extraction by the company showed a significant depletion of the area’s streams and wetlands. Nestlé appealed, and the case lasted six more years before the two parties settled in 2009. Nestlé would reduce pumping from 400 gallons per minute to 218, with further restrictions in spring and summer, which residents hoped would limit the environmental impact.

Even before the settlement, Nestlé had expanded its operation beyond Mecosta County to neighboring Osceola County. For access to municipal wells in the city of Evart and one nonmunicipal well nearby, the company promised to fund 14 acres of new softball fields, plus a bullpen and lockers, for the high school team. The school superintendent, Howard Hyde, told the Grand Rapids Press in March 2005: “I’m tickled. It’s like Christmas. Our current fields are pretty nice, but these are going to be better.”

More than 44 percent of Evart’s 1,500 residents live below the poverty line, according to Data USA. Officials were disappointed that Nestlé built its Ice Mountain plant in Mecosta, which cost the city 280 jobs, but they were grateful for the roughly $250,000 Nestlé pays Evart annually for its water. “[If they left], our services would decline,” says Zackary Szakacs, the city manager.

In addition to the softball fields, Nestlé has helped Evart finance other upgrades, including new well houses for its municipal water, parks, and a fairground that hosts a dulcimer festival in July. For decades the fairground was also home to Evart’s Fourth of July fireworks celebration, attended by as many as 10,000 locals. In 2015, Nestlé discovered contamination in the watershed from perchlorate in those fireworks. The likely carcinogen is banned at certain levels only in Massachusetts and California, which is why Evart hadn’t been testing for it. But because Nestlé sells in all 50 states, says Szakacs, none of its water can test positive for the chemical. The company has since stopped pumping from affected wells and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to clean them up.

Szakacs, Evart’s city manager.

PHOTOGRAPHER: BRENDAN GEORGE KO FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK

At 58, Szakacs has snow-white hair, a goatee, a gruff voice, and a love of fishing and Coors Light. A former policeman, he’d moved to Evart in 2006 to be chief. His office at Evart City Hall is within walking distance of the pumping station where a steady stream of 12,500-gallon trucks arrive each day to pick up water for the Ice Mountain factory. Szakacs isn’t worried about Evart’s springs. “Look, we’ve got plenty of water, more water than you can imagine,” he says. “We’ve got rivers, and streams, and fish—bass, trout.”

Last Halloween, however, Garret Ellison, an environmental reporter for MLive and the Grand Rapids Press, discovered that Nestlé had applied for a permit to more than double its pumping rate at the well near Evart, to 400 gallons per minute—the same rate that was ruled harmful in Mecosta. Anticipating approval, Nestlé had invested $36 million to build an 80,000-square-foot addition to its Ice Mountain plant and applied for another permit for a booster station to help pump the additional flow. Michigan’s DEQ had all but approved the application for the increased pumping rate without allowing for a period of public comment.

After Ellison’s story went live, the department received more than 1,100 emails in three days (the number is now 81,000). “It sent a shock wave through most communities in Michigan,” says Olson, the lawyer, who filed an injunction with the nonprofit rights group For Love of Water demanding that the department extend its comment period and release relevant documents for review. Nestlé now awaits a decision on whether it will be allowed to increase pumping at the well near Evart. In late July the DEQ asked the company to produce data showing that higher pumping rates wouldn’t damage the environment, numbers that Nestlé plans to submit on Sept. 29.

Arlene Anderson-Vincent, a natural resource manager for Nestlé, says the uptick won’t damage the ecosystem. “The water here is constantly being replenished, much more quickly than we can pump,” says Anderson-Vincent, who was born and raised in Michigan and got a bachelor’s degree in geology from Michigan State University while working at General Motors as a welder. Nestlé has collected 17 years’ worth of data evaluating groundwater levels and stream flow—and although, she concedes, the wetlands in Mecosta might not have withstood 400 gallons per minute, Evart’s can. “Every well is different,” she says.

Nestlé’s data doesn’t make “reliable assumptions about real world conditions,” says Olson. “We know our glacial soils in Michigan, and we know our vegetation. You can pretty much take the old case [in Mecosta] as a predictor” of environmental impact.

A trailer park in Evart.

PHOTOGRAPHER: BRENDAN GEORGE KO FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK

Six months after Ellison’s reporting, on a chilly evening in April, more than 500 people filed into a large auditorium at Ferris State University near the Ice Mountain plant. They’d come from all across Michigan to take part in the DEQ’s public hearing on Nestlé, but they had more on their mind than Evart. “We took a bus here from Flint because we’re tired of bottled water, tired of Nestlé, tired of them making a profit off of our disaster,” said Bernadel Jefferson, a pastor and activist who arrived with a dozen other protesters.

It’s impossible to talk about water in Michigan without raising the crisis in Flint. Beginning in 2014 thousands of families were exposed to dangerous levels of lead and bacteria in tap water. Michigan Governor Rick Snyder cut costs by switching the city’s water source, after which the state failed to properly treat the water with anticorrosives. An outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease killed at least 12 people and led to manslaughter charges against five state and city officials. Snyder also tried, unsuccessfully, to block a federal court order forcing the state to deliver bottled water to residents. He argued that, at an estimated $10.5 million a month, it would be too costly, put more trucks on the road, and overwhelm Flint’s recycling system.

Nestlé is quick to point out that it has nothing to do with the water problems in Flint or elsewhere. “What happened in Flint, and what’s happening in other communities in the United States, is absolutely outrageous,” says Switzer, the sustainability chief. Nestlé even teamed up with Wal-Mart, Coca-Cola, and Pepsi to donate 35,000 bottles per month to Flint residents—“for schoolchildren,” he says.

Case, president of Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation.

PHOTOGRAPHER: BRENDAN GEORGE KO FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK

But since the crisis, Flint residents have paid thousands of dollars to purchase bottled water for drinking, cooking, washing, and bathing. “Between 2005 and 2016, Nestlé has taken over 4 billion gallons of our water for pennies and sold it back to us for huge profits,” said Case, the opposition group president, the first of about 50 people to speak at the hearing. “Meanwhile, the people of Flint have been forced to use this bottled water for several years and are required to pay some of the highest water bills in the country for undrinkable water. The people of Detroit have experienced massive shutoffs since 2014, with up to 90,000 people shut off at times. If Detroiters could pay Nestlé rates, few would owe more than a dollar, and the majority would owe less than a dime.”

Case’s three-minute speech got a standing ovation. Onstage, two DEQ employees listened in silence. “F— the DEQ,” a man from Flint yelled into the microphone, holding up his middle fingers. Three hours later, past 10 p.m., the hearing ended. The DEQ employees shuffled offstage, refusing to comment.

Nestlé maintains that its subsidiary is a good steward of the land. An emailed statement from corporate headquarters says: “With a third of its factories already operating in water-stressed areas, water availability is and will increasingly be a major risk to Nestlé Waters. This is why water stewardship at both factory and watershed level remains an integral approach to our business strategy.”

Environmental activists counter that multinationals shouldn’t be in charge of protecting water. But these companies seem more poised to do so than some state and local officials. There’s even a Davos-style event called the World Water Forum, whose stated mission is to “put water firmly on the international agenda.” In March, 40,000 people are expected to convene in Brasilia, Brazil. The occasion isn’t without its critics. In an April blog post, water-rights activist Maude Barlow wrote, “It is a corporate trade show organized by the World Water Council—a multi-stakeholder consortium promoting solutions to the water crisis that serve the interests of multinational corporations.”

A tool for conservationists might be the public trust doctrine, which says natural resources belong to the public. The principle dates back at least 1,500 years; in 1215, it was invoked to prohibit the British Crown from transferring valuable fisheries to private lords because seabeds belonged to the people. David Zetland, author of Living With Water Scarcity, says governments must decide how much water they want to protect under the public trust doctrine and the rest should be divvied up on the open market. “Political allocation is usually corrupt,” he says. Olson doesn’t think a market is a good idea. “The poorest among us have the same rights and should enjoy the same basic access and enjoyment of water as the wealthiest,” he says.

Down a dirt road in Traverse City, about an hour’s drive from Evart, Case is standing in her garden, harvesting fat stalks of asparagus. A neighbor’s dog, a black-and-white mutt left with one eye after a porcupine run-in, follows her through the yard to the home she moved to from Detroit after retiring. “We grow a good portion of our food here for the entire year,” she says.

Case, echoing her comments at the Ferris State hearing, says she’ll keep fighting. “It has to do with the privatization of water and taking the people’s water and making a profit from it, an exorbitant profit, a ridiculous profit, when there are people with no water at all, or people with poisoned water,” she says. “We don’t believe water should be owned by anybody. It’s a public right.” Depending on how Michigan rules on Nestlé’s bid to pump more water in Evart, Case’s group may take legal action. How it will pay to challenge the Swiss conglomerate a second time, she doesn’t know. “We might,” she says, “end up back in bake sales.”

(Clarifies information about contamination in Evart’s watershed in the 22nd paragraph.)

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