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Dear Peter,
Since 2001, Swiss-owned Nestlé has removed more than 4 billion gallons of water from three wells in Michigan's Muskegon River watershed for a paltry $200 annual fee per well. And now it's trying to take more.
Things are getting heated. Last week nearly 500 people crowded into a public hearing room in Big Rapids, Michigan, to debate Nestlé’s permit requesting to increase pumping for water bottling.
Sign this letter to Michigan's Department of Environmental Quality telling them that you oppose Nestlé's permit application.
Nestlé wants more of Michigan's water.
Take part in the comment period ending Friday!
COMMENT HERE!
Nestlé wants to more than double pumping at its White Pine Springs Well site in Osceola County from 150 gallons per minute (gpm) to 400 gpm, or 576,000 gallons per day. That's enough water for 30,000 people to take a shower every day of the week!
It's time that we the people take back control of our most precious resource: water. Nestlé’s current permit application lacks information related to the groundwater modeling, streamflow data, fish, invertebrates, and aquatic habitat data, as well as the company’s compliance with Michigan’s reasonable use doctrine and related water laws.
We cannot allow this permit to move forward because it does not provide a plan to protect creeks, wetlands, streams, and animals from Nestlé's increased water take.
As you know, we've been tracking Nestle's bottling operations and proposals all over the United States and Canada. This Michigan proposal is standard practice for Nestle: bully politicians, ignore the public, reap big profits.
The end of the comment period, April 21, is only two days away! Will you sign this letter to show that you oppose Nestlé's permit application today?
In solidarity,
Miranda Fox, Campaigns Manager
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Dear Governor Snyder and Director Grether:
Let me be clear ... I am a 77 year old person who is appalled at the way everything is being done for profit ... including politics. My career did not go well because I have followed the money and understand how profit gets made, and then who shares in the gains. Nature and society have been gamed for the benefit of those with power.
I am now writing to urge the State of Michigan and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) to reject Nestlé/Ice Mountain’s current permit application to more than double its allowed groundwater pumping from 150 to 400 gallons per minute (gpm) from White Pine Springs Well (PW-101) in Osceola County, Michigan.
The Nestlé’ application must be denied for the following reasons:
1. Nestlé has not submitted sufficient critical information on which a determination can be in accordance with the standards set forth in the applicable water laws of Michigan;
2. the application is administratively and substantively deficient;
3. the MDEQ and the State do not have sufficient information and have not posted sufficient information from Nestlé for property owners, communities, organizations, and citizens to provide meaningful comment as required by applicable laws and regulations;
4. Nestlé has not filed its pumping records, and its pumping to date has violated Michigan law because it has pumped and transported water without authorizations required by Section 17 of the Safe Drinking Water Act and the applicable Section 32723 of the state’s water law;
5. Four hundred (400) gpm will diminish the twin creeks and wetlands, which in turn will impair and harm the water, aquatic resources, and public trust in those natural resources, contrary to Michigan law.
With less than two weeks before the end of the public comment period, the MDEQ sent a letter dated February 14, 2017 to Nestlé that underscores the significant and considerable deficiencies in the record. Missing from the record is information related to the groundwater modeling, streamflow data, fish, macroinvertebrates, and aquatic habitat data, as well as the company’s compliance with Michigan’s reasonable use doctrine and related water laws.
Accordingly, the application as it stands now must be denied for failure to show that its proposed pumping will not harm the creeks, wetlands, streams, species and ecosystem. In addition, Nestlé’s deficient record raises questions as to whether the company received proper authorization in 2015 to increase its pumping from 150 to 250 gpm.
Nestlé’s current expansion request continues to put our public waters at risk because the public does not have adequate information to evaluate the potential harm to our waters. Therefore, at a minimum, the MDEQ should extend the public comment period from March 3 to at least another 60 days (depending on Nestle’s submission of additional information), because of the incomplete administrative and substantive record. This extended timeframe will afford the public adequate time to evaluate and comment on a complete application per the department’s letter. Public comment must include not only written comment, but also statewide public hearings in Evart, Detroit, Flint, Muskegon, and Traverse City.
Nestlé’s request is not just a mere isolated groundwater pumping application. Rather, it represents, and must be understood as, part of a much larger water decision for our Great Lake state of Michigan to address. The reality is that 400 gpm (210 million gallons a year) is gone forever from the headwaters of two streams for the marketing convenience of Nestle to put “spring water” on its labels.
This is an ecological disaster that should not be allowed. Remember that Michigan’s 12,000 year old glacial sand, gravel and clay and ancient groundwater is recharged by only 8 or 9 inches a year of precipitation – about 30 percent of an average of 32 inches a year in the form of snowfall and rain during the rainy season. The rest of the year is dry with frequent drought in the summer months such that these headwater streams and creeks simply cannot survive; pumping at Nestlé’s proposed rate is simply not sustainable, and the MDEQ should either deny this outright or put a cap on it of 150 gpm to end the matter.
Water is public. Water is also our most precious finite resource that is the lifeblood of our economy, our health, and our way of life here in the Great Lakes Basin. Privatizing our waters for profit and export outside our watersheds is a legally-defined harm. The State of Michigan as trustee is legally bound, on behalf of current citizens and future generations, to protect this resource from impairment, harm, or privatization for solely private purposes. This is the law.
The question we must ask is: How do the people of Michigan benefit when our water—one of the planet’s scarcest and finite resources—is given essentially free to a foreign-owned company, sold for a profit, and transported nearly 500 million gallons of water per year out of a Michigan watershed and the state?
Save for a handful of jobs (20 to be exact) this use of our public waters is not only contrary to law- it simply doesn’t make sense. It is time to put an end to allowing large corporate captures and takings of our interconnected groundwater, streams, rivers, lakes, and Great Lakes, especially when Nestlé gets it for free, and sends the profits back to Switzerland.
The nonprofit, FLOW (For Love of Water), intends to submit additional substantive technical and legal comments to the MDEQ related to this permit application.
Thank you for fulfilling your public trust obligations to safeguard our most precious resource – water.
Sincerely,
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