Nestle
Waters Canada has sparked angry reactions to its bottled water business in
Wellington County, threatening to sideswipe farmers who use Grand River water
to irrigate crops, especially along the Lower Grand from Paris to Lake Erie.
Premier
Kathleen Wynne has bowed to pressure and announced a review of water-taking
permits. Farmers who irrigate crops need a permit.
Among
those who lobbied Wynne are Wellington Water Watchers, Saveourwater.ca and
Trout Unlimited.
They
are concerned that Nestle is taking so much water that the water table is
dropping and is reducing what’s available to others in the Grand River
watershed.
Nestle
holds permits to take up to 3.6 million litres per day from Aberfoyle, 1.113
million litres a day from Hillsburg and seeks a permit to take 1.6 million
litres a day from Elora, which is in the municipality of Centre
Wellington.
Nestle pays an extraction
fee of $3.71 per one million litres pumped.
Donna McCaw of Saveourwater.ca says “the issue
is just not the fees but water security and protection. This summer’s drought has underlined the need
for these new policies on water taking.”
The
Grand River Conservation Authority announced restrictions on water taking this
summer, first for the area where farmers draw irrigation water, then later for
the entire watershed.
The
Aberfoyle project is up for review; Nestle has asked for a 10-year extension.
The
Elora well site was first considered by Centre Wellington for municipal
water, but Nestle bought the property.
“One
would think that if Nestle had concerns about local water security as they
claim, they would have allowed the sale to the township,” said McCaw.
“Granting
a permit to take water that would remove 1.6 million litres of water a day from
a stressed and sensitive watershed would be irresponsible in light of the local
need for the water,” she said.
The
Grand River watershed is a vulnerable one.
There is no lake, much is limestone and the river is quite shallow in
parts, says a news media briefing from Saveourwater.
“Many
of the communities along the river depend on either groundwater from aquifers
or water from the river.
"About 950,000
people live in the watershed and depend on municipal or private wells,” the
background briefing says.
The
major cities are Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge, Guelph and Brantford.
