Tell Michigan's DEQ To Oppose Nestlé's Water Grab

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Dear Governor Snyder and Director Grether:
 
I am 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,

Update: The comment period deadline has been extended to April 21, 2017. Sign today!

Contact Governor Snyder and Michigan Department of Environmental Quality Director Heidi Grether right now. We will deliver your message urging them to reject Nestlé's permit application to increase pumping at White Pine Springs Well.

Without an adequate environmental review, Nestlé cannot show that its proposed pumping will not harm the creeks, wetlands, streams, species and ecosystem in Osceola County, Michigan and beyond.

We know that if enough people take action together we can change this Story and save Michigan's water from bottling and its plants and animals from an inadequate supply of free flowing water.