Nestle Bottled Water Plant Upgrade Driving More Groundwater Extraction

Swiss giant Nestle plans to significantly increase the amount of Michigan groundwater it pumps from under the state in conjunction with a $36 million dollar expansion of its Ice Mountain bottling plant.

Nestle Waters North America is asking the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) for permission to increase allowed pumping from 150 to 400 gallons-per-minute at one of its production wells north of Evart.

The DEQ already issued a draft approval for the request in January and is accepting public comment on the proposal until Thursday, Nov. 3.

Nestle and the DEQ say an environmental review shows the aquifer can handle the more than doubled withdrawal and wont hurt the flow, levels or temperature of nearby surface waters, but a citizens group which previously fought Nestle over groundwater wants more scrutiny on the plan.

"It needs to be studied by all the best environmentalists, hydrologists and people acquainted with the science of where this water is actually coming from," said Jeff Ostahowski, vice president of the Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation.

"There are many different hydrologists who can look at the same data and come up with different conclusions," he said.

The citizen group fought Nestle for years in court to reduce the company's allowed withdrawal; resulting in a 2009 settlement that reduced Nestle's Stanwood wells to an average of 218 gallons per minute, about 313,000 gallons per day, with restrictions on spring and summer withdrawals.

Source: Michigan Live

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