Dear Editor:
Since Nestlé Waters Canada’s permit to extract water from its Aberfoyle well expired in July 2016 and its Hillsburgh well permit in August 2017, it is estimated Nestlé
has pumped in excess of a billion litres of water from these two wells. You have to ask how much of that actual water has remained in Wellington County.
Although we have laws in Canada that forbid the diverting of water from one watershed to another, the government has no problem with that same water being put into plastic bottles and shipped out of the county to points worldwide. The mind boggles at this mindlessness!
In Centre Wellington, a township that has a challenged municipal well system and is slated to double in population by 2041, there is concern regarding the provision of sufficient drinking water for its citizens.
Allowing Nestlé a permit to start pumping water from its Middlebrook well will only worsen this precarious situation.
A moratorium on new commercial water taking permits has been in place since December, 2016 and was extended in December, 2018 for an additional year so that ongoing water studies could be completed. Those studies were completed in July, 2019 and are now being analyzed by the provincial government. A decision is expected in December as to either lifting the moratorium or not.
The studies have shown that Centre Wellington can ill-afford the removal of high volume groundwater from the aquifer. In fact the township’s own Water Supply Master Plan has shown that the township requires up to four new municipal wells if it is to meet the expected population growth demands.
The government has a critical decision to make concerning groundwater extraction. It has to analyze the evidence honestly and not be influenced by the lobbying of powerful multi-national companies which seek to maintain their high-profit enterprises.
The provincial government simply cannot “have its cake and eat it.” The government has the power to stop the removal of water by refusing a permit. These permits for large-scale commercial water bottling must stop – and stop permanently!
Mike Shackleford,
Belwood
(Editor’s note: Nestlé Waters officials have repeatedly stated water extracted from Wellington is not sold/shipped outside of Canada).