What’s Real?
Re: Advertiser article about confusions regarding Nestlé Waters’ proposal for the Middlebrook Well
Nestle has been offering office hours in Elora to keep the public informed. But what is the public learning?
Nestlé’s director claims that Middlebrook will be a ‘supplementary’ well to be used if its main production well at Aberfoyle has to be temporarily shut down. Yet on July 24, Tom Brennan, senior natural resource manager for Nestlé Waters North America, informed an audience of residents that Middlebrook water is close to the quality of the Montclair brand. Nestlé will be using Middlebrook since this will be their Montclair spring water brand. The truth is that Nestlé’s water taking permit at Aberfoyle expires in 2016 and a renewal will be under great public scrutiny and opposition. Nestlé wants a new source of spring water, and soon.
We have learned from Nestlé that the Salem wetland areas are as high as the wellhead and could be the well’s recharge area. While discussing this on August 21, Nestlé’s Andreanne Simard mentioned to residents that if she lived in Salem she would want to have her well monitored during this fall’s pump test; she would encourage that Salem wells be monitored and Nestlé would go door to door in Salem to notify every household about the upcoming test. By late Sept. however, it now appears that Nestlé’s project team has ‘voluntarily’ stretched itself, under public pressure, to monitor ‘several’ Salem wells. How did they determine which wells to monitor?
On July 24, a neighbour of the Middlebrook well shared publically with Nestlé representatives a letter he had written to the Ministry of the Environment, with copies to well site owners, to the project engineers, to the Township’s chief engineer and to Ted Arnott, MPP about his loss of well water and sand and silt in his pipes during the last round of testing at Middlebrook. Yet, a few weeks later at their Open House, Nestlé’s information board stated that during previous tests “pumping did not impair operation of any private wells.”
Nestlé claims to be a good corporate neighbour because they plant trees and donate to hospitals. But what makes it okay to put water at risk? Who do you trust?
The community wants an informed and science-based decision about this well. However in the end we have to ask ourselves the ever-present question: how would such a permit benefit this community and beyond and is this a ‘luxury’ that the world can afford?
Jan Beveridge
Elora
Jan Beveridge