Dear Editor:
We are beginning to face cooler temperatures with the onset of autumn. It’s now time to turn up the heat on an extremely important campaign to take control of our water in Centre Wellington.
Save Our water has issued a new video which you can catch on Facebook and share with others. It reinforces the idea that we are open for business and growth in Elora, but we need full control over our water to move forward.
The Ontario government will be making an important decision in December as to whether it will grant a water taking permit to Nestle for the Middlebrook well. Save Our Water, the Wellington Water Watchers and a huge group of concerned citizens have been fighting hard to convince Jeff Yurek, the Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks, that water is a public trust. It should not be for sale in Wellington County or anywhere else in the province to the water bottling industry. The following is a letter I sent to the minister today. Please let your voice be heard as well before it’s too late.
“I am writing to urge your government to stop issuing water bottling permits in Ontario. Our specific situation in Centre Wellington is particularly grave. Nestlé Waters Canada wants a permit to begin taking water from the Middlebrook well located just outside the town of Elora.
“Such a permit would jeopardize our ability to support the mandated population growth which would double our current numbers by 2041. We already have aging infrastructure and problems with the current municipal wells not being able to pump to capacity. Nestlé’s purchase of the Middlebrook well limits our ability to drill new ones in a prime location or even to use that specific well for current and future development.
“Not only that, the proliferation of single-use plastic water bottles has led to a global problem in our oceans and waterways. The ‘need’ for bottled water has been manufactured by the corporations who wish to continue to pull huge profits out of our local resources. We, the local populations, will be paying huge sums for repairs to our roads, possibly huge costs for our daily water and we will continue to suffer the consequences of plastic pollution. We will lose in so many ways!
“Our water is a public trust to be managed by our local municipality. Our local government has stated categorically that it opposes the sale of our water. We are open for business and expansion. We need our water in order to remain open.
“Please stop issuing water permits for bottled water in Wellington County and in the entire province.”
Gail Brown,
Elora