Nestlé Waters Canada will soon begin work here to comply with conditions set out in the Ministry of the Environment’s recent two-year renewal of the company’s water taking permit.
Nestlé’s natural resource manager Wayne Caston told Puslinch council on May 7 his company will start the construction of several off-site monitoring wells this week.
And the company expects to begin a four-month pumping test on June 2, during which Nestlé must communicate with the MOE on a weekly basis.
Though the test is scheduled to last until Sept. 30, Caston explained the MOE could stop the test prematurely if it feels sufficient data has been collected.
The monitoring wells and pumping test were required by the MOE as a condition of a two-year renewal of Nestlé’s permit to extract 3.6 million litres of water a day. As was additional internal monitoring and geotechnical testing, which Caston said will commence shortly.
Mayor Brad Whitcombe asked what Nestlé will be doing with the water extracted as part of the four-month pumping test.
Caston replied most of it will be used in production, while any additional water will be dumped into the company’s fire pond.
He said the MOE’s idea is for Nestlé to pump at close to full capacity to see if there are any impacts on Mill Creek.
Councillor Susan Fielding asked what the next step would be if the pumping test does reveal Nestlé operations are having an impact on the creek.
Caston said he did not want to speculate on that scenario.
“Our expectation is there would be no adverse effects,” he told council, adding previous similar tests in 2004 and 2007 also showed no adverse effects.
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In other Nestlé News, Caston said due to the long winter and large amount of snow this year, the water bottling company has requested an extension of its pump test at the site of a possible secondary well near Victoria Road.
Nestlé has requested a completion date of Aug. 31, but has not yet heard back from the MOE, Caston said.
