The following is a long but interesting and fact-filled newsletter from the Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation group that is actively fighting Nestle/BlueTriton and which has encountered frustrations and shenanigans similar to ours. We are found on page 17 and they have included a photo with Mike, Merrillee and one of their representatives in front of the Ginnie Springs bottling plant.
Our thanks to Merrillee for her far-reaching connections with many allies and ties outside of our state and in other countries. Her work has put OSFR in the scope of many groups and organizations internationally.
This brings home the fact that BlueTriton works its greedy ways to weasel through to success wherever they sink their talons with no regard nor care for the springs, rivers and streams and the people who love them. Their one goal is money at all costs.
Comments by OSFR historian Jim Tatum.
jim.tatum@oursantaferiver.org
– A river is like a life: once taken,
it cannot be brought back © Jim Tatum
Spring 2022
NEWSLETTER
saveMIwater.org
Once Again Nestle/Blue Triton Dodges Justice
Ever since Nestle applied for the permit to increase pumping at the White Pine Springs well (PW 101)
in Evart for its bottling operation in Stanwood in 2016, MCWC has been contesting this outrageous
water grab. We have argued in public forums, educated across the state about the injustices this grab
represents to the people and ecosystems of Michigan, and worked with organizations and citizens
who submitted thousands of comments opposing the more than 200,000 gallons a day increase.
Failure of the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) to deny this
increase has left two former trout streams badly damaged. We have had a few victories along the
way, but without strict enforcement by EGLE, the damage will continue.
After EGLE granted an increase of 150 gallons per minute from the original PW 101 well up to a total
of 400 gpm, state officials at least required Nestle to install a more stringent monitoring plan as a
condition of exercising the right to pump at 400 gpm. However, the State would not let MCWC
participate in the plan —only Nestle, the US Geological Survey, and EGLE. This meant Nestle’s
consultants would control the plan, which meant the plan would not provide adequate warning of
damage. The creeks were already damaged and there had been no warning about it so far from the
State or Nestle.
When Nestle sold its North American bottled water wells and operations to hedge–fund investor
backed Blue Triton, Blue Triton secretly worked out a deal with EGLE officials, without advance notice
to MCWC or the public, allowing Blue Triton to withdraw the 400 gpm permit so it could get out from
under any monitoring plan. EGLE then let Blue Triton “reduce” its pumping to 288 gpm (or 416,000
gallons a day) which is twice the threshold for a bottled water permit under the State’s water laws.
EGLE confirmed this 288 gpm pumping includes Nestle’s original PW 101 permit for 150 gpm, an
increase by 100 gpm approved without comment in 2015, plus the approved registration of another
33 gpm.
By interpreting Michigan’s water laws to apply only to the most recent increment of 33 gpm,
Blue Triton was able to dodge an evaluation of the effects of the cumulative removal of 288
gpm on the trout streams and watershed, and it no longer had to implement a monitoring plan
that would catch these effects at these higher rates of pumping.
Though the North American operations of Nestle were sold to two private equity firms almost a year
ago, the same staff remains to carry out the same policies of Nestle. The same staff remains at EGLE
also. The environment is not a concern. Only the bottom line matters as they develop strategies to
increase profits prior to flipping the company to another investor in a few years.
Our efforts to argue the merits of our case that the 400 gpm permit should be denied, beginning with
the filing of the Contested Case with the Administrative Law Judge at EGLE, have been met with a
small army of lawyers and modeling experts who are adept at masking the actual effects of pumping
and maneuvering around legal requirements. In one step after another we have had to argue that the
court had jurisdiction, that we had standing as representatives of riparian owners impacted, that
EGLE has a constitutional responsibility to protect the environment and the waters of the commons,
…..
Continue this story and read the whole newsletter at this link: https://oursantaferiver.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/MCWC-NEWSLETTER.pdf .
