STANWOOD, Mich. (WOOD) — The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality will soon decide whether or not to approve Nestlé’s permit application to increase its pumping limits to 400 gallons per minute at the White Pine Springs operation in Osceola County.
Unless you live in the areas where Nestlé pumps water, you probably don't remember the less-than-warm welcome it received when it set its sights on Michigan spring water in the late 1990s. Archived newspaper articles show skepticism toward the company, then wearing the Perrier name, and its plans to open an Ice Mountain bottling plant in Mecosta County.
Nestlé would need water to bottle, so it moved to have pumping wells in Mecosta County’s Morton Township and Osceola County’s Osceola Township, near Evart.
Despite public pushback, the company got proper approval from the MDEQ and local entities and broke ground in 2001. By 2003, the company had permission from the MDEQ to pump 400 GPM — the same amount it is currently seeking to pump in Osceola Township — from its Morton Township site, named Sanctuary Springs.
After Nestlé filed the application to draw more water in Osceola County and opponents started speaking out, Target 8 took a closer look at the company’s history in Michigan and how it has made billions off our water -- all while paying next to nothing.
Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation sued Nestlé and its Sanctuary Springs site in 2003, arguing the pumping was harming the environment.
After a three-week civil trial, Mecosta County Circuit Court Judge Lawrence Root agreed with MCWC. His decision cited expert testimony showing a four- to six-inch drop in wetlands surrounding the Sanctuary Springs site in just seven months.
“He rejected flatly the computer model of Nestlé,” Jim Olson told Target 8 in a phone interview.
Olson is a Traverse City attorney who represented MCWC during the lawsuit. He also is the founder and president of nonprofit For Love of Water.
Most recently, his group worked with water experts to put together a 113-page report disputing Nestlé’s current application with the MDEQ.
“They don't have any field data to support that (claims it Nestle is not harming the environment). It's just a model calibration internal to the model, which is not tied to reality,” Olson argued.
Olson says what Nestlé is trying to do now in Osceola County is no different than what it tried to do in Mecosta County in the early 2000s.
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