Granholm Water Letter Invites Caution
City’s Water Deal Prompts DEQ Scrutiny
LANSING, MI—Environmentalists reacted cautiously today to a decision by Governor Jennifer Granholm to scrutinize a deal reached late last month between the Nestle Corporation and the City of Evart to bottle and export water from the Great Lakes basin.
“We are pleased that the Governor is raising questions about this wholesale grab of Michigan’s water,” said David Holtz, Clean Water Action Michigan Director. “What must happen next is for the Legislature to act on protecting our waters, and for the governor to meet the requirements of the federal Water Resources Development Act (WRDA)--that means regional consultation with the other seven Great Lakes states before water can be diverted or exported outside the Great Lakes basin. "
On March 28 the City of Evart, located northwest of Clare and northeast of Nestle’ Ice Mountain plant in Mecosta County, approved a 10-year contract with Nestle Ice Mountain brand that would allow the international company to pump spring water from a municipal well that is currently permitted to pump 500 gallons a minute.
Today's comments from environmentalists are in reaction to an April 8 letter from Michigan Department of Environmental Quality Director Steven E. Chester. In the letter, Chester notified the City of Evart and Nestle that the governor had directed him to evaluate the water deal under Michigan’s Safe Drinking Water Act. Among the questions Chester raised in his notification letter was where Nestles intended to distribute the water.
According to the company, Nestles may pump as much as 250 million gallons a year from Evart. In 1998, a Canadian company raised an uproar when it received approval from Ontario to ship 168 million gallons per year of Lake Superior water to Asia. The company surrendered its permit and the fear over water exports led to current efforts to tighten Great Lakes protections.
Four environmental groups wrote Gov. Granholm last month, saying the selling of municipal water to Nestle for bottling and sale outside the Basin was “plainly unlawful” without a regional consultation process as provided for under WRDA.
“Michigan’s legislators have failed to protect our waterways from harmful water use or to safeguard our water from being shipped out of state,” said Kate Madigan, PIRGIM Environmental Advocate. “Without water use laws, Nestle and other companies have free reign over our waters unless the Governor steps in.”
In a letter delivered this month to Granholm, Clean Water Action, Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation, the Sierra Club Mackinac Chapter and the Public Interest Research Group in Michigan (PIRGIM) cited a 2001 opinion by then-Attorney General Granholm that Nestle’original pumping and bottling plan in Mecosta County was subject to the federal law. In the September 2001 opinion, Granholm wrote, “The withdrawal and bottling of such water for sale in interstate commerce outside the Great Lakes basin would constitute a diversion or export ‘for use outside the basin’ and therefore would be subject to the WRDA.”
April8 DEQ letter to Evart, Nestle:
http://www.cleanwateraction.org/mi/chesterevartletter.pdf
Water Resources Development Act/Great Lakes:
http://michigan.gov/deq/0,1607,7-135-3313_3677_3704-12588--,00.html
Text of Attorney General Granholm's September, 2001 letter:
http://www.waterissweet.org/pdf/granholmletter.pdf