Groups battle for bottled water; Nestlé wants to pump millions of gallons; Michigan residents are worried

Posted January 22, 2007 in [Corporations]

Jeff Alexander Newhouse News Service - Jay Peasley lives in the kind of place nature lovers dream about: a house so close to the White River he can hear its gurgling waters from his couch and fish for trout and salmon a stone's throw from the back door.

The computer programmer thought he had secured a slice of solitude when he bought his riverside house in 1991.
 
Now he finds himself at odds with the world's largest water bottling corporation, Nestle Waters, which hopes to use the White River system for an entirely different purpose. Nestle wants to pump millions of gallons of spring water from a site near the headwaters of the White River, about 20 miles upstream of Peasley's house, and bottle it at the company's Ice Mountain bottling plant in Stanwood.

Peasley is among a group of area residents who fear pumping spring water from the headwaters of the White would harm the river, which is the southernmost trout stream in the Lake Michigan basin.

"This is a pristine trout stream. I don't think any water should be taken out of it," Peasley said.

Nestle officials said the White River has "significant water resources" and that withdrawing millions of gallons of groundwater each year "would be unlikely to cause adverse effects on the environment."

Company officials said other businesses in the White River watershed, including farms and golf courses, use more water than Ice Mountain would extract and bottle.

"The ecosystems in the White River watershed don't care where the water goes. They only care that there is enough water - do the ecosystems have what they need?" said Gregory Fox, natural resource manager at Nestle's Ice Mountain bottling plant.

The battle over groundwater in the White River watershed is a high-stakes struggle that transcends the boundaries of this river.

The underground springs that feed the White and dozens of other Michigan trout streams - including the Pere Marquette, Manistee, Boardman and countless others - are potential gold mines for water bottlers.

Groundwater is free in Michigan and the state's new water withdrawal law allows bottled water to be sold outside of the Great Lakes basin provided it is shipped in bottles smaller than 5.7 gallons. Theoretically, a company could load a freighter with thousands of bottles of Michigan water and sell it anywhere in the world.

Some water policy experts call such scenarios unrealistic.

But consider this: Clean water is in short supply in much of the world and bottled water is a red-hot commodity in the United States.

Bottled water consumption in the United States increased from 5.1 billion gallons in 2001 to 8.2 billion gallons last year, with sales reaching $10.9 billion in 2006, according to the Beverage Marketing Corp.

The soaring popularity of bottled water has economic and environmental implications for Michigan.

Nestle, for instance, is poised to double its production of Ice Mountain bottled water. The company, which employs 250 at its Stanwood facility, is considering building a second Ice Mountain bottling plant in Evart or at a site in Indiana.

And when it comes to bottled water, Nestle is the biggest fish in the pond. Based in Switzerland, Nestle is the world's 53rd biggest corporation and the world's largest producer of food and bottled water, according to industry data.

Nestle's Ice Mountain facility is by far the largest water bottler in Michigan, according to state data. Michigan has 44 licensed water bottlers, but only three pumped more than 1 million gallons of water in 2006.

Some experts said Nestle's bid to pump spring water from sites near the headwaters of the White and two trout streams that flow into the Muskegon River, near Evart, raises the stakes in Michigan's bottled water war.

Nestle has never pumped spring water near a Michigan trout stream. The company pumps spring water from wells in rural Mecosta County that flow into a warm water stream. Nestle also buys spring water from the city of Evart.

Allowing Nestle to pump water near the White River would make the natural springs that feed all trout streams in Michigan fair game for water bottlers, said Mark Luttenton, a Grand Valley State University biology professor and river expert.

"If the state is willing to compromise our cold-water rivers, particularly systems like the White and Pere Marquette rivers, I don't see any recourse the state has to prevent the permitting of water wells anywhere else in the state," Luttenton said.