Nestle can pull about a half a million gallons of water a day out of a well in Western Michigan, then turn around and sell the water in its plastic bottles. It’s a controversial business arrangement that spurred thousands of people in Michigan to voice their opposition. But it’s allowed because of a provision in the Great Lakes Compact.
Way back in 2008, all the Great Lakes states came together and created the aptly named Great Lakes Compact. That put restrictions on drawing water out of the Great Lakes and its waterways. But there’s a loophole specifically for bottled water companies, which gave Nestle the ability to take the water.
Noah Hall is an environmental and water law expert at Wayne State University. He said, states have the power to prevent this from happening.
“To be very clear just because the Great Lakes Compact allows the diversion of Great Lakes water in little plastic bottles does not mean that an individual state must also permit it.”
So states could be more restrictive, but as WDET’s Jake Neher explains, “The question now is, will we be?”
Democratic Senator Rebekah Warren is working on ways to make sure that if water is taken it’s not going to have a negative impact on the environment.
“You know some of these places, especially up north where we have award winning cold-water trout streams, if you start taking a lot of water, water levels drop, water gets warmer, habitats change, fish can’t reproduce in the same way,” she said. “So it really has an impact, not just on the character of the community, but on actual eco-systems.”
Warren wants to pass a law that requires an impartial tool be used to determine if pulling water from an area will hurt that area. She said in the case of Nestle, the Department of Environmental Quality let Nestle conduct its own test on whether the well could handle an increase in water withdraw. Warren said, it should be up to the state and its tools to make that decision.
“Should we be having this debate and since we’re not right now, how much longer are we going to kick this bottle down the road?”