WELLINGTON WATER WATCHERS VERSUS NESTLE WATERS

I posted here last Thursday regarding Nestle Waters donating money to the University of Guelph to assist in groundwater studies. My concern (& others) dealt with profit making corporations donating cash to research projects in which they had a huge stake. Exactly what if any are the conditions tied to such research donations?

Yesterday's Waterloo Region Record carried this story titled "Activists oppose permit for water-taking". The Wellington Water Watchers are a Guelph/Wellington County based group of citizens dedicated to "the protection, restoration and conservation of drinking water in Guelph & Wellington County". The provincial permit allowing Nestle to pump water for bottling and sale expired at the end of July yet the Ontario Ministry of Environment allows them to continue pumping from a well in Aberfoyle even in the midst of a severe drought.

This is the reality. The Ontario M.O.E. issue permits literally for pennies allowing corporate interests to extract massive amounts of the public's water for resale at ridiculous prices and for private profit. Mind you this is the same provincial ministry (M.O.E.) who issue permits allowing corporations to pollute our waterways albeit only up to certain limits allegedly. Every once in a blue moon they will prosecute a company for exceeding their pollution limits.

Municipalities, mining companies, golf courses and water bottlers extract 1.4 trillion litres of water per day from Ontario's surface and groundwater supplies. In the case of municipalities it is for human consumption and is at reasonable rates.

Nestle have submitted a renewal application for their Aberfoyle well. Obviously it will be rubberstamped once again by our Ministry of Environment. Such a deal. We pay through the nose for the M.O.E. bureaucracy to give approvals to private companies to extract our public resources for their own profits. Hey this is democracy apparently. In a third world country private companies would have to bribe government bureaucracies to get their permits.