What Would Happen If Nestlé Took All the Water It Was Allowed To?

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What Would Happen If Nestlé Took All the Water It Was Allowed To?

A newly revealed document poses troubling questions for Ontario.

Ontario is chock-full of water. The province's lakes, streams, and aquifers are so abundant that it may feel like it'll never run out, and until recently, the province was giving water away to private companies for just fractions of pennies on the litre.

NestléWaters Canada has been pumping groundwater from its Aberfoyle site near Guelph, Ontario since 1980, for the purpose of bottling it for sale. The company has a permit to take more than 3 million litres of water every day from that one site, but it has historically taken just about half of the allowed amount annually.

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So what would happen, environmentally speaking, if Nestlé consistently took all the water it's allowed to by the Ontario government? That question has taken on a new sense of urgency, as the province reviews the company's permit for renewal, and local activists and legislators are raising concerns about the company's effects on the local water supply.

Read More: Nestlé Will Pay 13,500% More to Pump Ontario's Water for Bottling

A 2011 internal assessment approved by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, which Motherboard recently obtained through an access-to-information request, paints a troubling picture: pumping opened the possibility for higher stream temperatures and groundwater contamination, according to experts. The Ministry couldn't say for certain what sort of effects, if any, this would have on the local environment, however.

Here's how the current limits are set: Maximum water-taking volumes are proposed by the permit-seeker—in this case, Nestlé. The company seeking a permit is required to submit a scientific review proving that the requested daily water-taking levels are safe. Numerous companies have permits to pump groundwater in Ontario, some with larger maximum volumes than Nestlé.

Between 2002 and 2010, Nestlé was pumping on average just 61 percent of its allowed amount and "[planned] to increase its rate of water taking to more fully utilize the permitted volume," an internal assessment of Nestlé's 2009 and 2010 monitoring reports, approved by officials in emails, states. The assessment notes that pumping even 61 percent "diminishes groundwater discharge to Aberfoyle creek." In 2015, Nestlé pumped 58 percent of its allowed volume, according to the company's monitoring report.

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"The groundwater and surface streams are very well-connected systems and if you affect one, you affect the other"

Groundwater "discharge" (water coming up to the surface) and "recharge" (water going into the ground from the surface) together regulate everything from water levels, to stream temperature, to water quality on the surface and in the ground.

"The groundwater and surface streams are very well-connected systems and if you affect one, you affect the other," said Joseph Desloges, a geography professor at the University of Toronto.

Since Nestlé planned to increase its water-taking, a 39-day pump test at the maximum allowed amount was conducted in 2010. The changes to discharge and recharge rates were so pronounced that a stream formerly gaining water from the ground started losing it; the water was being sucked back to the source. This resulted in a "loss of stream flow" and a possible increase in water temperature, the assessment states.

Motherboard's request for comment from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry was forwarded to the provincial Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change (MOECC).

"The groundwater gradients were reversed at some of the locations monitored in Aberfoyle Creek during the 2010 pumping tests, but not at all of the locations," a Ministry spokesperson confirmed over email. "The groundwater level monitoring data since 2011 shows that the gradient reversal is short-term, highly dependent on a pumping rate and limited to monitoring locations installed on Nestlé's property."

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However, the Ministry's ability to discern the effects of these changes on fish and vegetation in 2011 was "confounded," the assessment states, due to "very little data" on the stream and its inhabitants prior to 1980. Indeed, the assessment states, the ecological changes wrought by Nestlé's activities may have happened decades ago, but without data, it's impossible to say for sure.

The final half of the report was not released under an exemption in the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act that covers the disclosure of advice from a public servant. Whatever the Ministry assessment proposed, we'll never know.

While he couldn't speak to the specific situation in Aberfoyle, the most damaging eventuality stemming from shifts in discharge and recharge rates in general is groundwater contamination by surface pollutants, University of Waterloo hydrology professor Fereidoun Rezanezhad said.

"If the agriculture industry uses fertilizer and that contamination is going to surface water, and then if you increase recharge and decrease discharge, then that contamination can move to the groundwater," he said.

A 2016 report from local hydrology company Harden Environmental, submitted to the township where Nestlé's Aberfoyle site is located, noted that well water contamination is a risk posed by Nestlé's water-taking. However, when I called Stan Denhoed, a hydrologist for Harden, he was quick to emphasize that recent data about current water-taking levels shows little impact.

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"There are small changes, but you can't measure it in the stream," Denhoed said over the phone. "The whole issue is do the fish survive, is the groundwater getting to them? The fact is yes."

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A spokesperson for the MOECC noted that there are no issues with current water-taking levels. "The available data shows no long-term decline in the aquifer's water level and no unacceptable water quantity impact on the bedrock and overburden aquifers within the vicinity of Nestle's wells," the spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement. "The ministry does not expect any adverse impacts to the aquifer and local private wells with Nestlé's current water taking."

Despite the 2011 assessment's statement that it was impossible to discern the environmental effects of increased water-taking due to a lack of historical data, the spokesperson wrote that the Ministry "has not identified a knowledge gap about the environmental effects of the water taking."

A Nestlé Waters Canada spokesperson confirmed over email that the company has no plans to make fuller use of its maximum allowable volume for water-taking, and noted that the company's "actual water taking is based on consumer demand which varies from year to year and month to month."

Presumably, that stance would enable Nestlé to take all of the water it's allowed, if consumer demand rose to such an extent.

Nestlé's permit has expired but remains in force, pending a review by the provincial government. In response to public pressure from citizens and activists, the province recently put a moratorium on all new water-taking endeavors and increased the price Nestlé pays for every million litres of water, from $3.71 to $503.71.

The Ministry has completed another internal assessment of Nestlé's recent water-taking for the current permit review, a spokesperson confirmed, and it will play a role in the decision whether or not to renew Nestlé's permit to pump water for bottling.

With files from Amanda Roth. 

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