The decision to allow Nestle Water a
two-year permit renewal to keep taking water from Guelph’s south end continued
to reverberate as the provincial government proposed the idea of charging a
“token” fee for companies to bottle Ontario’s water last week.
"We've kind of put in a floor and
we've begun to attach a real value to a natural resource, water," Premier
Dalton McGuinty told the press before a Liberal cabinet meeting last week.
"We're looking to see what we need to do in the future to attach value to
that resource."
That “floor” McGuinty talks about is a
$3.71 charge for every one million litres of water taken out of Ontario’s lakes
and rivers. Environment Minister John Gerretsen later added that the fees “are
at the low end” of where they need to be, but at the same time said that the
government is not about to put an actual price on water.
But a price is what a lot environmental
activists would like to see as companies like Nestle can take as much water as
permitted for free, bottle it and resell it for profit. For a $3,000
application fee, the Nestle plant in Aberfoyle is allowed to pump 1.3 billion
litres per year; enough for over 27 million 24-pack cases of water.
The debate in Guelph started last
summer when Nestle applied for a permit renewal that would have allowed them to
continue taking water from the Mill Creek for another five years. Nestle has
been operating in Aberfoyle since 2000 and all previous permits have been for a
duration of two years.
It was at the suggestion of a five year
permit that the activist group Wellington Water Watchers sprang into action
last summer.
"People like ourselves are trying to
raise the alarm bell about the privatization and commoditization of
water," WWW member Mike Nagy told me last summer. Nagy is also the Federal
Green Party's Guelph candidate and environment critic, "Water taking permits were
never intended for people to make money off of the water."
In response to the Ministry of the
Environment’s decision to only renew the permit for two years, the WWW
expressed mixed feelings. “While we would like to stress that, in our view, any
permit granted to a commercial bottler to take public water essentially for
free is squandering a precious public resource; we are nonetheless pleased that
the MOE has reduced the requested timeframe,” said a statement on the WWW
website.
As evidenced by the province’s recent
announcement, this is an issue that’s far from over. People are becoming
increasingly concerned about not just who’s taking their water, but what’s
happening to the waste generated from all those plastic water bottles.
Even in the shine of their semi-victory,
the WWW promises to continue their activism to secure the city’s water. “This
two-year time frame will give our region the opportunity to properly plan for
the management of municipal water supplies to accommodate our rapidly growing
population,” their website states.
Get on Board
The City of Guelph is looking
for interested people to fill a couple of Board vacancies. There are two spots
open on the River Systems Advisory Committee, while the Board of Commissioners
of Guelph General Hospital and the Guelph Junction Railway Company Directors
each have one spot open. For more information, you can visit the City of Guelph website at http://guelph.ca//news.cfm?itemid=75103&task=display
Be Careful of Bus Changes
As your travelling around the Royal City on Guelph
Transit, keep in mind that a few routes are being affected by detours. The #54
Arkell will be diverted from Arkell
Rd. between Summerfield Dr.
and Gordon St. through to Friday May 2nd and the #8 General Hospital will
redirected to Paul St. from Delhi as construction’s being done on Emma until Mid-July.
Also, the extra frequency buses to the University of Guelph are on
hiatus until September. Maps of route changes can be seen here: http://guelph.ca/living.cfm?smocid=1764
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