Our groundwater is being…

Our groundwater is being extracted by private companies at a faster rate than it can recharge. We are selling our future for a pittance and putting public water into plastic bottles so that private companies can make huge profits. Nestle in Wellington County has Ontario government permits to extract up to 4.7 MILLION litres of groundwater per day at the ridiculously low price of $503.71 for 1 MILLION litres. According to Wellington Water Watchers most of the water pumped out of Wellington County is bottled and shipped out of our watershed. It does not come back to recharge the aquifer as nature intended the system to work. Ontario’s permit to take water application process was designed over 30 years ago. It was never intended for the “wholesale extraction of water for pure profit”. The issue isn’t the low fees companies like Nestle pay to extract our groundwater, the issue is that the process isn’t sustainable. Those MILLIONS of litres of water every day do not come back. Nature wasn’t built for that volume of extraction. The government needs more time to review the process and ensure it is protecting its citizens and our future – which I do not believe it is at the moment. Please extend the moratorium on new or increasing permits to take groundwater to produce bottled water. Thank you.