Here in Guelph, we are…

Here in Guelph, we are subject to water use restrictions for large portions of the year. With the province's Places to Grow Act, we are being forced to expand at a rate that will significantly increase demand for water from the aquifer that supplies our city, while at the same time causing large areas of land necessary for groundwater recharge to be paved over. Allowing Nestle to continue withdrawing any water from our aquifer for export, much less millions of litres per day, endangers the future ability of Guelph to be able to provide basic drinking water - an absolute necessity for life - to all of it's residents, much less allow for basic household uses such as cooking, bathing and laundry. Nestle claims that the amount of water that they remove in a day is around the same amount that is leaked from the Guelph water supply system in a day, so it's no more a threat to the water supply than leaky watermains.. The key point that they gloss over when bringing up this comparison, is that the water leaked from the watermains soaks back into the ground, and is returned to the aquifer, whereas the water they take (at a cost to Nestle of a small fraction of a cent per litre), is exported from the area, providing massive profits to a foreign-owned multi-national, that is also exporting those profits. There is very little economic benefit to this area from Nestle's plant in Aberfoyle, other than a few poorly-paid jobs, while there is a great environmental and societal cost to their continued presence.