From: brewnoserii@gmail.com   
      
   (Note the date of this article; nothing has changed]   
   ______________________________________   
   The Province - August 14, 2013   
      
      
   Nestle bottles millions of litres of Canadian water -- and pays nothing   
      
   Billion-dollar company extracting B.C.'s drinking water for free, then selling   
   it back to Canadians   
      
      
   The price of a litre of bottled water in B.C. is often higher than a litre of   
   gasoline.   
      
   However, the price paid by the world's largest bottled water company for   
   taking 265 million litres of fresh water every year from a well in the Fraser   
   Valley -- not a cent.   
      
   Because of B.C.'s lack of groundwater regulation, Nestlé Waters Canada -- a   
   division of the multi-billion-dollar Switzerland-based Nestlé Group, the   
   world's largest food company -- is not required to measure, report, or pay a   
   penny for the millions of    
   litres of water it draws from Hope and then sells across Western Canada.   
      
   According to the provincial Ministry of Environment, "B.C. is the only   
   jurisdiction in Canada that doesn't regulate groundwater use."   
      
   "The province does not license groundwater, charge a rental for groundwater   
   withdrawals or track how much bottled water companies are taking from wells,"   
   said a Ministry of Environment spokesperson in an email to The Province.   
      
   This isn't new.  Critics have been calling for change for years now, saying   
   the lack of groundwater regulation is just one outdated example from the   
   century-old Water Act.   
      
   The Ministry of Environment has said they plan -- in the 2014 legislature   
   sitting -- to introduce groundwater regulation with the proposed Water   
   Sustainability Act, which would update and replace the existing Water Act,   
   established in 1909. But experts    
   note that successive governments have been talking about modernizing water for   
   decades, but the issue keeps falling off the agenda.   
      
       It's really the Wild West out here in terms of groundwater   
      
   This time, many hope it will be different.   
      
   "It's really the Wild West out here in terms of groundwater. And it's been   
   going on for over 20 years, that the Ministry of Environment, the provincial   
   government has been saying that they're going to make these changes, and it   
   just hasn't gone through    
   yet," said Linda Nowlan, conservation director from World Wildlife Fund Canada.   
      
   'They take it and sell it back to us'   
      
   In the District of Hope, Nestlé's well draws from the same aquifer relied upon   
   by about 6,000 nearby residents, and some of them are concerned.   
      
   "We have water that's so clean and so pure, it's amazing. And then they take   
   it and sell it back to us in plastic bottles," said Hope resident Sharlene   
   Harrison-Hinds.   
      
   Sheila Muxlow lives in nearby Chilliwack, downstream the Fraser River from   
   Hope. As campaign director for the WaterWealth Project, she often hears from   
   Hope residents who worry about the government's lack of oversight with   
   Nestlé's operations there.   
      
   "It's unsettling," Muxlow said. "What's going to happen in the long term, if   
   Nestlé keeps taking and taking and taking?"   
      
   While Nestlé is the largest bottled water seller in B.C., others, including   
   Whistler Water and Mountain Spring Water, also draw groundwater from B.C.   
      
   When asked by The Province, those companies declined to release the volume of   
   their withdrawals.   
      
      
   A large employer in Hope   
      
   Nestlé is one of the largest employers in the District of Hope, providing   
   about 75 jobs, said District of Hope chief administrative officer John   
   Fortoloczky.   Though Nestlé is not required to measure and report their water   
   withdrawals to the government,    
   the company voluntarily reports to the District of Hope, said a Nestlé Waters   
   Canada executive, reached in Guelph, Ont. last week.   
      
   "What we do in Hope exceeds what is proposed by the province of British   
   Columbia," said John Challinor, Nestlé Waters Canada's director of corporate   
   affairs.  Nestle keeps records of water quality and the company's mapping of   
   the underground water    
   resources in the area exceeds what government scientists have done, Challinor   
   said.   
      
   "We do these annual reports ...  We're doing it voluntarily with (the local   
   government).   If we are asked to provide it as a condition of a new permit,   
   that's easy to do, because we're already doing it," Challinor said.   
      
   But the fact that Nestlé's reports are internal and voluntary is the very   
   issue of concern, said Ben Parfitt, a resource policy analyst with the   
   Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.   
      
   "There's a big, big difference between voluntary reporting and mandatory,"   
   said Parfitt.  "If it's voluntary, there's nothing to stop a company or major   
   water user from choosing not to report ... That is absolutely critical.  You   
   can't run a system like    
   this on a voluntary basis."   
      
   Since groundwater remains unregulated in B.C., Nestle does not require a   
   permit for the water they withdraw.   
      
   "No permit, no reporting, no tracking, no nothing," said David Slade, co-owner   
   of Drillwell Enterprises, a Vancouver Island well-drilling company.     
      
   "So you could drill a well on your property, and drill it right next to your   
   neighbour's well, and you could pump that well at 100 gallons a minute, 24   
   hours a day, seven days a week and waste all the water, pour it on the ground   
   if you wanted to ... As    
   far as depleting the resource, or abusing the resource, there is no   
   regulation. So it is the Wild, Wild West."   
      
      
   Water should be a 'public trust'   
      
   The Council of Canadians, a national citizen advocacy group, takes the   
   position that water should be treated as a public trust, a valuable resource   
   protected for the benefit of all Canadians.   
      
   But when the government allows a multi-billion dollar, international   
   corporation to withdraw water for free to sell back to us, this doesn't seem   
   to serve the public good, said Emma Lui, national water campaigner for the   
   Council of Canadians, reached in    
   Ottawa.   Compared with the rest of the country, Lui said, "When you look at   
   all these different factors, B.C. actually is doing quite poorly: that they   
   don't include groundwater (in their water licensing system), they don't have   
   any sort of public    
   registry of who's taking groundwater, they don't charge."   
      
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)