Our January 17 Public Awareness Meeting was a resounding success!
"Save Our Water - We Have a Choice"
First was a sneak preview of our new video “Save Our Water – We Have a Choice.” The “We Have a Choice” video warns of an Ontario community in trouble – a community targeted by the province and Wellington County to double in population, a community requiring at least three new municipal wells. If this was not trouble enough, Nestle bought a well at the edge of town and seeks a permit from the province to extract 1.6 million litres of water per day from the best source area for these new wells.
This is a dilemma for the local municipal government, the County of Wellington, the Province of Ontario and for the concerned citizens who rely on that water now and are worried about the future. This could happen anywhere in the province, as current legislation and policies are inadequate to safeguard groundwater.
What can be done to protect and steward something as precious as water?
For starters, we’d like to ask you to consider either sharing our video link or perhaps sharing directly from our Facebook page. Your help sharing will allow us to take advantage of targeting a greater audience than we could ever accomplish on our own. This will set us up for a year of incredible reach for our important cause!
Hunter Report
Residents also heard highlights from the new Hunter Report, an investigation of the local water system, commissioned by residents. The report explains why even without Nestlé Centre Wellington has water challenges.
This report must be a signal to the municipality, to the county, and to the province that our situation here is serious - that under any scenario Nestlé's water taking would be a huge threat to the development of our municipal water system. Here is a link to a summary of the Hunter Report.
Legal Options
Lastly, Save Our Water had invited environmental lawyer David Donnelly to the community meeting to describe the legal authority Centre Wellington Township can invoke to prevent Nestlé from large-scale water taking for bottling at the Middlebrook well.
Residents eagerly listened to the legal options available to Centre Wellington council for turning its opposition to Nestle into action. They are asking council to look at the options seriously, because of the potential and real negative consequences of this large-scale water extraction. This will compromise Centre Wellington’s future water security, and the community can’t count on the province to protect water the way it should.
2019 is going to be a very exciting year. Thank you for your support.
Together we can Save Our Water.