Perrier vs. the People

By Keith Schneider, Grist.org. Posted October 30, 2002.

Until two years ago, the 40,550 generally well-behaved Midwesterners of Mecosta County, Mich., regularly attended church, sent their children off to school on yellow buses and never for a moment worried that their clean, freshwater supply would ever run dry. Mecosta County, after all, sits near the center of Michigan's lower peninsula, which itself sits at the center of the largest supply of freshwater on Earth.

Then came the water war.

On Dec. 6, 2000, the Perrier Group of America, a subsidiary of Swiss-based Nestle, the world's largest food company, applied to the local health authorities for permission to drill two water wells on an 800-acre private hunting preserve in the county's southern reaches. The company's purpose: to establish a source for a new bottling plant to ship its popular Ice Mountain brand of spring water throughout the Upper Midwest.

Five weeks later the permits were granted. The approvals touched off a stunningly fierce debate about who controls Michigan's underground reservoirs of freshwater -- water so abundant and pure that half of the state's 9.9 million residents draw it straight from the ground. Although Perrier paid handsomely to smooth the way in Michigan -- it hired a public affairs group to massage the media and a respected political consultant to guide needed permits through the regulatory agencies -- its arrival in Mecosta County has been greeted with lawsuits, legislative proposals to strengthen the government's authority to manage water and political unrest so significant that it has divided the state Republican Party and is influencing the 2002 Michigan gubernatorial campaign. Indeed, the fight over freshwater may be the most significant environmental issue in the country when it comes to affecting how voters will behave at the polls come November.

Perhaps most important, Perrier's presence has generated new public awareness that free trade, globalization, climate change, population expansion and other worldwide mega-trends are turning the Great Lakes into ever more prominent targets for resource exploitation. On the 30th anniversary of the federal Clean Water Act, the granddaddy of all water protection statutes, Mecosta County is suddenly the epicenter of a new public reckoning over the security of the Great Lakes -- where 20 percent of the world's surface freshwater is stored -- and the underground aquifers that supply them. In a world where clean, freshwater is becoming ever more scarce, the fate of Perrier in Mecosta County will have legal, political and environmental ramifications for every Great Lakes state and far beyond.

Water in the Court

The Perrier case is headed to the halls of justice next year -- but long before it gets there, it will be tried by the public in the courtroom of Michigan's fast-approaching gubernatorial election. Both major party candidates have publicly and repeatedly expressed their resolve to modernize state water policy to block other multinational corporations from privatizing, bottling and selling hundreds of millions of gallons of Michigan's groundwater annually across state lines. That both candidates are voicing those sentiments -- which are shared by the majority of state residents, according to opinion polls -- is due in large measure to the work of a group of Mecosta County residents who call themselves Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation.

Thirteen months ago, MCWC filed a lawsuit arguing that water, like air, is a common resource that is held in public trust and should be managed for the public benefit. If commercial activity such as Nestle's bottling plant is sanctioned by the state, the group asserts, Michigan could become the target of massive diversions of freshwater to thirsty destinations on this continent and overseas. By defining and promoting water as merchandise, the argument continues, the company is vastly increasing the vulnerability of Great Lakes water to development, exploitation and overuse.

The Perrier Group, which recently changed its name to Nestlés Waters of America, says such arguments have no basis in Michigan law. The company's lawyers contend that there is no difference between what Nestles Waters is doing and what dozens of other companies do when they pump groundwater to make soft drinks, brew beer, prepare fruits and vegetables for packing, or any of countless other commercial activities.

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