Small groups of committed citizens can make big impacts.
So it was last week when the 2,000-member Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation, after nine years of legal battle that cost it about $1 million, thwarted a giant international company's attempt to increase its pumping of Michigan water for sale from a Mecosta County stream and lake.
MCWC and Nestle Waters North America reached a settlement on the first day of a scheduled weeklong circuit court hearing to resolve opposing claims on whether Nestle's pumping for its Ice Mountain bottled water should be reduced or increased under criteria of a 2006 injunction order that allowed pumping of an average of 218 gallons per minute.
The 218 gallons figure was down from the 400 gallons per minute originally approved in 2001 by the state. Nestle sought to boost the 218-gallon rate.
While the modified order reached by agreement reduces Nestle's originally intended water removal by about 50 percent from what the state had permitted, the company was relieved that the binding settlement gets those pesky citizen water warriors off its back.
"Under this modified injunction order, Nestle cannot pump more water from Dead Stream or Thompson Lake," MCWC President Terry Swier said of a legal battle long led by Traverse City attorney Jim Olson to protect the stream, lake and wetlands from excessive water extraction.
"This new order completes one of MCWC's goals. Nestle must reduce its pumping earlier in the spring and continue its low pumping rates during the summer months. This will leave more water in the system and should eliminate the more serious impacts to the stream that occur in drier years and summers."
Nestle Vice President Heidi Paul said: "Reaching this agreement is very important for Nestle Waters' employees and their families, the west Michigan community and our company, in that it brings certainty for our operations, supports local jobs and puts an issue behind us."
When I asked Swier if this might be only a partial victory, she said, "I don't see it as partial. I see it as victory. ... A small grassroots group brought (Nestle) to its knees."
Actually, it is still standing, although not as tall as it would have. Meanwhile, Swier correctly says, "It is time to turn to the task of assuring water remains owned by the public."
Enter U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Menominee, who is second to none as Capitol Hill guardian of Great Lakes -- which is appropriate since his district has more shoreline -- 1,613 miles -- than any other congressional district in the continental United States and is the only one to border three of the five Great Lakes.
Stupak, who in 1998 blocked the Ontario Nova Group's proposal to sell Great Lakes water in bulk by 20 or so freighters for export to Asia, in June introduced a welcome resolution clarifying that in ratifying the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Compact last fall, Congress expressly prohibited Great Lakes water from being sold, diverted or exported outside of the Great Lakes basin.
When the compact was considered last year, Stupak raised concerns that the wording of the compact was too weak, and opposed its ratification.
"I continue to have concerns that the Great Lakes Compact is not strong enough to protect the Great Lakes against diversions through privatization, commercialization and exportation," Stupak said. "There is no question that Congress intended for the compact to protect Great Lakes water but the wording of the compact leaves some question. That is why I have introduced this resolution to put Congress on record in opposition to the exploitation of Great Lakes waters."
Stupak has long fretted about the loophole on bottled water.
"It's not simply a matter of how much water in the short term is bottled and shipped away; the long-term threat is control of water and the possibility that private interests will assert ownership of the very substance of the Great Lakes," Stupak said in his foreword to "Great Lakes for Sale: From Whitecaps to Bottlecaps," by Dave Dempsey, published in 2008 by the University of Michigan Press and Petoskey Publishing of Traverse City.
Dempsey, environmental adviser to ex-Gov. Jim Blanchard and former Michigan Environmental Council policy director who is now communications director for Conservation Minnesota, said it well on June 28 in the Minneapolis Star Tribune:
"The little-publicized flaw in the compact is that it threatens to turn the waters of the Great Lakes into a product."
As chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, Stupak last week held a hearing in which he raised questions about regulation of the safety of the billion-dollar-a-year bottled water industry, whose sales increased 83 percent this decade.
He particularly wants to know why the regulations governing bottled water are weaker than those governing tap water.
"Many Americans believe that water they drink from a bottle is healthier than water that comes from their faucets," said Stupak. "The Water Research Foundation found that nearly 56 percent of bottled water drinkers cite health and safety as the primary reason they choose bottled water over tap water. As a result, Americans are willing to pay top dollar for bottled water, which costs up to 1,900 times more than tap water and uses up to 2,000 times more energy to produce and deliver.
"Over the past several years, however, bottled water has been recalled due to contamination by arsenic, bromate, cleaning compounds, mold and bacteria. ... Consumers may not realize that many regulations that apply to municipalities responsible for tap water do not apply to companies that produce bottled water."
After the hearing, Stupak and House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., sent letters to about a dozen bottlers, including Nestle, seeking information on their water sources, treatment methods and results of contaminant testing.
All in all, it has not been a good few weeks for the bottled-water folks on the legal and political front, as successful as they remain on the sales front.
George Weeks retired in 2006 after 22 years as political columnist for The Detroit News. His weekly Michigan Politics column is syndicated by Superior Features.
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