The issues that Michigan as a state has faced over the years have been widely reported. Much of the hardships there have been exploited by politicians, places like Detroit have been thrown into bankruptcy until they needed a financial bailout. Manufacturing has also taken a brutal hit, and in 2015 it was discovered that Flint, Michigan's water was contaminated by bad decision making on the part of a newly elected right-wing extremist Tea Party government.
Environmental issues vs. job creation
Now, the nestle company has inserted itself into the water issue that the people of Osceola County have to contend with.
The bottled water part of the company called Nestle Ice Mountain wants to double the amount of Michigan ground water they get towards one of their plants out of a well in Evart.
Nestle and other Michigan officials have defended Nestle as a job creator. The company submitted a permit request to increase the pumping of groundwater from 150 gallons per minute to 400 gallons. But scientific experts have said that allowing that would damage the environment and the wildlife. Michigan Live reported that Flint Congressman Dan Kildee had sent a letter to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality opposing them.
But it should be noted that the water issues with Nestle are in no way related to those in Flint.
The Oceola district where Nestle Ice Mountain is established is under U.S. Rep. John Moolenaar. It should be noted that complaints about environmental issues are generally in conflict with job creation where one doesn't appear to agree with the other which resulted in this case in a rejection a separate permit for a pumping booster station that would increase that water.
Township rejects Nestle permit
Lawmakers felt the pressure from their citizens who took a stand against Nestle and the Osceola Township Planning Commission rejected the permit in mid-April in a 5-0 vote. For clarification, In order for Nestle to be able to pump more water out, one of the permit requests submitted was to build a pumping booster station on an existing pipeline that connects the well to one of their loading docks.
The other one is a state permit submitted to increase the water withdrawal.
It's been reported that Nestle was told to resubmit their permit for the boosting station under a new agricultural zoning law that was established by the township and so they did, but they didn't alter anything in their resubmission provided a good enough reason as to why they needed the boosting station. Nestle's lawyers have said that the other option would be to have tanker trucks transporting the water which they say would damage the environment even more as the township takes issue with loading trucks on rural roads.
As expected, Nestle appealed the township's decision with the Zoning Board of Appeals which includes three people, one of them being Seth Hutchinson who is the board secretary who apparently would have to recuse himself from the hearing.
