Once upon a time...

...in the year 2000, there was a small grassroots, non-profit, all volunteer group that took on the task of stopping one of the worlds largest corporations (Nestle) from destroying a clear stream and several small lakes in Mecosta County, Michigan by taking 400 gallons per minute of spring water that fed them, while privatizing the waters of the commons. MCWC managed a precedent-setting victory after spending nine years in courts and a million dollars in legal debt. Nestle was forced to settle for half what they had been pumping and accept a monitoring plan that is still in effect. The Deadstream was been restored. With no corporate or government money, MCWC managed to pay off its entire debt and move on to help tackle other important issues of water conservation (fracking, injection wells, Line 5 pipeline, water shut-offs, Flint crisis, a potash mine, and more).

Nestle didn’t give up however. They just moved up to Osceola County and tried for the same 400 gallons per minute from a spring in Evart (2016). MCWC had to return to the courts with partial success when Nestle/Blue Triton withdrew the permit and settled for a little more than half that, rather than agree to a monitoring plan that would have exposed the damage they had been doing to two former trout streams. But that is not the end of our story...

Once again, MCWC took on a legal debt of over $200,000. We have managed, through the pandemic and the setbacks to the health of our members and leadership, to pay off all but $33,000 of this debt. We need your help to finish this so we can move on with the work we need to do.

Nestle/Blue Triton is still with us and the State is still facilitating their presence through the failure of EGLE to monitor and restrain such endeavors. The current legislature has continued to refuse to even consider bills that would improve the State’s ability to uphold the public trust doctrine and protect our common waters from such theft and destruction. In fact the State, through EGLE, has allowed another private company (MPSC) to come into Osceola and Mecosta Counties with permits to start a huge potash mining operation only 8 miles from the Nestle/Blue Triton extraction in Evart. The damage to our ecosystems and aquifers will be even more devastating than that of Nestle if not stopped before it begins. MCWC went to court on this and has slowed the process down but has yet to stop it. More debt accumulates.

To see more information on this debacle head over to our website, saveMIwater.org.

The recent election gives us hope that we may finally be able to arm the State with the will to act to protect water and the legislative tools to enforce the laws, enabling and requiring access to clean, affordable water for all, using publicly owned infrastructure and oversight.

There is much work still to do to ensure that protection of clean water and access to it is the highest priority of the administration. We can all live without more highways, extractive industries, pipelines and promises of out of control growth of the economy. We cannot live without clean water. MCWC plans to challenge the new legislature and the administration to live up to their promises and get to work building a solid foundation for water protection in the future. We need your help to fund this work. Help us pay off our debt by the end of 2022 so that we may start off the new year energized to work with our allies to bring Michigan back to a water wonderland once again.