Ontario takes action against bottled water

It’s not a drop in the bucket.

The Ontario government has made it official by announcing fees for bottlers of water will jump from $3.71for a million litres of groundwater taken to $503.71per million litres, later this summer.

“This increased fee, along with the other measures we’ve taken, will help increase groundwater protection and scientific understanding of how to best manage this vital resource,” Environment and Climate Change Minister Glen Murray said in a statement Thursday.

“As the impacts from climate change become more prevalent, Ontario is taking action to ensure water resources are better protected and that we have the best science available,” Murray said.

Premier Kathleen Wynne’s government wants to discourage use of bottled water, which creates around 180 times more greenhouse gas emissions than tap water due to the use of plastic bottles and the fuel used to ship it to market.

“Do all of us need to be using bottled water? I think we need to have a bigger look at the whole industry, and our role in regulating it,” she said.

Wynne was moved to act after Nestle Waters Canada bought a well that Centre Wellington township had hoped to use to satisfy that growing community’s thirst.

Nestle has permits to take up to 3.6 million litres a day from its well in Aberfoyle, where it has a bottling plant, and another 1.1 million litres a day from Erin.

Starting Aug. 1, water bottlers will pay the additional $500 per million litres of groundwater.

The additional revenue will be used to study the environmental impact of water being bottled.

Ontario has also placed a moratorium on all new bottling permits at groundwater sources until Jan. 1, 2019 and imposed rules on renewing existing licences.