In January, the company seemed to have won the blessing of the state's natural resources agency to siphon water from state park land near the town of Wautoma. But when the plan was made public, locals decried the potential damage to the state's best trout stream. Wisconsin essentially places no limits on the amount of water businesses can siphon from a private source and does not require environmental impact studies before starting operations on private land. The legislature quickly moved to introduce such laws, and Perrier backed down. The company is now looking for potential sites in Wisconsin's Adams County and has struck a gentleman's agreement to conduct impact studies on potential sites.
Rivers are delicate ecosystems.
According to Kurt Cuffey, assistant professor of geology at the University of California at Berkeley, tapping springs and aquifers even on a small scale can alter the movement of sediment in nearby streams, which can in turn disrupt the food supply for fish and other wildlife. In a healthy ecosystem, the natural flow of groundwater in coastal areas pushes freshwater out against the saltwater, providing a kind of sea wall. When the groundwater flow falters as a result of excessive withdrawals, however, saltwater begins to creep underground, ruining drinking water, wetlands, and crops. Last November, Canadian bottler Artemesia Water Ltd. was granted a withdrawal permit in a region of Ontario that was suffering its worst drought in 60 years. Locals unsuccessfully appealed the permit.