Dave Dempsey Goes After Michigan's Water Bottlers

In a tightly-written and compelling op-ed in the Detroit Free Press, author and activist Dave Dempsey takes the Michigan legislature to task for continuing to enable water bottlers to take the states' waters and divert them in unlimited amounts - - in bottles.

The so-called bottled-water exemption is among the biggest loopholes in the Great Lakes Compact, inserted there during the eight-state, two-country negotiations that created the draft compact in 2005.

As Dempsey points out, there are multiple controls on diversions of water in pipes, but as long as the bottles are no larger than 5.7 gallons each, Nestle and others can remove as much Great Lakes water as they want.

Bottling is a powerful industry in Michigan because nearly the entire State of Michigan is in the Great Lakes basin, so the source is relatively plentiful.

That's hardly an excuse to waste it, but that's the unfolding story in Michigan, which just approved the Compact and companion legislation that industry weakened substantially so it could continue its easy access to the state's water supplies.

Expect this all to go to the courts.