Water Watchers call on Ontario to reject Ice River water bottling permits

WELLINGTON COUNTY – Water Watchers is launching a campaign to pressure the province to reject water taking permits for Ice River Springs through its subsidiary White Wolf Property Management Inc.

White Wolf owns water bottling facilities in Puslinch and Erin – sites previously owned by BlueTriton Brands and before it, Nestle Waters – and it is seeking 10-year permits to extract 986,400 litres per day in Puslinch and 1.113 million litres per day in Erin. 

The Town of Erin and Township of Puslinch have already requested an extension from the Ontario Ministry of Environment, Conservation, and Parks to properly review the permit requests.

Water Watchers, formerly Wellington Water Watchers and originally formed in opposition to Nestle’s water bottling operation in Puslinch, has led the community resistance against these permits for 19 years.

“In a time of escalating climate disruption and growing water insecurity, it is irresponsible to continue granting private companies like Ice River Springs long-term permits to extract from critical, shared water sources, to package it in polluting plastics, and to profit from its sale,” stated Water Watchers executive director Sarah Alexander in a press release.

Nestlé announced the sale of its North American water bottling facilities in 2021 to BlueTriton, who announced its departure from Ontario water bottling just two years later and listed its three wells and bottling facility for sale. 

Erin, Puslinch, Centre Wellington and representatives from Six Nations all sought to purchase the respective wells, eager to reclaim them for public drinking water needs. 

In 2025, Centre Wellington successfully purchased the controversial Middlebrook well outside Elora, but efforts to acquire the Erin and Puslinch water sources were ultimately unsuccessful, and they were sold to Ice River Springs.

“Centre Wellington proved there is another path for these wells: public ownership, public benefit, and water kept in the hands of the community,” stated Dani Lindamood, who has worked on the Water Watchers’ campaign since 2019. 

“That’s the future we should be building toward, not handing these wells from one bottled-water company to the next.”

After the sale of the former BlueTriton properties to Ice River Springs, the existing permits were automatically transferred to the new owners without public consultation, Indigenous consent, or provincial review – a move that sparked major criticisms generated citizen submissions asking the province to revoke the permits and conduct a proper review. 

Now, less than a year later, Ice River is seeking to renew the permits for another decade.

“Groundwater recharges at varying rates and can be incredibly slow by human time scales. It’s precious and finite. When groundwater is extracted, bottled, and shipped away, the water leaves the watershed,” said Lindamood, who holds a master’s degree in water sustainability. 

“Decisions about water use need to account for the long-term needs of the watershed. Moreover, Ontario’s deregulation of the permit to take water system has functionally turned these permits into perpetual licenses to extract water. 

Lindamood added, “The future of these waters should be governed by the long-held treaties with Indigenous nations, including Six Nations, the Mississaugas of the Credit, and the Anishinabek Nation who all have treaty and inherent rights connected to these wells, not by a flawed regulatory authority with little scientific oversight.”

Indigenous led opposition to commercial water extraction has been consistent. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy Council at Six Nations have repeatedly objected to water extraction for bottling, including issuing several cease-and-desist orders to Nestlé in 2019 and again to BlueTriton in 2021 through water protector Makasa Looking Horse Henry. 

When the water-taking permits were transferred to Ice River Springs, there was no consent sought from Indigenous treaty holders.

“Right now, they’re trying to take every single thing that they can and they’re trying to take more water,” Henry noted. “And so we’re just trying to fight with everything we have to protect our waters and our lands. They go hand in hand.”

The Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks posted the Erin and Puslinch proposals to the Environmental Registry of Ontario on Aug. 28. The public comment period ran for 30 days and ended on Sept. 27. 

Water Watchers is urging the public to call on the province to reject Ice River’s proposed water-taking permits, extend the comment period, and enact a province-wide ban on water profiteering.

“Thirty days to comment on a decision that could authorize perpetual groundwater extraction is a profound imbalance,” Alexander stated. 

“If municipalities need more time to understand and respond to these proposals, Indigenous nations and the public deserve that same opportunity. Water is life. Water is too important for everyone to rush the process.”

For more information about the campaign, visit waterwatchers.ca/rejectwhitewolfpttw.