Perrier foes apparently get wish
11:12 PM 9/17/02
Judy Gibson CWN News Service

indentWISCONSIN DELLS - The high-capacity well permits held by Nestle Waters will expire Friday and the company doesn't have any current plans to reapply.
indent"We are obviously not using them, so we are letting the permits lapse," Lynn Morgan, public relations for Nestle (formerly Perrier Group of America), said in a telephone interview on Tuesday.
indent"During our search for a plant in the Midwest we looked at Wisconsin and at Big Spring," Morgan said. "Nestle Waters went to Michigan. The plant there is up and running and doing well, so our site search has been fulfilled."
indentPerrier's efforts to locate a multimillion-dollar water bottling plant at Big Spring in the town of New Haven started in 1999 after it abandoned plans for locating a plant near Mecan. In both places grass-roots organizations waged a major publicity and legal fight to block the international company from building a water bottling plant.
indentThis is the second grass-roots victory in the state this week. Monday, BHP Billiton pulled out of a project to build an underground zinc and copper mine near Crandon. The project had been fought by environmentalists.
indentRosemary Carlson, New Haven resident and member of the grass-roots organization Waterkeepers of Wisconsin, said, "It's wonderful news. As a person very interested in the ground water issue, and this is not my first fray, I'm overwhelmed. I'm delighted it's not going to happen, at least for a while. Our concern was that it would have set a precedent and opened the door for the whole state."
indentThe company may reapply for permits in the future, but it could then be under new regulations now being proposed in the state Legislature, giving the Department of Natural Resources more power to assess any proposed well. New regulations cannot be applied retroactively to an existing permit.
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