LETTER: Make your voice heard about bottling plant

Concerning the draft discharge permit for the Montana Artesian Water Company, spokeswoman Lisa Peterson of the Department of Environmental Quality said the permit process is “very data-based ... not a referendum” (Daily Inter Lake, Aug. 3).

The fallacy the discharge permit request is based on is that according to the DEQ Fact Sheet, “Streamgate data is not available for the receiving water. Information gained by DEQ in a conversation with a neighboring landowner indicates the unnamed tributary is spring-fed and perennial. DEQ confirmed this ... appears to be accurate during a site visit on April 11, 2016.”

How data-based is that?

The DEQ Fact Sheet has data on “geology, vegetation cover, and terrestrial, avian, and aquatic life and habitats,” but none on “Local and State Tax Base and Tax Revenues, Demand for Government Services, Private Property Impacts, and Human Health and Safety,” for which “No significant impacts have been identified.” The Fact Sheet mentions that “Wildlife and Parks indicates that the Flathead River contains Bull Trout, a threatened species, at the location where the unnamed tributary enters.”

Yet under Fact Sheet No. 5, there is no mention of it where it should be listed.

Landowner Lew Weaver could one day sell the water bottling plant to a multi-national corporation like Nestle, which could be opportunistic and unscrupulous in their expansion tactics. Given that uncertainty, residents’ water insecurity due to lack of data on the aquifer, unquantified human quality of life impact, a threatened species, and Ms. Peterson’s statement, “It’s going to be a process of seeing ... data we didn’t have before,” there are vital data blanks to be filled before issuing a discharge permit.

Make your voices heard before Aug. 15 by mail: DEQ Water Protection Bureau, P.O. Box 200901, Helena, MT 59620-0901; or by e-mail: DEQWPB-PublicComments@mt.gov. Our future depends on it.

—Jenny La Sorte, Kalispell