TORONTO – Environment Minister Jeff Yurek says a review of water bottling permits is nearly complete, and he will decide how to proceed by early to mid-December.
A moratorium on new and expanded permits to take water for bottling is set to expire Jan. 1.
The previous Liberal government implemented the halt on such permits for two years, and the current Progressive Conservative government extended it by another year.
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Yurek says his decision will be based in science, though if the government can’t find a “conclusive way to go forward” he would extend the moratorium again.
The first moratorium was put in place in 2016 after bottled water giant Nestle purchased a well near Guelph that the township of Wellington Centre wanted for its future drinking water supply.
The Liberals also hiked the fee that water bottlers must pay for every million litres of groundwater they take from $3.71 to $503.71.
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