On Monday, Wellington Water Watchers kicked off a series of water-themed walks that will be conducted throughout the summer in Guelph and the surrounding area with hopes of engaging people about the importance of protecting groundwater sources.
Nine people left from Guelph City Hall on Monday morning, walking to the bottling plant in Aberfoyle that was formerly owned by Nestle Waters. The plant was recently sold to Triton Water Holdings Canada Inc.
It was the first of a number of walks called ‘Ear to the Groundwater’ that will be held over the course of the summer, said Arlene Slocombe, executive director of Wellington Water Watchers.
“The focus of these walks is to invite reverence for these sources and healing for the sources we have harmed,” said Slocombe.
She said the physically-distanced walks will engage with people in a number of communities who are campaigning to protect ground water from bottling operations, gravel mining or nuclear waste dumping.
Monday’s walk, as well as future walks to the Middlebrook well and the Hillsburgh well, are led by Shane Philips, who has been walking for various social justice and climate justice issues for more than 10 years.
“I decided that walking would be my contribution to making a difference in my community,” said Philips. “Some people don’t really believe that things can get better and they are willing to just give up. I am not one of those people. I believe we can make a better place for all of us.”
Philips began his walks during the beginning of the Arab Spring movement.
“For me it was important to share solidarity with how could I make the world a better place and I just didn’t think we had to actually feel despair before you could make any change in this world,” he said.
The timing of Monday’s walk was chosen because it is the second anniversary of a cease and desist order issued by the Haudenosaunee Confederacy Council to Nestle´ Waters Canada.
Makasa Looking Horse, a McMaster University student from Six Nations of the Grand River joined the walk. Her community shared the aquifer from which the water is drawn in the bottling plant in Aberfoyle.
“Only nine per cent of my community is hooked up to the water treatment plant out of 27,000 members,” said Looking Horse. “That leaves a lot of other households that either have no running water or they have to fend for themselves to get water pumped into their households.”
She said heavy metals present in drinking water in parts of her community are making people sick.
Looking Horse said it is impossible to know exactly how much water the plant has drawn over the years while some in her community don’t have access to safe drinking water.
“We can never get the water back that they stole,” said Looking Horse.
She asked the people participating on Monday to keep future generations in their thoughts as they walk.
“It’s super scary to think about three generations from now, what is the world going to look like. Are we going to have to pay fifty dollars for a small bottle of water?”
