LANSING, MI -- Twenty-one months after Nestle Waters asked state officials to increase the volume of water pumped from a well in Osceola County, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality has granted the necessary permit.

The DEQ announced the permit issuance Monday, April 2.

The permit will allow Nestle to increase the water withdrawal rate at White Pine Springs well No. 101 from 250 to 400 gallons-per-minute. The well is located in Osceola County, northwest of Evart.

But before increasing the flow rate, Nestle must first submit a monitoring plan to the Department of Environmental Quality for approval.

Ice Mountain Natural Resource Manager Arlene Anderson-Vincent said the company still needs to review all the specifics, but that the company would comply with all permit requirements.

"We appreciate the MDEQ's careful review and consideration of our application, in what it has called its most thorough review ever, and we look forward to providing them with the monitoring plans as required," Anderson-Vincent said in a statement.

Lisa Wozniak, executive director of the Michigan League of Conservation Voters, issued a statement calling the state's decision "deeply disappointing" and a "fundamental failure" by the agency in its charge to protect Michigan's water resources.

"Michigan's abundant water defines who we are, and we have a responsibility to protect our water for future generations," Wozniak said in the statement. "Sadly, the DEQ chose to give the green light to a foreign company to continue pumping Michigan water virtually unchecked, hanging a 'For Sale' sign on Michigan's abundant water resources."

Nestle submitted its permit application to MDEQ in July 2016.

The permit process stalled in October 2016, when MLive reported the company was planning to extract more groundwater in conjunction with a $36 million expansion of its Ice Mountain brand bottling plant in Stanwood.

A handful of times since, the state has extended the public review period and, in late June 2017, requested more information from Nestle.

Department of Environmental Quality Director Heidi Grether admitted much of the public comment the department received over that time opposed the permit application.

"In full transparency, majority of the public comments received were in opposition of the permit, but most of them related to issues of public policy which are not, and should not be, part of an administrative permit decision." Grether said in a statement. "We cannot base our decisions on public opinion because our department is required to follow the rule of law when making determinations."

Liz Kirkwood, executive director for Traverse City nonprofit For Love of Water (FLOW), questioned whether the decision sets a dangerous precedent that places the interests of a private company over the best interest of Michigan's natural resources.

"Is this an open invitation for bottled water companies to come to Michigan?" Kirkwood asked. "This decision really, I think, destabilizes our trust and faith in the paramount duty to protect the public trust resources over private interest."

The DEQ was reviewing Nestle's application under Section 17 of the Michigan Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), a regulation specific to Michigan water bottlers developed in response to environmental concerns sparked by Nestle's original Sanctuary Springs well field.

It was the first Section 17 application to be reviewed since the law passed.

In her statement, Grether called the scope and detail of the permit application review process "the most extensive analysis of any water withdrawal in Michigan history."

Connected to Nestle's effort to withdraw more water is an ongoing legal battle with Osceola Township over an April 2017 zoning decision.

The township denied the company a special land use permit that would allow construction of a pumping booster station along a water line that feeds a tanker loading dock in Evart.

After taking the township to court, a Circuit judge sided with Nestle. The township appealed and the case is now pending in the Michigan Court of Appeals.

Much of the opposition to Nestle's request was tied to the potential impact an increase in groundwater extraction could have on the environment.

Nestle's original application predicted no "measurable effects" on wetland ecology from an increase in withdrawal from its well. That claim was undercut by a 2000 test, which indicated the well sits atop an underground aquifer system that exhibits greater hydrologic connectivity to surface wetlands than previously disclosed.

A number of conditions were included in the permit approval from the Department of Environmental Quality, including the stipulation that withdrawals over 250 gallons-per-minute could not occur until monitoring plans and quality assurance project plans are submitted and approved by the department. If Nestle fails to comply, the permit for additional volume would be suspended.

Kirkwood said FLOW plans to spend time dissecting and analyzing the details of the permit document.

"There are certain provisions that seem promising in terms of preventing the actual wetland and headwaters destruction that we, of course, are very concerned about," she said. "But I think it raises a lot of fundemental questions about who is monitoring. Will there be an independent monitor?"

The permit also requires "continous streamflow monitoring" from June through October to gauge whether there is any adverse impact at the increased pumping rate of 400 gallons-per-minute. If flows fall below predetermined standards, the permit requires Nestle to reduce the well pumping rate back to 250 gallons-per-minute.

Hourly stream temperature measurements are required betweeen June and September. The permit also requires an annual dissolved oxygen study, macroinvertebrate sampling, fish community monitoring and annual measurements of stream depth and width.

The Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation, which originally sued Nestle and won a 2009 settlement that limited the company's withdrawal in Mecosta County, issued a statement expressing disappointment at the ruling, saying "the public trust has been broken once again."

Not only has the DEQ "ignored the scientific evidence that environmental damage has occurred already at 150-gpm, they have ignored the clear opposition of tens of thousands of Michigan citizens who have opposed this giveaway of the water of the commons to a multinational corporation," said MCWC president Peggy Case.

"It is particularly difficult to understand how the DEQ could grant a permit before completing a serious monitoring of the streams by independent scientists, before resolving the issues with the township over the booster station, and before approving a new monitoring protocol for the aquifers and streams in Evart that is not under the control of Nestle," she said.

"Clearly the process is working in a backward direction."