EVART, MI -- Nestle Waters North America has begun playing hardball with a local municipality that company lawyers accuse of misinterpreting its own zoning ordinance and acting illegally by denying the world's largest water bottling company a permit needed to move extra water from its wellhead to market.

On April 18, the Osceola Township Planning Commission unanimously denied a special land use permit to construct a pipeline booster station -- a crucial piece of private industrial water infrastructure that Nestle needs to increase pressure on its pipeline between a production well and a tanker truck loading dock.

Grand Rapids attorney William Horn, in a 9-page appeal to the township Zoning Board of Appeals, argues that Nestle's permit application meets all the local zoning requirements and the township is legally bound to grant the request.

In denying Nestle its booster station, planning commissioners misinterpreted the township's own zoning ordinance and attempted to reclassify the application in ways that would allow them to deny it in a "de facto attempt to prohibit (and thus regulate) a large quantity water withdrawal," Horn wrote in the appeal, obtained by MLive through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Horn, an attorney at the Mika Meyers firm, argued the permit denial is invalid because that power rests solely with the state, which is considering whether to grant Nestle a separate permit to boost spring water extraction from 250 to 400-gallons-per-minute at its White Pine Springs well near Evart.

The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality is under significant public pressure to deny Nestle's controversial request, which has struck a discordant note with many in the state following the Flint drinking water crisis. Nestle pays only a nominal $200 annual paperwork fee for the millions of gallons it extracts for bottling and sale around the country each year.

The well supplies water for Nestle's Ice Mountain spring brand.

Nestle filed its appeal on April 28. The company wants the township Zoning Board of Appeals to reverse the planning commission decision at its next meeting, which has yet to be scheduled.

Township Supervisor Tim Ladd doesn't think the two man panel (one man is recused) will overturn the planning decision, which he called "appropriate."

Curt Benson, a professor emeritus at Thomas M. Cooley Law School who reviewed the appeal at MLive's request, said Nestle appears to be setting up a circuit court appeal, which is the next step if the zoning board upholds the decision.

Should the appeal head to court, it would likely end up in 49th Circuit Court, which covers both Osceola and Mecosta counties where Nestle's water system is located. The court has two judges, Scott Hill-Kennedy and Kimberly L. Booher.

Scott Hill-Kennedy replaced Judge Lawrence Root on the bench in 2005 after Root presided over the original trial in a lawsuit between Nestle and the Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation, a case which eventually resulted in a settlement limiting what Nestle can pump annually from its Mecosta County wells.

Hill-Kennedy is a longtime trustee at the Mecosta County Community Foundation, a local philanthropic organization to which Nestle has donated money.

Benson, who said he personally dislikes the fact Nestle can extract Michigan water for free, nonetheless thinks Nestle may have a solid legal argument that its permit should have been approved. He said it's possible Hill-Kennedy or Booher could agree that Osceola Township misinterpreted its ordinance and order officials to grant Nestle a permit.

Nestle claims the commission's handling of the application is "strongly suggestive of an intent and ulterior motive" to indirectly prevent the company from increasing its groundwater extraction, citing statements commissioners allegedly made in November that "made clear that the increased pumping rate was their sole basis for objecting to the booster pump building."

The township considered the application for seven months before ultimately rejecting it. Nestle formally requested a special land use permit in October, but planners held back approval at meetings in November and January.

Prior to the formal permit application, Nestle claims previous zoning administrator Paul Brown told the company in July it only needed an administrative permit from him, but he then walked back on that after the township board wanted the planning commission to review the building application. In October, commissioners said Nestle needed to apply for its pump station under agricultural zoning.

On Nov. 22, Brown nearly shepherded the planning commission through approval with draft fact-finding documents that were reviewed with Nestle prior to the meeting. The draft language stated the application satisfied all conditions within the zoning ordinance.

According to meeting minutes, the planning commission approved those fact-finding documents but held up an overall permit approval when one commissioner questioned whether agricultural zoning was the proper route.

Approval was tabled and the township's attorney later advised that Nestle should submit its application under a different ordinance section that allows for "extractive operations." The company was then asked to submit the application under a section allowing for "essential services" that are "necessary for the public convenience and necessity."

Between October and April -- when the planning commission ultimately decided the application did not merit approval as a public necessity or convenience -- a new township supervisor was elected who was less friendly to Nestle than previous township leaders. Zoning administrator Brown was replaced by Richard Douglas and two planning commission members were replaced as well.

Nestle argues that state law binds the township to a formal permit approval because the planning commission approved those fact-finding documents, although commissioners say, in retrospect, they shouldn't have approved the zoning without reviewing the site plan first. The process was done backwards, said commissioner Martin Nieman.

Nonetheless, Nestle claims it is entitled to a permit because a pipeline booster station is approvable under township ordinance that allows for construction of "extractive" operations and "bulk collection, storage and distribution" facilities for agricultural products. Bottled water qualifies, Horn argues, because it is partly regulated by the Michigan Department of Agriculture & Rural Development.

In Michigan, the DEQ regulates water extraction and use, but MDARD regulates licensing, registration, product labeling and conducts inspections at water bottling plants under state food law.

While Nestle may have a case that its application should be approved under zoning language, Benson thinks the argument that officials were trying to essentially block water from being withdrawn is a weak one.

"We might all, with a wink and a nod, conclude the township really denied this because they, and many others in Michigan, are simply offended by the way Nestle is allowed to extract all this water for basically nothing," he said.

However, "circuit judges don't want to make findings of fact about subjective intent of public officials," he said. "It's fraught with potential of being wrong."