LANSING, MI -- A conservation group which previously sued Nestle over its Michigan groundwater withdrawals is planning to formally challenge the state's recent decision to let the food and beverage giant take more groundwater from Osceola County.

The Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation (MCWC) says it will contest Nestle's new permit before a state administrative law judge as a precursor to what could be a formal lawsuit in the judicial system.

Attorneys for the group issued a formal letter requiring the state and Nestle preserve documents that could be relevant to a legal case. The MCWC must file a petition for a contested case by June 1.

"We think we have good arguments for why that permit should not have been issued," said MCWC president Peggy Case.

On April 2, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality issued a permit that will allow Nestle to increase its withdrawal rate to 400 gallons-per-minute (gpm) on a wellhead located northwest of Evart.

Before Nestle can boost the pumping rate, the DEQ must approve a plan to monitor local wetlands and the health of two trout streams fed by the aquifer Nestle taps for water it bottles under the Ice Mountain spring brand in Stanwood.

The DEQ called its review "the most extensive analysis of any water withdrawal permit in Michigan history."

Nonetheless, Case said the MCWC's original lawsuit against Nestle, filed in 2000 and settled in 2009, set a precedent that found 400-gpm is not sustainable for streams in the area where Nestle operates.

The group contends the state should not have acted until a local zoning dispute between Nestle and Osceola Township over proposed water system components is resolved in state appeals court.

Case said DEQ ignored requirements in the Natural Resources & Environmental Protection Act when it approved a previous 100-gpm increase on the Osceola Township well in 2015.

The state used computer models when approving that increase and the law requires "real data," said Case. "They need the kind of data they'd have if someone besides Nestle would have been doing the monitoring the way DEQ now says it should be done."

Nestle cited the state's characterization of a robust review in a statement defending the DEQ's decision.

"We have the highest degree of confidence in the more than 16 years of scientific data supporting our application, and in the professional scientists who collect and evaluate the data for the state," said Nestle Ice Mountain spokesperson Arlene Anderson-Vincent.

The DEQ said it has received the MCWC's letter to preserve documents but declined to comment further.

The permit decision and preceding deliberations caused an uproar among Michigan citizens, particularly those living in Flint and Detroit -- two Michigan cities where residents have separately struggled with water safety and affordability.

Michigan law allows Nestle to withdrawal groundwater from underneath its property for free provided the extraction doesn't harm the environment or dry up neighboring wells. The company pays an annual $200 paperwork fee for each in-state facility.

Case expressed anger at the DEQ's dismissal of more than 80,000 comments in opposition to Nestle's permit application.

"Some of those people were submitting expert scientific data," she said. "They ignored it."

In a statement announcing the group's intentions, Case called it clear the DEQ "intended to issue the permit all along" and the reason approval was stalled for more than a year after MLive revealed it to the public in Oct. 2016 was "because they had to keep asking Nestle to provide something they could use to grant it and appear to be legal."

A week after announcing issuance of the Nestle's permit, the state said it was ending bottled water supply to Flint residents because testing showed improved water quality. Both decision, while legal, have been widely panned in and outside of Michigan.

The MCWC hopes to tap into some of that anger.

"We feel like it's our role in the overall picture" to challenge the permit, Case said. But "we're hoping others will help us raise funds to do it."