Ontario is allowing several bottled water companies to take up to 7.6 million litres of groundwater per day on expired permits, as it gives them time to amend renewal applications in light of new rules.

A two-year moratorium to take water for bottling came into effect on January 1st and water bottlers also now have to pay a higher fee – 504 dollars for every million litres of groundwater they take – up from the previous fee of about four dollars.

During the moratorium, the government is giving bottled water companies a long lead time to amend any renewal applications so they comply with new technical requirements.

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Nine expired water taking permits – which in some cases have been expired for more than a year – from seven bottled water companies remain in effect until the government rules on their applications.

That could take 18 months, according to an industry representative.

The maximum allowable amounts of those permits is 7.6 million litres per day, or 2.7 billion litres per year.

The environment ministry notes, however, that those companies took less than half of their maximum amounts last year, for a total of 1.1 billion litres.