Hillsdale residents attending a Board of Commissioners meeting Tuesday to discuss AquaBounty. Olivia Hajicek | Collegian
Michigan officials are waiting to receive AquaBounty’s monitoring plans to draw water from the Michindoh Aquifer, which provides water to Hillsdale County. The aquaculture company broke ground last year on a salmon farm in Pioneer, Ohio.
AquaBounty, a biotechnology company based in Massachusetts, grows and distributes genetically-engineered fish. In 2015, AquaBounty salmon became the first such animal approved for human consumption by the Food and Drug Administration.
At Hillsdale Board of Commissioners meeting Tuesday, county residents heard an update on AquaBounty’s water-level monitoring plan from Supervisor James Milne of the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy’s water use assessment unit.
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources requires the plan as part of the conditional water withdrawal permit it granted to the company last September.
“AquaBounty is required by the permit to submit a monitoring plan to the Ohio DNR,” Milne said. “Once they submit it to the Ohio DNR, they will share it with EGLE for our comments.”
According to Milne, EGLE has limited power over AquaBounty’s proposed wellfield beyond submitting its review to the Ohio DNR.
“Because the AquaBounty wellfield is in the state of Ohio, EGLE does not have direct regular authority,” Milne said.
According to Milne, AquaBounty must submit its monitoring plans to the Ohio DNR six months before it begins pumping. If the company’s monitoring plan is approved, the plant could draw 5.25 million gallons of water from the aquifer daily.
The Michindoh Aquifer, which lies beneath Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan, is the source of drinking water for citizens in nine counties spread between the three states. It provides water to both public and private wells.
While AquaBounty estimated the Pioneer plant will bring 100 new jobs to the area, the project has faced opposition from Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana residents.
Sherry Fleming, Chairman of the Williams County Alliance in Ohio, said her grassroots nonprofit is concerned about the possible environmental impact of the plant, which will discharge 5 million gallons of water into the St. Joseph River daily.
“As a matter of conservation, it seems like a wasteful use of freshwater when water is becoming such a critical resource worldwide,” Fleming said. “If we don’t use this water wisely, what are we going to leave the generations that come after us?”
Fleming said citizens are also concerned about AquaBounty’s business ethics.
The company currently operates a plant in Albany, Indiana, which has received several letters of noncompliance from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. The IDEM reported that the plant’s discharge water had ammonia levels over the legal limit from 2019 to 2021.
AquaBounty also operated a facility in Panama from 2008 to 2019. In 2014, the Panama government fined AquaBounty for violating national environmental laws in its research and development of genetically engineered salmon in the country.
While AquaBounty has not yet submitted its water withdrawal and discharge monitoring plan, it proposed to install three sets of vertical monitoring wells, according to Milne. These wells will offer groundwater level data that AquaBounty will share with the DNR and EGLE.
“EGLE is going to be working with Ohio DNR to develop a complaint response plan if we receive reports of public or private irrigation wells being impacted by the withdrawal or if there are reports of impacts to streams or lakes,” Milne said.
The EGLE also has a joint funding agreement with the U.S. Geological Survey to map the aquifer, which will help monitor AquaBounty’s water withdrawal.
“Part of that work is going to have the U.S. Geological Survey install additional monitoring wells inside the state of Michigan in addition to the wells that AquaBounty is going to propose,” Milne said.
Hillsdale Board of Commissioners Chair Mark Wiley said the USGS first began mapping the aquifer five years ago after Pioneer Mayor Edward Kidston attempted to sell water from the aquifer to the Toledo area.
“That’s really what kickstarted it,” Wiley said. “We’ve continued to work, and probably have been a little more interested in the recharge and the withdrawal mapping since AquaBounty.”
Wiley said he is concerned that environmental agencies will not be able to make informed decisions about the AquaBounty plant, since the wells may not provide accurate data about recharge and withdrawal for several years.
“This whole project is 20 years behind the curve,” Wiley said. “But once you’ve got data, the Ohio EPA or DNR can use it wisely as far as whether or not a project should be permitted.”
According to Milne, both EGLE and AquaBounty’s monitoring plans will alert them if the plant’s withdrawal is affecting wells that draw from the aquifer.
“They’ll monitor the extent of the impact from pumping, but they will also hopefully provide early warning before we have any adverse effect on other wells,” Milne said.
In addition to permit holdups, AquaBounty’s plant is being delayed by local governments. The company recently announced it is pushing its operation start date back from 2023 to 2025, according to Fleming.
Williams County Commissioners blocked Pioneer’s request for water lines running from the wellfields to the plant, according to Fleming.
“When they made those requests our county engineer turned the request over to the legal counsel for their opinion whether it was for public or private use,” Fleming said. “The legal opinion has come back that it is for private use, so they don’t have a route to get the water or discharge the water.”
AquaBounty needs to build a substation in Pioneer to power the plant, but Fleming said its lines will cross citizens’ properties, and they are preparing to fight it.
“Everyone thought this would be a done deal,” Fleming said. “For everything that was done in advance, things have not lined up the way they thought they would.”
