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A Nestle logo is pictured on a van outside the company headquarters in Vevey February 19, 2015.Denis Balibouse/Reuters

A worsening drought that has fuelled wildfires across British Columbia and prompted strict water restrictions in some areas has forced the province to deal with the debate over whether water-bottling companies should be allowed to use enormous quantities of the resource for next to nothing.

After years of complaints, the provincial government previously announced plans to impose a fee of $2.25 for a million litres of water, which is set to take effect next spring. Under a century-old law, corporations in B.C. are currently allowed to take water free of charge.

But the image of a corporation such as Nestle, which operates a bottling plant in the Fraser Valley, tapping the province's freshwater supply as B.C. burns forced Premier Christy Clark to intervene this week, promising to review whether the proposed pricing is fair.

A petition launched in February by international consumer-advocacy group Sum of Us calling on the B.C. government to set "fair rates" for groundwater has garnered more than 223,000 signatures to date, making it the group's most successful Canadian petition.

Interest in the campaign intensified as wildfires spread throughout the province and a growing number of municipalities imposed water restrictions on residents. Some parts of Vancouver Island could have insufficient water levels by fall.

The new fee is a government effort to modernize how it regulates water use, but critics argue it doesn't go far enough. Under the new law, Nestle Waters Canada, which has become a lightning rod in the debate, would pay the government less than $600 for the 265-million litres of water it currently takes each year.

Environment Minister Mary Polak said the government conducted an analysis and determined $2.25 per million litres would be the appropriate amount to charge to maintain a water licence system. "We believed we arrived at the right amount," she told reporters on Tuesday. "I think the incremental new funding, or new revenue, would be around $11-million when it was all up and running. We believe that's sufficient, but we're going to take another look at that."

Water-rental rates vary greatly across Canada; B.C.'s is among the lowest. In comparison: Nova Scotia starts at $145.95 per million litres; Saskatchewan, $46.20; Ontario, $3.71 per million litres; and Manitoba, $1 per million litres.

Liz McDowell, the director of the petition campaign, said the rates need to be higher.

"We realized that the rental rates that were set for groundwater extraction were really, really low – much lower than other parts of the country and much lower than what we think it takes to fund a really high-quality stewardship of our water resources," she said. "In particular, we thought it was really scandalous that big industrial users, things like bottling companies, were able to access groundwater at such low rates and then, of course, make large amounts of profits off of it."

The group will deliver the petition to Ms. Polak's constituency office in Langley, B.C., on Wednesday.

John Challinor, an Ontario-based spokesman for Nestle Waters, said the company supports a government review of the fees, but said that should happen after the program has been in place for a year. By then, "we can evaluate if the program is self-funding and if the program is meeting requirements of the [Water Sustainability] Act," he said. "If, at that point, it's determined that the fees are not satisfactory to meet the requirements of the act, either from a financial or an ecological sustainability perspective, then the fees have to increase."

Not everyone agrees that upping the price is the right solution. Judi Tyabji, a former Liberal MLA who has long opposed bulk water exports, argued that to "charge a fair price" would be to commodify B.C.'s groundwater. "We don't want it to be captured by the phrase in NAFTA that says if a government is selling water, and it's being exported to the U.S., then we can't reduce the volume," Ms. Tyabji said.

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