ONTONAGON – The Ontonagon County Economic Development Corporation hopes to interest a commercial water bottler to create jobs using Lake Superior.

“Millions of gallons every day can be taken,” EDC board member Skip Schulz told the board last week. He wants to attract an established bottler to the area, using slogans such as “Clearly Superior” and “bottled from the shores of one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world…Lake Superior.”

The village of Ontonagon already has a permit to use Lake Superior water for the village water system. Since the village takes only a fraction of the water it could, the EDC wonders if the village could and would share its access.

“The village would have to approve (the plan),” Schulz said.

Schulz will start with the village, then address several other county municipal boards, if the plan is to succeed.

If the village of Ontonagon approves the plan, Schulz will head to the Ontonagon County Planning Commission, Carp Lake Township, Ontonagon Township, and state and federal representatives requesting they support a Lake Superior bottler.

The plant will be located near existing village water pipes at the White Pine water intake station or former pulp mill property, near the Ontonagon harbor.

Schulz shared his step-by-step strategy in a memo. Selling points include the abundant supply of water, the available harbor for worldwide shipping, the popularity of bottled water, job creation and marketing potential.

“We got the water, we got the dock,” Schulz said. “It not only creates jobs in the plant, it creates transportation” jobs as well as temporary construction jobs, he said.

The EDC recently renewed a United States Army Corps of Engineers five-year lease of the harbor docks, formerly used for coal, which any new company could use to get its product out and receive supplies.