Bottled Water Plan Could Leave Colorado Thirsty

By Michael Pearlman, 3-26-09

Battles over the use of water, a scarce resource in much of the West, have raged since the area was first settled. As Mark Twain has been credited with saying, “Whiskey’s for drinking, water’s for fighting” and in Chaffee County, Colo., a proposal by a bottled water company has gotten the local citizenry more fired up than a long night at one of Salida’s taverns.

Jason Blevins’ piece in the Denver Post provides a thorough background to the controversy. As Blevins succinctly explains, “The company wants to draw 65 million gallons a year from an aquifer feeding two freshwater springs near Nathrop, pipe it 5 miles to a truck stop and ship it 100 miles to a Denver bottling facility. It would be sold under the company’s Arrowhead brand.”

Nestle wouldn’t be bottling water in the first place it was not in demand from Americans, who consumed some 8 billion gallons of the stuff in 2006, according to the International Bottled Water Association. Now aside from keeping some on hand for an emergency, I find it mind boggling that anyone would waste their money on bottled water in this day and age. After all, municipalities spend millions of dollars securing and treating water so that people can drink right from the tap.  Not to mention the plastic… Maybe you’re one of those people that I see at the grocery store pushing a cart with a 24-pack of bottled water to lug home? It is you, kind consumer, who are contributing to the problem.

But if you’re living in Southwest Colorado and a water company rolls into a largely agricultural region that’s economically depressed and offers jobs, some money, and investment in the community, there’s going to be a sympathetic ear. Once Nestle spends the money to initiate the process and jump through the requisite hoops, all they need is to win the approval of a few county commissioners and before long they’ll be turning on the taps. 

As expected, Nestle claims they will protect the aquifer, with their staff affording the aquifer protections by monitoring water levels in ways “otherwise unavailable to them”. They’re touting jobs and economic benefits and really don’t want residents to worry about that ambiguous “future” when water becomes an even more valuable commodity.  It is hard to imagine this multi-national corporation turning off the supply as they drain Salida’s aquifer. 

Even for those inclined to side with hard science, one side’s expert says one thing and the opposing group’s expert says something different. It appears that the residents of Chaffee County are rightly suspicious of Nestle’s claims. This isn’t the first time Nestle has felt residents’ ire in a location where it wanted to bottle water. The blog, StopNestlewaters.org educated me about tax breaks available in Florida that make it one of the most bottled-water industry friendly states in the country (why am I not surprised here)? Inevitably, the battle becomes one of an underfunded citizenry against experienced, expensive lawyers and consultants. 

In a perfect world, Nestle would shrink the size of its bottled water division and reinvest the savings in emerging technologies devoted to providing reliable, reusable supplies of water. The population of Sheridan County, Wyoming is roughly the same as Chaffee County, Colo. Would our citizens fight as vigorously for our water supply if the Nestle Company wanted to tap one of the pristine creeks in the Bighorns?  As the economy constricts, offers like these are increasingly tempting. 

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